Greg Prato the author of 'The Faith No More & Mr Bungle Companion' has a new book out 'Punk! Hardcore! Reggae! PMA! Bad Brains!' which dedicates an entire chapter on former FNM front man Chuck Mosley and features an exclusive interview in which Chuck talks at length about his time with Bad Brains.
BOOK EXCERPT:
"Chapter 11: A Chat with Chuck"
How did you come to join the Bad Brains?
I was out on the road with my friends, Celebrity Skin - a band from LA. I don't know if you've ever heard of them…they have nothing to do with Courtney Love's album [Hole's 1998 release was also titled 'Celebrity Skin']. They were a band before she came out with that album. I was just a big fan of theirs and a friend of theirs. Tim [Ferris, bass] and Gary [Jacoby, vocals], two key members of that band, drove me and Roddy [Bottum, Faith No More keyboardist] out to San Francisco, actually to play…the first time I went and played with Faith No More after the shows up in LA, was after they'd fired Courtney Love [Love was an early singer for FNM]. They had three shows booked and they asked me to come up and do those shows. I was a big fan of [Celebrity Skin] when I was in Faith No More.
Right after I got fired, [Celebrity Skin] were going out on tour, and I went out and roadied for them. And I did a 15-minute acoustic set. We were in New York, I was at my friend Anne's house - the same Anne from the song [FNM's "Anne's Song"] - and the manager, Tony, called me. I thought it was a prank call, because my mom would always know where I was all the time. She'd be the only one, really. It was weird, because I had just walked into her house, and then all of a sudden, the phone rang. It was him, and he's like, "I'm the manager of the Bad Brains. We wanted to see if you might be interested, because we know you were in Faith No More." I didn't believe him. And then finally he brought up the fact that he had gotten my house number in LA, talked to my mom, and she gave them the number. So I started believing him, and then the first thing I said was, "Those are pretty big shoes to fill." I didn't think I could do that. I think I'm OK, but I never really thought I was all that. I thought I was gifted with uniqueness and originality in some areas. but as a skill, I didn't think I was that great of a singer or a frontman. I thought I was OK. But HR, that was the next level. That was like, acrobatic vocals and just really crazy stuff. And I was a huge fan of the band, but I had my own beliefs about all that religious stuff. My mom told me never to discuss religion or politics - I'll just leave it at that.
He said, "One thing about the band is their fans know the situation with the singer - how he's quit after every record, then got his own record deal, his own band, goes out and does that for a minute, then comes back." He said, "The fans, the main thing is they want to see the band play. It doesn't really matter to them as much anymore. They love the band as a whole, and they want to see them up there playing." So I said, "OK, that makes sense. I'll try out." I went there and it was really intimidating. I went to a studio in New York with them, jamming, and they wanted me to sing. But I remember when I went to sing, I didn't know what they wanted to hear. I know they have more specific guidelines for their lyrical content - way more than what I put on myself. So I didn't know what to do, so I just mumbled some stuff to their music. They didn't think much of it, but they had me come up to Woodstock, anyway. We kept working, and then things got a little better. It really turned out to be like a two-year audition. But things were going good. I am a good mimicker, and me and HR, we did have more or less the same vocal range. I really thought, when Gary sings though, I'm really a lot closer to his range. I couldn't even tell after a while between me and Gary - Dr. Know.
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So I just moved up there. I went up there, worked, and practiced every day with them. Learned all the songs, because I didn't know them all by heart. They got me a vocal coach and all this stuff, and I got pretty good at doing it. I did my own thing, but I sang the lyrics, and we did new songs, new music together. Like I said, my lyrical content was a lot broader I think. I tried to follow the guidelines when doing the original stuff, but I always felt like it was going to be temporary, like any day he would be back - because I knew the history of the band. It was like "singing boot camp." They were really strict. They'd tell me to go to bed, don't do this, don't do drugs, and don't smoke. They were worried about me, because I was so "California/laidback," and "Whatever dude…it's all good. It will be fine." I was so nervous by the time of the first show, I had totally lost my voice, and they had a singing coach for me, and he taught me how to bring up a voice when your voice is completely gone. So that saved me. I was basically doing the first two shows without a voice almost. But the fans that liked it came up to me, the ones that didn't avoided me. But I did good.
