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As Roddy Bottum began writing his remarkable autobiography The Royal We, the keyboard player for Faith No More had a clear vision of the kind of book he aimed to avoid. “The kind that has pictures in the middle,” he notes, in a video call from Oxnard, California, where he is finishing a new album with his musical project Imperial Teen. “I have little interest in rock memoirs – they’re the most predictable, name-droppy, sub-literature experiences.”

The Royal We avoids being name-droppy – Bottum leaves out the surnames of his fellow musicians. And while he outlines the team’s early days and formative stages, this takes a back seat to his “teenage exploits” in San Francisco, “in an era pre-internet, when the city was still untouched.” Much of the emphasis is on his discovery of his sexuality, and how the associated hiddenness and shame have affected his life. “As a teenager, at 13 or 14, I began intimate encounters with men,” he states. “It was deeply forbidden, and that defined my life’s path.” In the memoir, events involving his seeking encounters in restrooms and parks as a teenager are described boldly and defiantly. “Intimate moments occurred with older men in outdoor hideaways,” he notes. “Initially with shame, later with pride. Back off.”

“At book events, I begin by reading that part,” he declares. “I understand how provocative statements like that are; it’s utterly unseemly. But I feel no embarrassment. In the era of Trump, my story must be proclaimed, to combat the prejudice, the anti-transgender and homophobic mindsets.” He halts. “I want to be provocative. Some of my family members are devout Christians, and My goal is to unsettle their family gatherings through this work. As they are sure to peruse it.”

The memoir starts on the teenage Bottum relocating from his birthplace Los Angeles. “San Francisco was an abrupt about-face from the sunny superficiality of LA,” he says. “Chilly. Dark. People with dyed black hair and white faces, individuals using hard drugs like meth and heroin. The LGBTQ+ scene in San Francisco stood in stark contrast to LA’s. It was inspiring.”

Entering the Band 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 “pummelling rhythm section” with “a sense of beauty atop that darkness. Keyboards were rare in rock groups at the time.” They rotate vocalists, including – briefly – Courtney Love, the memoir’s most vivid character, an bold instigator of turmoil lighting homes on fire and creating adversaries wherever she went.

“Courtney and I instantly recognized our deep connection,” Bottum says. Their non-romantic relationship briefly blurred into a sexual relationship, causing pregnancy and abortion; later, Bottum became a close advisor of Love and her husband, Kurt Cobain. Far from the grunge Lady Macbeth of misogynist legend, Bottum describes Love as someone with wit, drive and self-determination.

“Courtney faced many challenges,” he nods. “An influential yet disputed individual, and highly intelligent. That makes for a compelling subject in writing. She’s a warm, compassionate person, and few get to witness it. But we were very close and took care of each other.”

The Band’s Beginnings

The early Faith No More were, Bottum confesses, “utterly absurd.” Their music revolved around repetitive heavy grooves improvised while under the influence of various drugs, including MDMA, while their frontman, alcoholic oddball Chuck Mosley, “didn’t have a good singing voice.” But they had aspiration. “Our peers favored gothic and somber themes, but we adored mainstream media and artists. Somehow, we felt connected to that world. Yet we were far from glamorous or appealing.”

But their sardonic rock-rap anthem We Care a Lot became a minor MTV hit in 1988, Mosley ceded the mic to the photogenic Mike Patton (who did have a good singing voice), and by 1990 Faith No More’s third album was a genuine, award-recognized success. Characteristically, The Royal We doesn’t linger over this triumph, skipping ahead instead to their ill-fated tour on Guns N’ Roses and Metallica’s 1992 stadium tour.

“The heroin was me self-medicating, so I could feel OK about living all these secrets.”

On the Road with Legends

It was, Bottum remarks, “an unprecedented touring event.” But Faith No More were quickly alienated by the “toxic” rock’n’roll circus they’d entered; 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 states. “They had that song One In a Million, with the N word and the F word [faggot], and that set the tone behind the scenes. I wanted no involvement. We didn’t want to loan our credibility, our culture, our individuality to this poison.”

The tour – from which Faith No More were sacked two weeks early, for badmouthing GN’R in the press – marked a pivotal moment for Bottum. “It was time to live authentically,” he affirms, “to talk about being gay, to distance myself from this negative setting.” Against his managers’ advice, he announced he was gay in the pages of the Advocate the following year. “I stood alone as an openly gay man in rock music,” he emphasizes. “Freddie Mercury hadn’t come out before he died. Michael Stipe didn’t talk about it, nor the metal icon, nor Bob Mould. This fueled my frustration. I had to claim my place in history, to encourage acceptance of LGBTQ+ artists. And I met so many kids who were queer, who felt my being a queer person in music made a difference to them.”

Personal Struggles and Sobriety

Bottum never talked about his sexuality with his fellow members, even though he travelled with his boyfriend on the tourbus. “Their tolerant attitudes meant they’d have understood,” he comments. “It was the damage of being a gay kid in that era, the effects of discrimination.” He found immediate support from Cobain, the Nirvana frontman who was the clear opposite of the gender bias and homophobia that had tainted the GN’R tour. “Kurt was like a unicorn,” Bottum murmurs. “He embraced the idea of queerness for its rebelliousness. This connected us deeply. My sexuality was something he valued. He stood out as extraordinary.”

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