During an appearance on the latest episode of the “Let There Be Talk” podcast with rock and roll comedian Dean Delray, FAITH NO MORE drummer Mike Bordin spoke about the band’s current status, three and a half years after FAITH NO MORE scrapped all of its previously announced fall 2021 performances, saying singer Mike Patton was unable to perform as hoped due to mental health issues, partially exacerbated by the pandemic. Bordin said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “All I can say is, and I think I do want this to be on the record, actually — because we don’t promote ourselves, we don’t talk about ourselves, and that’s, that’s really been to our detriment. But we’d been rehearsing for six months for these dates [in September/October 2021]. We’d been rehearsing instrumentally and we incredibly sounded phenomenal. I mean, the bass player said, ‘I’ve never heard us sound this good. This is how these songs sounded in my mind.’ And we’ve never gotten that on album, on live, whatever. I mean, we were ready, we were prepared. And it came to pass that when the gear was in the truck, when it was rolling to Chicago, 36 hours before we were supposed to be on stage, and our guy [Mike Patton] doesn’t show for the rehearsal, the one rehearsal that we’re gonna do. And we go to go see him and see what’s going on. ‘What the hell’s going on here? Our gear’s rolling already to the gig.’ And it was very clear that he was unable at that point to physically do it. We made the decision that, ‘Look, we’ve gotta support our guy.’ It’s gonna be a shit storm canceling fucking 75 shows, but none of us wants to be the guy that breaks his back and forces him to do something that he’s not in the position to be able to do. It wasn’t even an argument. The only argument was, ‘How the fuck did we logistically do this? Because we have to.’ I mean, we did support him in our way, and whether that’s perceived or not is beyond — I can’t control it. So we pull these shows and just wait to see. Hopefully things are better, and try to find out what we can around the edges. But ultimately shows get started to get booked with another band,” referencing Patton’s sporadic appearances with his long-running avant-garde/thrash band MR. BUNGLE in the last two and a half years, “and that’s continued to this day. So it’s my take, my position, my statement on it is that he’s gone from being unable to do the shows to clearly being unwilling to do shows with us. And that’s heavy. That’s a big difference. That’s a big difference. And we haven’t really had much dialogue on it.”Bordin continued: “It doesn’t feel great to me. It honestly kind of hurts my feelings a little bit, but that’s personal. That’s a private thing. It’s business. We were never gonna force somebody to do something that they weren’t able to do. And now, as I say, it looks like it’s more really about being willing to do it.”Bordin clarified that he is “grateful for what [Patton has] given to us. I mean, we’re blessed to have been blessed by such a gigantic, enormous talent,” he said. “And the future? I don’t know. Will he be willing to do stuff or not? It’s not for me to say.”I tell my kids a lot of times, especially when they were young, it’s, like, appreciate what you have and don’t really trip on what you don’t have,” the drummer continued. “So I’m grateful for the time we had with [former FAITH NO MORE guitarist] Jim [Martin]. I’m grateful for the time we have with [former FAITH NO MORE singer] Chuck [Mosley]. I’m grateful for the time even we had with [former FAITH NO MORE member] Courtney [Love] ’cause we learned from all of it. And certainly am I grateful for the time with Mike Patton? Yeah, because my life would be very different without it. But I can’t force him to do something that he, from where I’m sitting, doesn’t seem to wanna do. That’s all I can say. And I don’t wanna be controversial. I’m not looking for a fucking headline — I’m really not. I’m just trying to tell you sort of what it looks like from here.”This past January, FAITH NO MORE bassist Bill Gould was asked by Chile’s Radio Futuro what is going on with the band at the moment. He responded: “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. And you don’t have to believe me, but there’s nothing… Right now we’re in a really weird spot, a really strange spot, and I can’t really tell you what’s going on. I don’t know myself. I get different information from people, and I’m in the band, so…”When the interviewer suggested that Gould “calls the shots” in FAITH NO MORE, Bill replied: “Uh, not really. If I did, probably we’d be playing in Chile next week. [Laughs]”Last October, FAITH NO MORE keyboardist Roddy Bottum said that the band was on “semi-permanent hiatus”.After FAITH NO MORE canceled its fall 2021 performances, the other members of the band issued a statement expressing their disappointment about the tour cancelation while also throwing their support behind Patton.FAITH NO MORE, which hasn’t played a concert since 2016, initially reunited for touring purposes in 2009, 12 years after issuing its previous studio set, “Album Of The Year”, and followed that up with 2015’s “Sol Invictus”.In a 2022 interview with The Guardian, Patton revealed he developed agoraphobia and depression during lockdown, and started drinking heavily. “Because I was isolated so much, going outside was a hard thing to do,” he said, “and that’s a horrible thing. And the idea of doing more FAITH NO MORE shows — it was stressful. It affected me mentally. I don’t know why, but the drinking just… happened.”Patton didn’t return to the stage until December 2022, when MR. BUNGLE played six shows in South America.In July 2022, Patton discussed the mental health issues which caused the cancelation of FAITH NO MORE and MR. BUNGLE’s live appearances in an interview with Rolling Stone. At the time he said: “It’s easy to blame it on the pandemic. But I’ll be honest, man: At the beginning of the pandemic, I was like, ‘This is fucking great. I can stay home and record.’ I’ve got a home studio. So I was like, ‘Yeah, what’s the big deal?’ And then something clicked, and I became completely isolated and almost antisocial [and] afraid of people. That sort of anxiety, or whatever you want to call it, led to other issues, which I choose not to discuss.”Asked to elaborate on the “other issues” that led to the cancelations and whether that included “substances” and “alcohol”, Patton said: “It was a little bit of everything. But mostly, in my experience, it was mostly mental. I saw some therapists and all that stuff, which is the first time I ever had to do that in my life. And they basically diagnosed me as having agoraphobia; like, I was afraid of people. I got freaked out by being around people. And maybe that was because I spent two years basically indoors during Covid. I don’t know. Maybe it reinforced feelings that I already had. But just knowing about it, talking about it, really helped.”Mike said that he realized he had a problem “right around the time that FAITH NO MORE was about to go back on the road. That’s when I kind of lost it, and it was ugly and not cool,” he said. “A few days before we were supposed to go on the road. I told the guys, ‘Hey, man, I don’t think I can do it.’ Somehow my confidence was broken down. I didn’t want to be in front of people, which is weird because I spent half of my life doing that. It was very hard to explain. And there were some broken feelings on both sides about it, but it’s what I had to do. Because otherwise something really bad could have happened… It was right before our first rehearsal, and I just freaked out. I just said, ‘I can’t do it.’ They had been rehearsing so [pauses] if I were them I’d be really pissed off at me. And they were. And they probably still are. But it’s just about being true to yourself and knowing what your limits are. And I knew that if I kept pushing, it could have been some sort of disastrous result. It was just like, ‘Goddamn it. Maybe I don’t need to do this. Even though I agreed to do it, and it’s gonna bum a lot of people out. I gotta take care of myself.’ So I’m getting better at that.”As for where things stood with FAITH NO MORE as of July 2022, Patton told Rolling Stone: “Radio silence. [Laughs]. I don’t know. We may reschedule stuff; we may not. I’ll just leave it at that. It’s a little confusing and complicated. So if we do, we do. If we don’t, that’s cool, too.”
