As Roddy Bottum embarked on developing his impressive autobiography The Royal We, the keyboard player for Faith No More had a definite idea of the sort of book he did not wish to create. “Those with photo inserts in the center,” he notes, in a video call from Oxnard, California, where he is finishing a new album with his band Imperial Teen. “I have little interest in rock memoirs – they often follow a tired formula, laden with famous names and lacking depth.”
The Royal We is definitely not name-droppy – Bottum leaves out the surnames of his bandmates. And while he outlines the team’s early days and formative stages, this plays a lesser role to his “adventures as a young person” in San Francisco, “before the internet, before that city got ruined.” Much of the focus is on his personal journey with identity, and how the associated hiddenness and shame have affected his life. “I was having sex with men when I was very young, 13 or 14,” he explains. “It was such a taboo, and that set the tone of my life.” In the memoir, events involving his visiting public facilities and parks as a teenager are described without hesitation and defiantly. “Intimate moments occurred with older men in outdoor hideaways,” he notes. “Shamefully at first, proudly later. Back off.”
“At book events, I begin by reading that part,” he says. “I understand how provocative statements like that are; it’s utterly unseemly. But I’m not ashamed. With Trump in power, my truth needs to be shouted loud, to oppose the prejudice, the anti-transgender and anti-gay attitudes.” He stops. “I seek to challenge norms. I have relatives who are Christian people, and I fully plan to disrupt their holiday meal with this publication. Because they’ll all read it.”
The memoir opens on the teenage Bottum relocating from his birthplace Los Angeles. “San Francisco was an abrupt about-face from the sunny superficiality of LA,” he notes. “Bitter. Gloomy. Individuals with jet-black hair and pale complexions, persons engaged in substance abuse. San Francisco’s gay community was unlike anything in Los Angeles. It motivated me.”
Joining Faith No More
In 1981, Bottum became a member of Faith No Man, which evolved into Faith No More with Billy Gould and Mike Bordin, enhancing their “driving beat section” with “an element of grace over the gloom. Rock bands didn’t have keyboards then.” They rotate vocalists, including – for a short time – Courtney Love, the memoir’s most memorable personality, an unabashed chaos agent causing domestic havoc and creating adversaries wherever she went.
“Courtney and I instantly recognized our deep connection,” Bottum says. Their close bond temporarily shifted into a physical connection, resulting in pregnancy and abortion; later, Bottum became a reliable friend of Love and her husband, Kurt Cobain. Unlike the vilified image some hold, Bottum depicts Love as someone with wit, vitality and independence.
“Life was difficult for Courtney,” he concurs. “An influential yet disputed individual, and so smart. Such a character is fascinating to document. She possesses kindness and empathy, and many fail to see that side. Yet we shared a deep bond and supported one another.”
The Band’s Beginnings
The nascent Faith No More were, Bottum admits, “completely ridiculous.” Their music revolved around repetitive heavy grooves jammed out while under the influence of various drugs, including MDMA, while their frontman, unconventional addict Chuck Mosley, “lacked vocal talent.” But they had ambition. “Everyone in our scene was into goth and dark stuff, but we adored mainstream media and artists. In some crazy way, we imagined we were part of that mix. However, we lacked any pop charm or allure.”
But their sardonic rock-rap anthem We Care a Lot became a modest television favorite in 1988, Mosley ceded the mic to the camera-friendly Mike Patton (who did have a good singing voice), and by 1990 Faith No More’s third album was a true, critically acclaimed achievement. As usual, The Royal We doesn’t focus on this triumph, jump-cutting instead to their ill-fated tour on Guns N’ Roses and Metallica’s 1992 stadium tour.
“I used heroin to numb the pain of my concealed life.”
On the Road with Legends
It was, Bottum says, “the biggest tour that had ever happened.” But Faith No More were quickly alienated by the “poisonous” rock’n’roll circus they’d clambered aboard; in the memoir, he tells an disturbing encounter with followers recruited for GN’R’s entertainment. “The misogyny and the bravado of the macho dynamic coming from the Guns N’ Roses camp was suffocating,” he says. “They had that song One In a Million, with the N word and the F word [faggot], and that reflected the atmosphere offstage. I refused to participate. We declined to contribute our identity to such toxicity.”
The tour – from which Faith No More were dismissed two weeks early, for speaking against GN’R in the press – marked a critical juncture for Bottum. “I had to embrace my true self,” he says, “to talk about being gay, to separate myself from this harmful atmosphere.” Against his managers’ advice, he announced he was gay in the pages of the Advocate the following year. “I stood alone as an openly gay man in rock music,” he emphasizes. “Mercury kept his identity private. Michael Stipe remained silent on the topic, nor Rob Halford, nor the alternative rock figure. This fueled my frustration. It was essential to document my story, to promote inclusivity in the music industry. Many queer youth expressed how my openness impacted them positively.”
Personal Struggles and Sobriety
Bottum kept private his sexuality with his fellow members, even though he journeyed with his boyfriend on the tourbus. “They were accepting and would have supported me,” he comments. “The harm caused by societal homophobia then, the impact of internalized stigma.” He found immediate support from Cobain, the Nirvana frontman who was the proud antithesis of the sexism and discrimination that had marred the GN’R tour. “Kurt was like a unicorn,” Bottum murmurs. “He wanted to be gay – Kurt loved the provocation of that. That likely strengthened our bond. He appreciated my openness and presence. He stood out as extraordinary.”
Bottum grew close to Cobain and Love, the trio connected at the time by heroin addiction. Bottum
