Anyone still holding out hope for a Faith No More reunion should look away. Four years after the alt-metal icons cancelled their comeback tour due to singer Mike Patton’s struggles with agoraphobia and alcohol, FNM drummer Mike Bordin claims his estranged bandmate has “gone from being unable to do the shows to clearly being unwilling to do shows with us.”
Speaking on the Let There Be Talk podcast, Bordin revealed his frustration that Patton apparently seemed happy to tour with his other band, Mr Bungle, though not Faith No More.
Speaking about the cancellation of FNM’s scheduled dates in 2021 and 2022, themselves rescheduled from the previous year due to the covid pandemic, Bordin said the band were supportive of Patton after the tour was pulled on the eve of the first date.
“It was very clear that he was unable at that point to physically do it,” said the drummer. “We made the decision that, ‘Look, we've gotta support our guy.’ It’s gonna be a shit storm cancelling 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 me – I can't control it,” continued the drummer. “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.”
The Faith No More shows ultimately weren’t rescheduled, although Patton’s other band, Mr Bungle, announced a series of South American dates in 2022. The latter outfit subsequently toured in 2023 and 2024.
“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,” Bordin said. “And that’s heavy. That’s a big difference… And we haven’t really had much dialogue on it.”
Bordin isn’t the first member to address the uncertainty around Faith No More’s current status. Speaking to The Guardian in 2022, Patton said his reasons for pulling out of the tour were a result of the pandemic and issues with agoraphobia and alcohol: “Because I was isolated so much, going outside was a hard thing to do, and that’s a horrible thing. And the idea of doing more Faith No More shows – it was stressful. It affected me mentally.”
In late 2024, FNM keyboard player Roddy Bottum said that the band were “on a semi-permanent hiatus”, while bassist Billy Gould addressed the situation in January 2025. “I honestly don’t know… 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.”
Faith No More’s most recent album, Sol Invictus, was released in May 2015. They last played together in August 2016 in Los Angeles.
