Roddy Bottum: “It was the most horrible time of my life. That whole time recording that album was a blur and I felt totally disconnected from the whole thing. Jesus, just don’t ask me about it. I’ve blacked it all out.”
Gould: “What I remember most about the recording of ‘King For A Day’ was that everything was different than it had been before. In the two years before we’d done a lot of growing up but we were… we weren’t exactly in a coherent mental state when we made that album – we were all fucked up in some way. And the studio was out in the middle of a fucking forest. It was on this dirt road with nothing but the studio and the cabin for two miles. It was like sensory deprivation. But the good thing about it was we had nothing else to do but record. We actually tried to stay in the studio as much as we could, because if we left the studio there was nothing to do. Except get in car crashes and blow up car tires. The album was recorded in three months. We were in Woodstock recording it, and there was absolutely nothing else to do, so time kind of dragged. We liked to be self-reliant, we arrange our own songs and like to be prepared. We didn’t want to spend tons of money in the studio “creating”. It took eight or nine months to get the songs ready, but four months of that time was spent trying to find a new guitar player and trying to work things out with the old one.”.
Bottum: “And we used a new producer to get a new set of ears. Andy Wallace [no relation to previous FNM desk jockey Matt Wallace] had worked with Slayer, Sonic Youth, and Nirvana, and we knew what we wanted from him – a simpler, more acoustic, more punctuated sound than we’d had in the past. That in combination with a new guitarist kind of gave things a real up-in-the-air, what the fuck is gonna happen kind of feel. And it was the album that decided whether FNM would continue.”
Patton: “It was tough with a lot of unknowns, a lot of problems in the band, a lot of insecurity and wondering if we were going to make this record. We weren’t a band for a while. Of course we wanted to continue, but there are other circumstances that play a part. We’re felt like we were getting old. You can only put up a facade for so long. You get a new guy after new guy, and it’s like, how many facelifts can you get? We’re not going to have guys drop off and get new ones, and then have Faith No More reunite. Fuck that.”
Roddy Botum: “Just in terms of not giving a fuck about what was fashionable and making music we loved, music that expressed the people in this band as clearly as possible.”
Bordin: “We felt that ‘AD’ was something to be proud of and we felt that we had more to say. There were a few dark days there, but it sort of puts you in an extra gear that you didn’t even know you had. You feel you’re doing it for all the marbles. It changed our focus and I don’t mean to say we weren’t serious before, but when there’s that danger, you really kick it up a notch. Replacing a guitar player, we knew we had something to prove but we knew we could do it. Working with a new producer, moving up to Woodstock for three months, all those things conspired to give us a tremendously sharp focus and I can smell it on that record, where there’s not a lot of waste. There’s not a lot of extra layers of anything, and that’s what we wanted, for it to be quite lean and nasty.”
ALBUM REVIEW - Livewire 1995.
FAITH NO MORE King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime (Warner)
Resembling no other fantastical FNM opus, King For A Day is nevertheless a return of sorts to conventionally instrumentalized rock songs, back to (oxymoronic) progfunk basics, chugging guitars, manic grooves, melody-pegging keys, swirling and thrashing smartly beneath a suave, unsettled and stellar Mike Patton performance. And suave is definetely the set-up on such smarmy, r&b-tingled complex-ballads as "Take This Bottle", "Just A Man" and the melancholic title track, songs that are easy to love, that drinkability carrying into the itchy, perky, bombastic rock numbers too, solidifying a record with an intellectual but toned-down character, peaceable agitation, busy buzz on neurotic simmer. The crazy professors have hatched an enigmatic one here, in remission from the insanity of ANGEL DUST, rediscovering THE REAL THING, but sawing off the edges to load up the layers, a kind of world-weary loungey maturity when mellow and introspective, which is nearly half the record. And when heavy, the band moshes on pins and needles, churning out the decibels only inches from Anthrax, finding punkfunk that maifests itself as sturdy face-flung-forward songs. Exectutive summary: artists off-the-rails harnessing the mania for something altogether rational.
