Roddy Bottum is best known as the keyboard player in Faith No More & his new book The Royal We is out now on Akashic Books.
Roddy moves to San Francisco from L.A. in 1981 & a l;ittle while later he joins what was originally known as Faith No Man. After a few lineup changes (including a brief stint with Courtney Love as lead vocalist) the band morphs into the first incarnation of Faith No More with Roddy writing their breakthrough track We Care A Lot.
The band make their first trip to the UK for a small tour including a show at Dingwalls in London.
Things really start to come together when lead vocalist Mike Patton joins & The Real Thing album comes out in 1989 - backed by a top 10 single in Epic.
Roddy’s keyboard sound sets the band apart from their contemporaries & a huge tour with Metallica & Guns n Roses follows. We hear about Roddy’s experiences as a gay man in this very masculine & often toxic world.
The Angel Dust album follows in 1992 as the bands commercial peak continues - the band comes to an end in 1998 although a couple of reunions have took place since in 2009 & 2015.
Roddy also tells us about his other project Imperial Teen, a very different sounding band to Faith No More.
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