It has been more than a decade since the last time Mike Patton performed with his old band Faith No More. The wild, adventurous alt-metal legends broke up in 1998 and then got back together in 2009, playing huge shows and releasing the well-received 2015 reunion album Sol Invictus. As of right now, the band's most recent live show was a 2016 show at the Troubadour in LA. That was one of two reunion gigs with former frontman Chuck Mosely, who passed away one year later. The last time that they played with Mike Patton was 2015's Aftershock Festival. For a while, it seemed like that would be Patton's last time performing with the band.
Faith No More were set to get back together for more shows in 2020, but the pandemic delayed them. They rescheduled those dates for 2021, but then Mike Patton canceled his shows with Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, his other reunited band, citing mental health reasons. In a statement issued at the time, Patton's FNM bandmates seemed shocked and dismayed but supportive. Later on, Patton said in interviews that he hadn't talked to his bandmates since canceling that tour and that he wasn't sure they wanted him back. Last year, drummer Mike Bordin said that Patton had "gone from being unable to do the shows to clearly being unwilling to do shows with us. And that's heavy."
That was sad! Nobody wanted Faith No More to stay broken up! At this point, Faith No More's second breakup has gone on as long as than their first. But now, we've at least gotten some indication that Patton and his former bandmates have patched things up. This morning, the band's Instagram account posted an image of their logo and the year 2027, superimposed over a shot of a crowd. That's not very cryptic! If I may interpret the tea leaves here: The band was falling to pieces, but somebody put them together.
Last year, Mike Patton released an album with the Avett Brothers, and keyboardist Roddy Bottum published a memoir and revealed that he made millions from an early Apple investment.
UPDATE: Pollstar reports that Faith No More have indeed signed a deal for future tours with the Brazilian entertainment company 30e, who signed System Of A Down to a similar contact last year. In a statement, the band says, "30e feels like a company that wants to dent into the status quo, and as artists we understand the value of that. Their approach doesn’t feel like the usual machinery; it feels like it’s coming from a different place, with a different kind of energy, and we are willing to get behind that." Also, Roddy Bottum said last fall that he didn't think he'd play with the band again, but he shared the same graphic as the band account on social media.
