When Faith No More reunited in June of 2009 at the Brixton Academy in London, fans expected big things from the outfit, but many were left feeling pretty left out as the band only performed shows here and there for the following three years. In a recent interview with Believer (Via Blabbermouth) Frontman Mike Patton has opened up on just what happened, explaining that “It’s sort of petered out”.
The resurgence of many of their peers at that moment in time clearly weighed heavily on the band’s mind, leaving Faith No More worried that should they continue full bore with the reunion, it may impact the brand in a very bad way: “We’re also maybe a little too conscious for our own good,” he continued, adding, “Meaning there’s a lineage of bands that maybe did some nice things and then needed the cash and got back together and basically just sprayed diarrhea over their entire body of work. We’re very worried about that. We don’t want to overdo it.”
In the eyes of Faith No More, the ramifications of a reunion tour don’t stop there. When questioned by IHeartGuitarBlog on whether they would be releasing any live recordings from the reunion shows, Patton expressed his concerns for flogging a dead horse: “Right now, we have no plans whatsoever — live, recording or anything. We’ve done what we set out to do with the reunion, and it’s all great, but it’s just, ‘Let’s see what happens next’. We’re very conscious of overdoing it, y’know, milking material that’s so old. You can only do that for so long, and I feel that we’ve done pretty well. The whole band naturally came to this conclusion, so now we’re just sitting tight.”
With the last album released from the group being 1997’s Album of the Year, there was a long pause from the Faith No More camp between then and the eventual reunion shows. Though as it turns out, it was the lengthy gap that made things happen: “We wanted it to feel fresh, and still somehow vital,” he said. “It wasn’t a money grab. It’s funny to say, but we all kind of reconnected, and after quite a long time we all kinda looked at eachother and were like, ‘Man, we actually spent half of our lives together.’ It’s interesting to see it through that set of glasses as opposed to the ones you wore back then.
Patton concluded by summing up “I suppose, at least personally speaking, I’ve grown up a lot since then, and I think I approach the music differently, and I feil better about the music than I did then.”
