The Faith No More keyboardist Roddy Bottum is 61 today
He helped to develop and create the Faith No More’s signature sound
The Faith No More keyboardist Roddy Bottum is 61 today
Faith No More’s Roddy Bottum is one Rock and Metal most influential keyboardists. He was born on July 1, 1963 in Los Angeles and studied classical piano from an early age, until moving to San Francisco when he was 18 where he joined his school friends Billy Gould and Mike Bordin in Faith No More in 1981 replacing original keyboardist for the band Wade Worthington. His keyboards are one of the most prominent and distinguished marks on Faith No More’s signature sound. Some of the most popular Faith No More songs where Bottum’s keyboards have a dominant role include “We Care a Lot”, “Epic”, “Midlife Crisis” and “Last Cup of Sorrow”. Despite being part of the band’s popular signature sound, Bottum’s input into Faith No More was reduced significantly during the mid 90’s, and specially reflected on their 1997 album “Album Of The Year”. He later stated that he suffered a nervous breakdown during this period: “all of that time is a real blur for me.” At the time, he was addicted to heroin and also experienced the death of his father and saw the aftermath of Kurt Cobain’s suicide on Courtney Love (with whom he was involved in a brief heterosexual relationship in the early 80’s). Being close friends with Love and Cobain, he was also one of the last persons to be with Kurt Cobain reportedly in late March 1994 shortly before his suicide.
Randy Bottum came out as gay in a 1993 interview for The Advocate and one of his contributions to Faith No More was “Be Aggressive,” a song about oral sex. He has said in interviews that he wrote the song largely as a joke at Mike Patton’s expense, enjoying the potential embarrassment the heterosexual Patton might experience singing the song onstage. A fan favorite, “Be Aggressive” became the second most-played song at Faith No More concerts. Also as a composer, Bottum composed the music and scores for movies including gay romantic comedy film “Adam & Steve” in 2005, “What Goes Up”, “Kabluey”, “Gigantic” and “Fred: The Movie” for Nickelodeon. He also scored the documentary “Hit So Hard” about Hole’s drummer Patty Schemel in 2010. After a hiatus of almost 20 years, Faith No More are back together and released their latest album “Sol Invictus” in 2015. In 2020, Bottom released the song “Daddy” under the name Man on Man, with his life partner Joey Holman for an album featuring songs based on life as a gay man. Randy Bottum turns 61 today.
Look back at the 1990 music video for “Epic” by Faith No More
Watch the Man on Man music video for the song “Daddy”, featuring Roddy and his partner Joey Holman
Listen to the Faith No More 2003 compilation “This Is It” on Spotify
Watch more music related videos
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