Faith No More faced a number of problems as they headed towards where they wanted to drive when it came to their next album. Number one of those was the fate of guitarist Jim Martin, who had major problems with the direction the music was heading with the band. Martin stated on his website that he felt that “The Real Thing” was the band’s ideal album, both in the creative process and the subsequent touring, and that the change in musical style, and in focus from guitars to vocals with the arrival of Mike Patton, did not sit well with him. There had even been questions raised as to whether Martin had played on “Angel Dust”, to which bass guitarist Billy Gould said in an interview on PopMatters in October 2016, “He played, but the writing process was extremely difficult because he wasn't really much of a fan of the music. He wasn't really behind it. He wasn't really into it. So it was a tough process. I mean, I think, really, we realized that he wasn't going to continue while we were making that record because he was just on a different musical page."
Martin was eventually fired by fax from keyboardist Roddy Bottom in November 1993. In his place the band brought in Patton’s Mr. Bungle bandmate Trey Spruance to record guitars on the new album. This also turned into a story after the album was completed when Spruance left the band and was replaced for the subsequent tour by Bottom’s keyboard roadie, Dean Menta. Both sides tell a different story. The band claim Spruance was unwilling to commit to a long touring schedule, and Gould himself labelled him a “spoilt rich kid who did not want to tour”. On the other hand, Spruance recalled not even having enough money to buy the magazine where Gould said this about him. He remembered, "this is like one of those stunning juxtapositions in life when you're standing in fucking Tower Records and this thing goes out to the whole world that you're this spoilt, privileged rich kid, and you can't even buy the fucking magazine it's written in. That was really almost like a cosmic moment."
Adding to this, Roddy Bottum himself was mostly absent through all of the writing and recording process, due to the passing of his father and also that of Kurt Cobain. Bottum was a close friend of Courtney Love and Cobain’s death had hit him hard. He also had developed a heroin addiction, which eventually led to a band intervention over the matter. As a result, the album was composed with almost no keyboards in the mix.
So as you can see, there was a little bit going on.
Writing the album took up to nine months, which included the search for a replacement for Martin, while the recording took another three months on top of that. In a 1995 Australian radio interview, drummer Mike Bordin felt more focused than “Angel Dust”, and that the departure of previous guitarist Jim Martin made the writing process easier. Gould was also quoted at the time, "we've never written stuff with Jim, as a band. Usually we'd give him a tape and he'd put stuff to it because he didn't like practicing with us much." Gould added in another interview, "it's heavier, it's more direct and it's the first record where we had the guitar the way we wanted it. Now it feels we're a dog who's been let of the leash."
It was a long and delayed time period, but eventually Faith No More had their new album completed, released to the world in March of 1995 under the ironic title of “King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime”.
There always felt like there would be a difference in the sounds produced on this album without Jim Martin there to offer his distinctive guitar riffs. The recruitment of another Mr. Bungle member did tip the balance in the possibility that the music on this album could slide more in that direction now that Martin had gone. Overall that isn’t the case, and although the band made it clear that Martin had not contributed much to the writing cause in recent times, it is noticeable here the directional change that the band has made now that he was out of the equation all together. And there is a whole component here that marks the changes afoot for Faith No More the band. Indeed, the songs here are equally split between what they had traditionally produced, and a different more progressive charting for the future.
The opening salvo of “Get Out” is from the old school, written by Mike Patton and featuring his genuine typical vocal performance and the hard riff and drum beat that mark the best songs from the band. This bleeds into “Ricochet” which develops the same vibes but with a slightly deviated energy from what the band and Patton has provided prior to this album. Indeed, it can be seen to be a more mature offering of the Faith No More core sound led by Patton’s vocals that are the main reference pint of the song.
Then comes “Evidence”, and this is where the ‘evidence’ of a change in the Faith No More template can first be found. This is a song heavily in depth of soul and R&B influences, with the heavily funked tones of both guitar bass being the overriding dominating factors of the track. This is the first of several songs on the album in which you can see the band playing in a small smoky jazz club dressed in suits and playing underneath the sounds of constant chatter from the assorted crowd at tables drinking champagne. It is a huge change, one that takes time to get used to.
Out of this quiet and introspective style than comes to return of the harder more belligerent more typical Faith No More attack in “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies”. It still oscillates throughout the song from the quiet lyrics over Bottom’s bass before bursting into the hard-core vocals style driven by Spruance’s guitars and Bordin’s drums. This is the kind of song that drew in the long-time fans and is still a fan favourite to this day because of the energy and passion that explodes out of the song. There is then a reversion with “Star AD” which continues in the theme of a lounge club song, the soul inspired track that also implements a brass section to enhance the feel of the track, and Patton using his deeper lower key vocals to bring that feel and emotion to the track. “Cuckoo for Caca” is a sister track to “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies” in the way Patton’s almost deranged vocals take over and dominate the track, with the music and mix of the almost unwritable riffs from bass, keys and guitar meshing together still being brought together as the band often did in their earliest form. “Caralho Voader” throws in a Brazilian theme into the mix, again moving to the jazz club scenario for the music inspiration for the track, whereas “Ugly in the Morning” returns to the themes of “Cuckoo for Caca” with Patton’s completely over the top screaming dominating over the meshing of styles musically once again. It seems likely that the changes in style of songs from track to track was a deliberate decision from the band and producer, but personal preference would be something that would determine if this was a wise move.
