"I never claimed to be different, I only said I was bored"

Image by Wikipedia user goongunther (cc)

Those that know me know that I count Faith No More among my favorite bands of all time, neck-and-neck with Brainiac for the Universal Championship. Angel Dust, my all-time favorite album, took the tiny little room in my brain that contained my concept of what was possible in rock music, and blew its walls to hell with its unapologetic rejection of the mainstream’s expectations for a follow up to their breakthrough album, The Real Thing. “Oh, you liked ‘Epic?’ Then you’re gonna hate this!” they exclaimed, unleashing a glorious mish-mash of an album that was simultaneously ugly, beautiful, confounding and exhilarating. Angel Dust remains a unique species of untamed beast to this day; to listen to it now and remember that there was a time when something this original could exist on a major label is almost mind-bending in retrospect.

But before there was the purposeful, counter-intuitive originality of Angel Dust, there was the pure dog-in-a-science-lab “we have no idea what we’re doing” punk/funk/metal/goth mish-mash of the early Faith No More releases, We Care A Lot and Introduce Yourself, two gloriously raw see-what-sticks splatters of meat on a day-glo kitchen wall. And before Mike Patton lent his vocals to FNM’s breakthrough hits and emerged as one of rock’s best-ever vocalists, the fevered originality of the band was personified in a bouncing ball of manic beach bum energy named Chuck Mosley.

Even after falling in love with The Real Thing, going back to discover the Chuck albums in my teen years elicited a solid “huh?” when sliding the tapes into my double-cassette stereo. There’s certainly a degree of charm in any set of first albums from a band that congealed its vision with later releases—think Pretty Hate Machine, Bleach, Smack Bunny Baby, or any other slabs of protomatter that only hinted at the stars that would blaze bright with later, fully-realized energy. But with Faith No More, the difference between Chuck and Patton cast the band’s evolution in stark relief. While Patton entered the band with a fully-formed, calculated mastery over his dynamic range, Chuck Mosley’s vocals on We Care A Lot and Introduce Yourself were haphazard, off-kilter, and untamed. Whereas Patton has often copped to approaching lyric writing as an exercise in sculpting phrases based on how they sound, Mosley was less focused and more sincere, vomiting heart and soul onto tape via his endearingly out-of-key howl. No time to nail that melody on the head, gang—someone’s trying to charge Chuck 95 cents for a transfer, maaaan.     

Fortunately, back in my younger days we all were more apt to give new, weird music multiple spins to let it sink in and process, to decide whether or not it was our thing, and Introduce Yourself grew on me like a tapeworm. To be real, it carried a lot of similarities with The Real Thing: where TRT featured the metallic dirge "Zombie Eaters," complete with melodramatic synth-and-vocal intro, Introduce Yourself's "The Crab Song" followed the same formula. And it's hard to argue against the connective tissue linking "Epic" with Mosley's signature performance on "We Care A Lot," a song that existed in a pupal stage on the Mordam Records album of the same name before getting reworked for the major label IY. In all honesty, the primary barrier to a true appreciation of FNM's first two records is acquiring an appreciation for Chuck. Once Chuck Mosley clicks with ya, the rest is neon gravy.  

To be sure, there are hits and misses on both albums--they're by no means flawless works. The original version of the song "We Care A Lot" drags compared to its update on Introduce Yourself, and a few of the songs on the first album have instrumental stretches that sound less like musical breaks than places where Mosley couldn't think of any lyrics. Roddy Bottum's keyboards have always enjoyed a healthy dollop of 80s symphonic cheese; on We Care A Lot, they're dramatically goth almost to the point of parody. But when it all works together, like on the theatrical classic "As The Worm Turns" or the nihilistically triumphant "Mark Bowen," those traits are a strength instead of a hinderance.

And that's what's beautiful about Faith No More with Chuck Mosley on vocals: with music this daringly original, unevenness is to be not only expected, but welcomed, because when it works, goddamn, it works. By 1985, Faith No More had gone through a litany of vocalists and a few other lineup changes, and it's not hard to imagine that the revolving door introduced a myriad of ideas and stylistic influences that the band was trying to mix into a final, cohesive stew. Once upon a time, it was expected that a band might need to take an album or two in order to develop and find their groove; in this age of shortened attention spans and increased access to anyone and everyone's catalog online, there's less patience for artist development or evolution.

This is the life lesson i took from bands like Faith No More and Brainiac (whose lead singer, the dearly departed Tim Taylor, once told me "we just try to come up with stuff that's original sounding more than anything"). Sure, there's something to be said for genre exercise -- there's a consistency and prolificity to be had in sticking to a formula, and it's produced some great bands. But it's in taking chances where the real thrill of songwriting lies for me. Sure, not everything attempted pays off, and lots of ideas get trashed, but those moments when you stumble across something that is 100% unapologetically unique to the personalities involved? That's magic.

Chuck Mosley died last week at the age of 57, and his passing makes the world a less weird, less unique place. But at the same time, the world is much weirder for him having been in it--not just for the music he left behind, but for the weirdos he inspired to be the most outlandishly unique versions of themselves, no matter how unvarnished, unfiltered, or even out of tune. No musician should tire of their uniqueness.

HEY!
WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?
HUH?!

Oh nothing, just wondering what it is you're doing...
Why it is you're doing that whatever it is you're doing
Oh yeah?
WHY? WHY?
I dunno
It just doesn't seem like something you'd be doing
I mean, you of all people, ha!
Know what I mean?

Yeah I know it's been bugging you since the day I was born, huh?
I asked my friend Anne about it
I said
"ANNE, ANNE, ANNE, what am I supposed to do, huh?
It's been bugging them since the day that I was born."

She said, "Do whatever the hell you want to do!
Now is the time where you can do anything!
Everything you do, anything is still gonna turn out great
I mean, you've got the world at your feet."




P.S. One of the last recordings Chuck Mosley worked on is embedded below. Check it out.