I got to the point where they recorded all their live shows and we were driving on the bus one day, touring in the Midwest, and I was listening to a tape of the show in the back. Darryl comes back, he listens for a minute, and goes, "See, now when you sound like him, then you'll be the man." I just smiled and looked at him, then he got a peculiar look on his face…and then he realized he was listening to me playing with them. He was like, "Alright, OK - you got me on that one!" Then he extended the circumstances - "When you sound like that every day, every show, blah blah blah." But I did the job, I covered it well. They taught me a lot. They pounded into my brain about taking pride in what I do and being serious about it. And just singing his songs and learning his vocal style - not necessarily the words, but the music and the rhythms and the phrasing - it made me better. And it made me pay attention a lot more to staying in tune. Not that I couldn't do it at all…to address other reasons why I was fired from Faith No More - that I couldn't sing. But I wasn't perfect by any means. I had originality - Mike Patton totally has me on skill. But they made me take myself seriously as a singer. And learning the songs, it was tough. But it was a lot of fun. And then they got the call - [HR] wanted to come back. They got offered a record deal with me, but I guess they got offered a better one if they'd get HR back. So, you know how that goes.
Right after I got fired, [Celebrity Skin] were going out on tour, and I went out and roadied for them. And I did a 15-minute acoustic set. We were in New York, I was at my friend Anne's house - the same Anne from the song [FNM's "Anne's Song"] - and the manager, Tony, called me. I thought it was a prank call, because my mom would always know where I was all the time. She'd be the only one, really. It was weird, because I had just walked into her house, and then all of a sudden, the phone rang. It was him, and he's like, "I'm the manager of the Bad Brains. We wanted to see if you might be interested, because we know you were in Faith No More." I didn't believe him. And then finally he brought up the fact that he had gotten my house number in LA, talked to my mom, and she gave them the number. So I started believing him, and then the first thing I said was, "Those are pretty big shoes to fill." I didn't think I could do that. I think I'm OK, but I never really thought I was all that. I thought I was gifted with uniqueness and originality in some areas. but as a skill, I didn't think I was that great of a singer or a frontman. I thought I was OK. But HR, that was the next level. That was like, acrobatic vocals and just really crazy stuff. And I was a huge fan of the band, but I had my own beliefs about all that religious stuff. My mom told me never to discuss religion or politics - I'll just leave it at that.
He said, "One thing about the band is their fans know the situation with the singer - how he's quit after every record, then got his own record deal, his own band, goes out and does that for a minute, then comes back." He said, "The fans, the main thing is they want to see the band play. It doesn't really matter to them as much anymore. They love the band as a whole, and they want to see them up there playing." So I said, "OK, that makes sense. I'll try out." I went there and it was really intimidating. I went to a studio in New York with them, jamming, and they wanted me to sing. But I remember when I went to sing, I didn't know what they wanted to hear. I know they have more specific guidelines for their lyrical content - way more than what I put on myself. So I didn't know what to do, so I just mumbled some stuff to their music. They didn't think much of it, but they had me come up to Woodstock, anyway. We kept working, and then things got a little better. It really turned out to be like a two-year audition. But things were going good. I am a good mimicker, and me and HR, we did have more or less the same vocal range. I really thought, when Gary sings though, I'm really a lot closer to his range. I couldn't even tell after a while between me and Gary - Dr. Know.
