The 90s were a wild time for music. The flamboyant hair metal of the 80s had given way to hard rock bands who were a little less theatrical but still full of the same bravado of bands like Guns N’ Roses. While these bands’ popularity clearly demonstrated a public acceptance of this kind of bravado, not everyone shared that sentiment. Some believed this machismo was “suffocating.” At least, that’s how Faith No More keyboardist Roddy Bottum recalls it.
In fact, one of the worst experiences he ever had was when his band toured with Guns N’ Roses and Metallica in 1992. Infamously, FNM was kicked off the tour just two weeks in for speaking candidly about GNR to journalists. When you hear Bottum’s recollection of the backstage energy, it’s easy to understand why.
Faith No More’s time on tour with Guns N’ Roses and Metallica only lasted about two weeks
Speaking to The Guardian about his new memoir, The Royal We, Bottum got around to reflecting on “the biggest tour that had ever happened” for Faith No More. The excitement was extinguished quickly after the band began encountering “toxic” and “suffocating misogyny” around GNR.
“The misogyny and the bravado of the macho dynamic coming from the Guns N’ Roses camp was suffocating,” he said. “They had that song ‘One In a Million,’ with the N word and the F word [f—t]. That was the vibe backstage. I didn’t want any part of it. We didn’t want to loan our credibility, our culture, our individuality to this poison.”
This was actually a turning point for Bottum, however. The arduous experience gave him the motivation to publicly come out as a gay man. “I needed to be who I was,” he said, “to talk about being gay, to distance myself from this toxic environment.”
Roddy Bottum openly came out after being kicked off the GNR tour
Even though his manager advised against it, Bottum came out one year later. “I was the only out queer guy in rock,” he stated. “Freddie Mercury hadn’t come out before he died. Michael Stipe didn’t talk about it, nor Rob Halford, nor Bob Mould. It made me angry.”
“I needed to put myself on that page of history, to get people to accept a queer person in music,” Bottum added. “And I met so many kids who were queer, who felt my being a queer person in music made a difference to them.”
The post How Guns N’ Roses “Suffocating” Bravado Helped Faith No More’s Roddy Bottum Accept His Own Identity appeared first on VICE.