The first single released from the album comes next with “Digging the Grave”, which combines the marketability of Faith No More’s previous guise of short sharp song dominated musically by Bordin’s drums in the foreground, the keys lower in the mix and the bass on top of that, and Patton’s vocal destruction also making the guitar superfluous. He hits the energy button on this song and is the driving force and man out front. From here we have the typical change of style again with “Take This Bottle”, which slows everything down like a slow motion replay, or more accurately like playing a 45rpm record at 33rpm. That’s how it feels and sounds. It plays like a slug crawling across the turntable and Patton’s vocals sound as if they have been drawn out into eternity as the whole song winds down rather than winding up at any point in time. It almost has a country twang to it as well, though the piano keyboard and synth background don’t quite make that mix well either. Then the title track “King for a Day” has mirrored similarities in sections to the opening strains of the album, with Bottom’s atmospheric keys through the song giving it an uplifting, almost building crescendo through from the middle of the track to its conclusion. The song does build that way, with Patton’s vocals in the middle in the quieter lower key that then follow the lead of the music to become harder and more definitive. This acts as the epic track of the album, with the rises and falls of platitudes of the music, and the strength throughout making it one of the highlights along with its progressive feel. “What a Day” cries out with intensity and energy, driven by Billy Gould’s thumping funky bass guitar, and Patton goes hard lyrically and vocally again. Due to Gould’s bass this really brings back parallels to the early Faith No More albums.
“The Last to Know” continues the bands push towards a progressive nature in some of the material hear, with a softer rhythm tone dominated by the synth, before an understated guitar solo from Spruance takes the song out to its conclusion. There is no outward variation in vocals, simply a slow build that remains contained within the framework of the song. It is a new direction for the band, highlighting the different tones being employed here on this album. This continues into the album closer, “Just a Man”, an extension of what we have just heard, apart from the passionate reselling of the chorus by Patton along with choir backing vocals. These two songs in particular show what could be said to be the growing maturity of the band musically. This is another song that feels as though it is being performed in a club by the band dressed in suits rather than by the hard rock funk band they had come to prominence as. Even though they had moments of that old style on this album, these closing tracks seem to be painting a different future for the band, one where they change their clothes and personalities completely.
This album was released in what for me was the great big black hole of 1995, a year that should I ever get the chance to go back and erase I would do in an instant. And there were not a lot of albums that I went out and purchased during this year, but this was one of them. I can assure you I didn’t really know what to expect given the stylistic differences between the previous four albums the band had released, and on first listens I remember that it didn’t really grab me. I could identify the songs that did catch my attention straight away and also the ones that didn’t. What did give this album a boost was the fact that two weeks after its release, Faith No More was one of the headline acts at the first (and unfortunately only) Alternative Nation music festival at Eastern Creek west of Sydney. During this show they played several songs off this album, being “Get Out”, “Digging the Grave”, “Evidence”, “What a Day”, “King for a Day” and “Ricochet”. And I remember the crowd being most subdued during them, because the album itself had been out for only two weeks. Still, for me who had at least heard them, it inspired me to give the album more of a go than I perhaps would have without that festival.
What it is fair to say is that at the time it was released, I was putting it on as background music to what was occurring in my life at the time. There were dead spots on this album that I noticed but probably didn’t process overly much at the time. I know when listening to the CD on my stereo the skip button on the remote would get used at times, and the fast forward button on the tape player in my car as well. But this didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the album obviously, because when discussing the album over the years I remember I have talked it up as being ‘not as good as “Angel Dust’ and ‘The Real Thing’, but still pretty good!”
So we come to the present day, and over the last week I have listened to this album again a dozen times, sometimes in the background at work but then also with a discerning ear for the review for this episode. And it has probably confirmed my suspicions that I think have hovered in the back of my mind since I first bought this album. And those thoughts are that basically, this is an album of two parts and almost two different eras of the band, put together in an order to make you think that it isn’t. On a recent episode for Billy Joel’s album “Glass Houses”, I mentioned how all of the known and popular songs are on the first side of the album, and the lesser known tracks are left to fight for themselves on the B side. In the instance of this album, the band and producer have obviously decided to mix the two different styled tracks in with each other, in the hope that fans who prefer only one of those styles – either the hard heavy and funky style of their previous releases, or the more introspective jazz club style or progressive style of the other tracks here – would not notice, and come to love the album as a whole. Now I’m sure that for many fans, this DID come to pass, and they fell in love with the album as a whole, with the full package of differing song styles that abound here. Certainly in Australia the album went to #2 on the charts and #5 in the UK which would suggest it succeeded. But in the US it could manage only #31 which suggests it missed the mark there.
The end result for me then is that it is an album that I seem to have enjoyed more in the past than I do now. This probably came into clearer view once the bands next album, “Album of the Year” was released. There are still some great songs here. I adore “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies” and “Digging the Grave” and enjoy most other songs, but there is the occasional hiccup here where momentum hits a brick wall that makes parts of the album difficult to focus on. Despite this, of Faith No More’s seven studio albums I rank this as #3, though it is a close run thing. If only they could have reconciled with Jim Martin...
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