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When Roddy Bottum started writing his remarkable autobiography The Royal We, the keyboard player for Faith No More had a clear vision of the type of book he did not wish to create. “The sort featuring mid-book images,” he says, in a video call from Oxnard, California, where he is wrapping up a new album with his musical project Imperial Teen. “I have little interest in rock memoirs – they tend to be cliché, full of name-dropping, and low on literary merit.”

The Royal We is definitely not name-droppy – Bottum omits the surnames of his bandmates. And while he describes the team’s early days and formative stages, this is secondary to his “youth escapades” in San Francisco, “prior to the digital age, before the city’s decline.” Much of the focus is on his sexual awakening, and how the associated hiddenness and shame have shaped his life. “From a young age, around 13 or 14, I engaged in sexual relations with men,” he says. “It was such a taboo, and that set the tone of my life.” In the memoir, events involving his cruising public toilets and parks as a teenager are recounted without hesitation and without regret. “Intimate moments occurred with older men in outdoor hideaways,” he records. “Shamefully at first, proudly later. Get lost.”

“When I do readings, I start with that section,” he says. “I recognize the inflammatory nature of such remarks; it’s highly improper. But I feel no embarrassment. Amid political shifts, my reality requires bold expression, to fight the bigotry, the anti-transgender and homophobic mindsets.” He stops. “I aim to stir controversy. I have relatives who are Christian people, and I fully plan to disrupt their holiday meal with this publication. As they are sure to peruse it.”

The memoir begins on the teenage Bottum shifting from his native Los Angeles. “The city was a sudden shift from LA’s bright facade,” he notes. “Bitter. Dark. Individuals with jet-black hair and pale complexions, people doing crystal meth and heroin. The LGBTQ+ scene in San Francisco stood in stark contrast to LA’s. It was inspiring.”

Joining Faith No More

During this period, in 1981, Bottum teamed up with Faith No Man, later renamed Faith No More with Billy Gould and Mike Bordin, complementing their “powerful bass and drums” with “a touch of elegance amid the intensity. Rock bands didn’t have keyboards then.” They try out vocalists, including – for a short time – Courtney Love, the memoir’s most striking figure, an fearless source of disorder causing domestic havoc and creating adversaries wherever she went.

“Courtney and I instantly recognized our deep connection,” Bottum says. Their platonic friendship momentarily crossed into a sexual relationship, causing pregnancy and abortion; later, Bottum became a reliable friend of Love and her husband, Kurt Cobain. Unlike the vilified image some hold, Bottum portrays Love as someone with wit, energy and independence.

“Courtney faced many challenges,” he nods. “An influential yet disputed individual, and highly intelligent. And that’s a very attractive, exciting person to write about. She’s a warm, compassionate person, and a lot of people aren’t exposed to that. Yet we shared a deep bond and supported one another.”

The Early Days of Faith No More

The early Faith No More were, Bottum acknowledges, “completely ridiculous.” Their music revolved around insistent, weighty rhythms jammed out while under the influence of multiple substances, including MDMA, while their frontman, eccentric drinker Chuck Mosley, “lacked vocal talent.” But they had aspiration. “Our peers favored gothic and somber themes, but we were fans of pop culture icons. Somehow, we felt connected to that world. However, we lacked any pop charm or allure.”

But their cynical fusion song We Care a Lot became a modest television favorite in 1988, Mosley ceded the mic to the camera-friendly Mike Patton (who did have a good singing voice), and by 1990 Faith No More’s third album was a true, critically acclaimed achievement. Typically, The Royal We doesn’t dwell on this triumph, jump-cutting instead to their unsuccessful period on Guns N’ Roses and Metallica’s 1992 stadium tour.

“I used heroin to numb the pain of my concealed life.”

The Big Tour Experience

It was, Bottum remarks, “the largest concert series of its time.” But Faith No More were quickly distanced by the “poisonous” rock’n’roll circus they’d clambered aboard; in the memoir, he describes an unsettling encounter with fans recruited for GN’R’s entertainment. “The misogyny and the bravado of the macho dynamic coming from the Guns N’ Roses camp was suffocating,” he says. “Their track One In a Million included offensive slurs, and that was the vibe backstage. I didn’t want any part of it. We resisted sacrificing our values for this negativity.”

The tour – from which Faith No More were fired two weeks early, for speaking against GN’R in the press – marked a pivotal moment for Bottum. “I needed to be who I was,” he affirms, “to discuss my sexuality, to remove myself from this harmful atmosphere.” Against his managers’ advice, he came out in the pages of the Advocate the following year. “I stood alone as an openly gay man in rock music,” he emphasizes. “Freddie Mercury never publicly acknowledged his sexuality. Michael Stipe remained silent on the topic, nor the metal icon, nor the alternative rock figure. This fueled my frustration. It was essential to document my story, to get people to accept a queer person in music. I encountered numerous young LGBTQ+ individuals inspired by my visibility.”

Personal Struggles and Sobriety

Bottum kept private his sexuality with his bandmates, even though he toured with his boyfriend on the tourbus. “They were accepting and would have supported me,” he says. “The harm caused by societal homophobia then, the impact of internalized stigma.” He found swift approval from Cobain, the Nirvana frontman who was the proud antithesis of the gender bias and homophobia that had tainted the GN’R tour. “Kurt was a rare find,” Bottum whispers. “He embraced the idea of queerness for its rebelliousness. I think that’s why we were really good friends. He loved that I was gay, that that was a thing he got to be around. He was a very special person.”

Bottum developed a strong bond to Cobain and Love, the trio connected at the time by substance dependence. Bottum