So I just moved up there. I went up there, worked, and practiced every day with them. Learned all the songs, because I didn't know them all by heart. They got me a vocal coach and all this stuff, and I got pretty good at doing it. I did my own thing, but I sang the lyrics, and we did new songs, new music together. Like I said, my lyrical content was a lot broader I think. I tried to follow the guidelines when doing the original stuff, but I always felt like it was going to be temporary, like any day he would be back - because I knew the history of the band. It was like "singing boot camp." They were really strict. They'd tell me to go to bed, don't do this, don't do drugs, and don't smoke. They were worried about me, because I was so "California/laidback," and "Whatever dude…it's all good. It will be fine." I was so nervous by the time of the first show, I had totally lost my voice, and they had a singing coach for me, and he taught me how to bring up a voice when your voice is completely gone. So that saved me. I was basically doing the first two shows without a voice almost. But the fans that liked it came up to me, the ones that didn't avoided me. But I did good.
I got to the point where they recorded all their live shows and we were driving on the bus one day, touring in the Midwest, and I was listening to a tape of the show in the back. Darryl comes back, he listens for a minute, and goes, "See, now when you sound like him, then you'll be the man." I just smiled and looked at him, then he got a peculiar look on his face…and then he realized he was listening to me playing with them. He was like, "Alright, OK - you got me on that one!" Then he extended the circumstances - "When you sound like that every day, every show, blah blah blah." But I did the job, I covered it well. They taught me a lot. They pounded into my brain about taking pride in what I do and being serious about it. And just singing his songs and learning his vocal style - not necessarily the words, but the music and the rhythms and the phrasing - it made me better. And it made me pay attention a lot more to staying in tune. Not that I couldn't do it at all…to address other reasons why I was fired from Faith No More - that I couldn't sing. But I wasn't perfect by any means. I had originality - Mike Patton totally has me on skill. But they made me take myself seriously as a singer. And learning the songs, it was tough. But it was a lot of fun. And then they got the call - [HR] wanted to come back. They got offered a record deal with me, but I guess they got offered a better one if they'd get HR back. So, you know how that goes.
On par with only a select few rock bands, the Bad Brains influenced numerous artists over the years - covering a wide range of styles. This is understandable, as the Bad Brains themselves offered up a variety of sounds since forming in the late '70s (punk, hardcore, reggae, metal, funk, etc.), and in the process, penned some of rock’s all-time great tunes ("Pay to Cum,""Sailin' On,""Re-Ignition,""Sacred Love") and classic albums ('Bad Brains,''Rock for Light,''I Against I,''Quickness'). But somehow, someway, the Bad Brains never managed to truly break through to the mainstream - while many of the bands they influenced (Beastie Boys, Living Colour, Nirvana) did.
At last, there is now a book that tells the story of the band, 'Punk! Hardcore! Reggae! PMA! Bad Brains!' Written by journalist/author Greg Prato, the book is part traditional biography and part oral history. Interviews include Charlie Benante (Anthrax), Max Cavalera (Soulfly/ex-Sepultura), Chad Channing (Nirvana), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed), Curt Kirkwood (Meat Puppets), Mitts (Madball), Chuck Mosley (ex-Faith No More/ex-Bad Brains), Greg Puciato (Dillinger Escape Plan), Travis Stever (Coheed and Cambria), Tesco Vee (Meatmen), and Tim Williams (Vision of Disorder), among many others.
Prato is a Long Island, New York-based journalist, who has written for Rolling Stone, and has authored such books as 'Grunge is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music,''The Faith No More & Mr. Bungle Companion,''Too High to Die: Meet the Meat Puppets,' and 'MTV Ruled the World: The Early Years of Music Video.''Punk! Hardcore! Reggae! PMA! Bad Brains!' is his fourteenth book overall. He is also a long-time fan of the Bad Brains - having interviewed most of the band's members over the years (of which excerpts from these interviews are included in this book), and having witnessed quite a few Bad Brains performances over the years.
Available as both a paperback version [$14.99], a Kindle download [$9.99], and a Nook download [$9.99], 'Punk! Hardcore! Reggae! PMA! Bad Brains!' helps put it all into perspective.
Book excerpt available at Alternative Nation