As Roddy Bottum began developing his impressive autobiography The Royal We, the musician from Faith No More had a clear vision of the sort of book he wanted to steer clear of. “The sort featuring mid-book images,” he says, during a video call from Oxnard, California, where he is completing a new album with his band Imperial Teen. “I don’t care much for rock memoirs – they tend to be cliché, full of name-dropping, and low on literary merit.”
The Royal We certainly isn’t name-droppy – Bottum leaves out the surnames of his bandmates. And while he describes the band’s beginnings and initial growth, this takes a back seat to his “adventures as a young person” in San Francisco, “before the internet, before that city got ruined.” Much of the attention is on his sexual awakening, and how the associated hiddenness and shame have affected his life. “As a teenager, at 13 or 14, I began intimate encounters with men,” he says. “The stigma was immense, and it influenced my entire existence.” In the memoir, events involving his seeking encounters in restrooms and parks as a teenager are described boldly and unapologetically. “Intimate moments occurred with older men in outdoor hideaways,” he notes. “First filled with guilt, then with confidence. Fuck off.”
“At book events, I begin by reading that part,” he says. “I am aware of the shock value in those words; it’s highly improper. But I feel no embarrassment. With Trump in power, my truth needs to be shouted loud, to oppose the bigotry, the transphobic and anti-gay attitudes.” He halts. “I seek to challenge norms. I have relatives who are Christian people, and My goal is to unsettle their family gatherings through this work. Since they will inevitably read it.”
The memoir opens on the teenage Bottum moving from his native Los Angeles. “San Francisco was an abrupt about-face from the sunny superficiality of LA,” he observes. “Cold. Gloomy. Individuals with jet-black hair and pale complexions, people doing crystal meth and heroin. San Francisco’s gay community was unlike anything in Los Angeles. It felt empowering.”
Becoming Part of 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 “pummelling rhythm section” with “a sense of beauty atop that darkness. Rock bands didn’t have keyboards then.” They try out vocalists, including – briefly – Courtney Love, the memoir’s most vivid character, an unabashed chaos agent setting apartments ablaze and making enemies at every turn.
“Courtney and I instantly recognized our deep connection,” Bottum states. Their platonic friendship briefly blurred into a intimate involvement, causing pregnancy and abortion; later, Bottum became a close advisor of Love and her husband, Kurt Cobain. Unlike the vilified image some hold, Bottum portrays Love as someone with cleverness, energy and agency.
“Courtney faced many challenges,” he nods. “An influential yet disputed individual, and so smart. That makes for a compelling subject in writing. Her nature is caring and understanding, and a lot of people aren’t exposed to that. Yet we shared a deep bond and supported one another.”
Faith No More’s Formative Years
The embryonic Faith No More were, Bottum admits, “utterly absurd.” Their music focused on driving, repetitive riffs jammed out while under the influence of assorted narcotics, including MDMA, while their frontman, unconventional addict Chuck Mosley, “was not a skilled singer.” But they had ambition. “The local music community preferred dark aesthetics, but we were fans of pop culture icons. Irrationality, we saw ourselves in that league. However, we lacked any pop charm or allure.”
But their cynical fusion song We Care a Lot became a small-scale success on MTV in 1988, Mosley stepped down to the visually appealing Mike Patton (who did have a good singing voice), and by 1990 Faith No More’s third album was a bona fide, Grammy-nominated hit. Typically, The Royal We doesn’t dwell on this triumph, shifting abruptly instead to their ill-fated tour on Guns N’ Roses and Metallica’s 1992 stadium tour.
“The heroin was me self-medicating, so I could feel OK about living all these secrets.”
On the Road with Legends
It was, Bottum says, “an unprecedented touring event.” But Faith No More were quickly alienated by the “harmful” rock’n’roll circus they’d joined; in the memoir, he describes an uncomfortable encounter with followers recruited for GN’R’s entertainment. “The toxic masculinity exuded by that group was stifling,” he says. “Their track One In a Million included offensive slurs, and that reflected the atmosphere offstage. I didn’t want any part of it. We didn’t want to loan our credibility, our culture, our individuality to this poison.”
The tour – from which Faith No More were sacked two weeks early, for badmouthing GN’R in the press – marked a turning point for Bottum. “I had to embrace my true self,” he affirms, “to discuss my sexuality, to distance myself from this toxic environment.” Against his managers’ advice, he publicly revealed his sexuality in the pages of the Advocate the following year. “I stood alone as an openly gay man in rock music,” he states. “Mercury kept his identity private. Michael Stipe remained silent on the topic, nor Judas Priest’s frontman, nor Bob Mould. This fueled my frustration. I needed to put myself on that page of history, 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 bandmates, even though he travelled with his boyfriend on the tourbus. “Their tolerant attitudes meant they’d have understood,” he says. “The trauma of growing up gay during that time, the damage of the shame and homophobia.” He found instant acceptance from Cobain, the Nirvana frontman who was the clear opposite of the misogyny and discrimination that had tainted the GN’R tour. “Kurt was a rare find,” Bottum whispers. “He embraced the idea of queerness for its rebelliousness. That likely strengthened our bond. My sexuality was something he valued. He was a very special person.”
Bottum developed a strong bond to Cobain and Love, the trio connected at the time by heroin addiction. Bottum
