The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Faith No More are two bands that defined the genre of funk rock in the 90’s, and they spent that decade at each other’s throats.
In 1999, lead vocalist of Mr. Bungle, Mike Patton noticed that a lot of music venues his band was touring in dropped them from their setlist. After a slew of massive festivals dropped them, Patton discovered that the Red Hot Chili Peppers threatened to pull out of any show Mr. Bungle played in.
With no momentum on their newest album, Mr. Bungle fizzled out and stopped producing albums. Tensions between Patton and the Chili Peppers had been boiling over for a decade until this moment, but Patton hadn’t expected such intense hostility.
This story begins ten years prior in the summer of 1989, when the Chili Peppers are starting to gain traction after they release Mother’s Milk in early August. Their album barely sold 500,000 units, but bigger things are coming from the Chili Peppers, and they’re growing to enjoy popular acclaim.
Just a month earlier, Faith No More hit the peak of their popularity. The Real Thing held massive appeal for both fans of the alt metal/funk rock scene Faith No More occupied and mainstream audiences. The album sold a whopping 4 million copies and spawned three singles including “Epic”, Faith No More’s most popular song.
A lot of this success was attributed to Mike Patton, frontrunner for Mr. Bungle, who replaced Faith No More’s singer in January of 1989. While producing albums and touring with Faith No More, he continued to work with Mr. Bungle.
Hard times hit the Red Hot Chili Peppers after Mother’s Milk. Hillel Slovak, a founding member and guitarist of the band died of a heroin overdose prompting the leader of the band, Anthony Kiedis, to quit heroin and leaving a spot for John Frusciante to join as the guitarist.
This shock caused the Red Hot Chili Peppers to find a definite voice and style. They release their next album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, in 1991, which immediately hits #3 on Billboard 200 and sells over 13 million units.
This is when the Chili Peppers start to dominate the radio stations and hearts of the 90’s. The mainstream masses are dying to hear more, and the band starts touring more than ever before.
Kiedis used this fame to disparage Patton for stylistic similarities in “Epic”, “I see [Mike Patton] jumping up and down, rapping, and it looked like I was looking in a mirror.” Despite Kiedis’ accusations, Patton never responded.
No further upset happened for a long time. In 1998, Faith No More dissolved, so its members could focus on their side projects.
Patton returns full time to Mr. Bungle, and in June of 1999, they planned to release their third studio album, California. However, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were also ready to release their album, Calfornication, in June of 1999. To avoid confusion between the albums, Mr. Bungle decided to release their album a month later.
After they barely release California in time for a massive world tour, Mr. Bungle realizes most of their tour stops won’t let them play. When Patton contacts the band manager of the Chili Peppers, he says “We're really sorry, we want you to know this doesn't reflect the management's position, or the band's for that matter, it's Anthony Kiedis who wants this.”
In retaliation, on their penultimate tour Mr. Bungle dressed up as the Chili Peppers for Halloween and played mangled covers of their music. One of the member’s even went as far to dress up as the ghost of Hillel Slovak and pantomime injecting heroin.
Since then the Chili Peppers have grown to be a worldwide powerhouse in music, and Mike Patton is widely considered to be one of the, if not the, best vocalists in music right now. The feud hasn’t really been addressed, and they probably don’t hold too much ill will anymore.