Review of King For A Day ... Fool For A Lifetime
Rating MMMMM <"Fuckin' Rules", as opposed to say: M
Review by Drew Masters
Faith No More are completely psycho! From opener "Get Out" which kicks things off with a frenzied bang, to the manic "Cuckoo for Caca" on which Mike Patton indecipherably screams his fuckin' lungs out, to "Digging The Grave," which actually makes sense of all this, this is warped shit, dudes, which takes you on a free-for-all rollercoaster ride between the insane and the berserk. And I fuckin' love it! Man, their last album Angel Dust was an uninspired outing that sucked shit--a total letdown after the brilliant and groundbreaking The Real Thing--but now FNM have earned back my undivided attention. What a complete turnaround! Sure, like many when I heard that Mad Dog look-alike guitarist Jim Martin was out of FNM I thought that was it for any rock/metal in this act, but recording newcomer Trey Spruance (who has since been replaced by Dean Menta) has done a commendable job keeping this metalically hard when necessary. But what glues this album together, and gives it its texture and uniqueness, is Patton, who has more multiple personas than Roxanne--safely can I state that Patton is rock's most diverse performer. By the sheer brilliance of this disc, it's obvious that FNM knew that this was a do-or-die, career-on-the-line effort., and they, thankfully, rose triumphantly to the challenge.
Chart Positions:
UK number 5US peaked at number 31
Australia number 2
New Zealand number 3
Germany number 8
Holland number 8
Norway number 6
Sweeden number 5
Switzerland number 7
Austria number 9
Finland number 22
Dean Menta
Dean was only Faith No More's guitar player for a year after they and Trey Spruance went their separate ways in January of 1995.Dean was , at that time, Roddy Bottum's keyboard roadie and playing in his own band 'Duh'. A band which Mike Patton and Bill Gould had championed during the Angel Dust tour by wearing their t-shirts. Incidentally Dean met his partner Jennifer Finch bassist of L7 during the tour.
Duh have released eight full length recordings, however not all are available. The band features many interchangeable members who have accomplished musical acclaim in other music related ventures. Dean Menta of course was the guitarist in Faith No More. Chris Dodge owns and operates Slap-A-Ham Records and is an alumni of both Fat Wreck Chords and Alternative Tentacles Records. Chris also plays in Spazz and Bjorn Baby Bjorn. Sean is the drummer in Pansy Division. Singer Greg Werckman is the brother of the former manager of Alternative Tentacles Records and currently Mike Patton's manager and co-founder of Ipecac Record Company. The list goes on and on!
Duh have been cited as an influence on bands such as Ministry, Sepultura, Alice Donut, Faith No More and Mr Bungle.
During his year amongst the FNM ranks, Dean completed their year long KFAD tour and did all the promo work for the album. He recorded the b-sides 'I Started a Joke', 'Greenfields', 'I wanna fuck Myself' and 'Spanish Eyes' with the band. And he also appeared in the videos for the album's three single releases.
But at the end of 1995 FNM cut their tour short due to disappointing record sales, and admits rumours of splitting up vowed to return to studio and begin on their sixth (and final to date) album. This process would not involve Dean and once again they had to find a new guitarist.
'Dean had been our guitar player and worked great for the tour, but when it came to writing, we found that we worked differently' - Bill Gould.
Since leaving Faith No More, Menta has been performing and recording with pop group Sparks. Sparks albums that Dean has contributed to include Plagiarism (1997) Lil' Beethoven (2002) Hello Young Lovers (2006) Exotic Creatures of the Deep (2008) and "The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman" (2009).
Menta now works primarily in television and film as a Music Editor, Composer and Sound Designer. Additionally, Menta has also composed music for several video games,one of which, Jak X: Combat Racing, was in collaboration with Billy Howerdel of A Perfect Circle.
For all you Star Wars fans, you might be interested to know that Dean is currently a music editor at Lucasfilm Animation.
Quotes:
'Dean was a who could do the job, but he was so close to home we almost wanted to look around a little more' - Bill Gould
'The Angel Dust tour was indispensable because we met Dean. He saw what we went through and respected that. He took two years of his life to hang out with us so we would know him, because he wanted to be in this band. He said he's been waiting three years for this opportunity and sure as hell isn't going to fuck it up!' - Mike Bordin.
'He's been playing fine. He's our secret weapon--definitely the cutest guy' - Mike Patton.
'I always wanted dean, but at that point when it came to, you know, decision-making time as to who we were going to hire, I was, like, way too involved with too many other things. i mean, my father was absolutely dying at that point, and I was, like, whatever you guys, make a decision, I can't really be there' - Roddy Bottum.
'we're looking at him as "the guy." I think we'd feel kind of embarrassed to have some fill-in member kind of thing, that's kind of sleazy. When I was skipping school and ditching work, I was doing it to play in a real band, so I don't want to give that up. Dean knows what he's getting into and that makes me feel good. Basically what you're doing is like going into the jungle together, you have to depend on each other to survive and I know he can handle it.' -Bill Gould.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY FUCKER!!