Faith No More’s Mike Bordin Admits Guns N’ Roses Was Difficult To Tour With

Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin recently spoke to Metal Hammer and recalled the time they toured with Guns N’ Roses back in the ’90s. The drummer stated that it was a challenging experience due to their enormous popularity and success at the time.

Formed in 1979, Faith No More entered the music world with their 1985 debut studio album, ‘We Care a Lot.’ After releasing two more albums, the band’s breakthrough success came with their fourth studio album, ‘Angel Dust,’ released in 1992. The group started touring to promote the album shortly after its completion. They got the chance to join prominent groups like Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, and Soundgarden.

They first appeared on the European leg of the ‘Use Your Illusion Tour.’ Then, the band hit the stage as the opening act for the co-headlining stadium tour by Guns N’ Roses and Metallica in 1992. At the time, GN’R was promoting their ‘Use Your Illusion I’ and ‘Use Your Illusion II’ albums, while Metallica was promoting their ‘Black Album.’ Faith No More left the tour to continue with their European tour.

During a recent interview, Mike Bordin stated that he feels grateful to Guns N’ Roses for letting them a chance to promote themselves. However, he also admitted opening for them and Metallica was difficult. Both bands played hits from their highly successful albums, but Faith No More didn’t have that popularity then. Thus, the audience was more interested in seeing Guns N’ Roses and Metallica on the stage rather than them.

Mike Bordin speaking on opening for Guns N’ Roses:

“I love Guns N’ Roses, and I’m eternally f*cking grateful to them for putting us on their stage and allowing their audience to get a two-by-four right across the teeth every f*cking day, but it was difficult. You had Metallica playing ‘The Black Album,’ and Guns playing the hits from ‘Appetite For Destruction’ and ‘Use Your Illusion,’ and we’re out there playing ‘Be Aggressive’ and it didn’t come across.

People were like, ‘Get off, I wanna hear ‘Enter Sandman!‘ We were standing between these two massive redwood and sequoia trees, and they were 300 feet tall and 1,000 years old, massive and eternal, and we were a tiny fern on the ground that needed some sunshine, which may not have been forthcoming.”

Between June and July 2022, Faith No More was to perform in the UK and Europe. However, the band announced some time ago that all planned shows for 2022 were canceled due to their current problems. There has been no news regarding new concert dates from the band since then.