Faith No More will launch their first album in 18 years in 2015, bassist Billy Gould has confirmed.
The independent release will be headed up by a limited-edition single called Motherfucker in November, as part of Record Store Day’s Black Friday event.
The last studio outing by Mike Patton and co was 1997’s Album Of The Year, which came ahead of their split the following year. They regrouped in 2009 but had remained cautious about the chances of recording new material.
Now Gould tells Rolling Stone: “We’ve been working on this idea for probably a year and a half. I think what we’re doing reflects where we’ve gone since we made our last record. I think this kicks things up a notch.
“There’s parts that are very powerful and there’s parts that have a lot of space. Everything we do, with our chemistry, the way we play – it’s always going to sound like us. That makes us feel good. Hopefully it doesn’t sound like a bunch of 50-year-old men. Which we are!”
He believes the band, with guitarist Jon Hudson in place of classic-era member Jim Martin, play better now than they ever have. “That was a huge deal – songs that we were really pushing when we wrote them came pretty easily,” he says.
And he’s looking forward to the untitled album’s launch via their own firm, Reclamation Records, formed after they told their former label they regarded their deal as expired, and the other side agreed.
“There’s something really freeing about knowing we can make our own decisions,” Gould states. “I can’t imagine doing it any other way now. It’s really empowering to say, ‘It’s our clock – we’re doing it on our own time. There’s no budget, no timeframe. It just has to be good.’ It’s a pleasure to be working like that.”
More details will be announced in due course.
