FAITH NO MORE's fifth album 'KING FOR A DAY....FOOL FOR A LIFETIME' was released on this day 20 years ago. To celebrate this auspicious occasion we have compiled the ultimate collection of quotes, reviews pictures and videos. Enjoy.

Album Forward

Phil Alexander | Editor, Kerrang! Magazine |  July 1995.



Yes "King..." is another piece of taught drama that refuses to revel in the American Dream. If anything we're dealing with the American Nightmare here. The kind of mess that US President Bill Clinton couldn't mop up with all the Andrex in the world.



Press Release.

-Faith No More


RAW Magazine | March 1995 | 4.5 out of 5

It's never boring with Faith No More. Only they would sack somebody as popular as 'Big
Sick Ugly' Jim Martin and appoint a replacement without thinking to ask him whether or not he likes touring, but that's the nature of the beast.
Although the fivesome's last album, 'Angel Dust', smacked of eccentricity for eccentricity's sake, at least it proved that the incredible success of 'The Real Thing' was no fluke, and that
they had something of genuine interest to say.
 'King For A Day ...' isn't as elaborate as its predecessor and, as an entire body of work, transpires to be less heavy than '... Dust' or '... Thing' - although it does have plenty of individual moments of gut-wrenching intensity. The pacy, rhythmic 'Get Out' is a rousing opener, blasting in and straight out again in two minutes and 14 seconds; no fuss or flab, just Mike Patton's inimitable bellow and some fiery guitar.The guitars, keyboards and dense backing vocals mesh together magnificently during 'Ricochet', before 'Evidence' steps down several gears, Patton crooning delicately over Roddy Bottum's entrancing keyboard work and a guitar that laps at the listener's earlobes like a wave on a Pacific island. Mmmm ... soothing. Unlike "The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies', which features a crisp, driving riff that Metallica would be proud of. 'Star A.D.' is also pretty off-the wait, incorporating a delicious silver toned guitar, what sounds like the horn section from hell and some bizarre jungle chants. But, unbelievably, it works!
If 'Star...' is a little on the strange side, 'Cuckoo For Caca' is absolutely f**king deranged. A
bone-crunching riff gives way to some insane hollering during the verses, then to totally unintelligible gibbering at the chorus. And later, during 'Ugly In The Morning', Patton escalates into even more unfeasibly lunatic bouts of shouting, working
himself up into a lather over a crazy, spiralling riff.
Having seemingly reached the zenith of insanity, the band quietly retreat within their straight jacket for 'Caralho Voador', which sees Patton mumbling gently in Portuguese to some lounge lizard' organ accompaniment. 'Digging The Grave' is probably far more what FNM fans crave, adding a hint of melody to the usual primal ferocity. Likewise, 'What A Day', which could almost be a an outtake from 'The Real Thing'. However, crammed in-between this pair comes 'Take This Bottle', a dirge-like ditty that would threaten even Pearl Jam on the Gloom-o-meter.
So thank heavens for the deliciously sedate title track, which is best described by its ; working title of 'Acoustic Groove', but which features a lead vocal that sounds like that bald pillock from Right Said Fred! 'The Last To Know' also holds back on the throttle, giving!
Trey Spruance the room for some chunky guitar chords, and even to rip out a Hendrix-style solo. Indeed, the closing track, 'Just A Man', shows how Jim Martin's departure has realty . allowed the band to stretch out. Brilliantly structured, with nary a power chord in sight, it's one of the band's finest moments.
So FNM survive Big Jim's departure and emerge an equally angry, but certainly a better disciplined unit. Did anyone expect  any different?!

ROLLING STONE | Al Weisel | June 1996

In 1989, just as morning in America was turning into the morning after, Faith No More released The Real Thing. Featuring the unlikely hit "Epic" ("You want it all, but you can't have it"), the album perfectly summed up the era of discontent that was dawning. That genre-morphing collection seamlessly fused punk, heavy metal and progressive rock with soul and rap and was a harbinger of alternative music to come from the likes of Pearl Jam, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nine Inch Nails. But like Gorbachev, Faith No More was subsumed by the revolution they helped make possible. Their follow-up, Angel Dust, a wildly uneven, self-consciously odd album, was a huge disappointment.
Saying King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime is not as disjointed as Angel Dust is like saying Eve was not as fractured as Sybil because she had fewer personalities. From the Spandau Ballet-like blue-eyed soul of "Star A.D." to the thrash metal of "Ugly in the Morning" to the Latin rhythms of "Caralho Voador" (on which singer Mike Patton coos in Portuguese à la João Gilberto), the album is almost desperately eclectic. The Real Thing's genre hopping was effortless.

Despite the loss of guitarist Jim Martin (his replacement, Trey Spruance, a more conventional, less interesting metal guitarist, left the band after recording this album) and a number of weak cuts like the campy "Just a Man" and the dreadfully silly "Cuckoo for Caca" ("Being good gets you stuff/Being stuff gets you good"), Faith No More's brilliance does shine through at moments. Among the best cuts are "Ricochet," a portentous anthem reminiscent of "Epic"; "Digging the Grave," which has a grungy feel that isn't completely ruined by Patton's histrionic screaming; "Take This Bottle," a country alchy ballad worthy of George Jones; and "King for a Day," a haunting reverie anchored by Roddy Bottum's atmospheric keyboards. One hopes that that last song's moving chorus – "Don't let me die with this silly look in my eyes" – doesn't prove to be Faith No More's epitaph.

ACCESS Magazine | Tim Henderson | 1995 | 4 out of 5

The exit of fun-loving socialite guitarist 'Big Sick Ugly' Jim Martin last year left a neutral yet staggering Faith No More with all guards down and a silence within the ranks. Alongside the rather bizarre follow-up (Angel Dust) to the band's cross-over revelation--1989's The Real Thing--the band had seen (and looked forward to seeing) brighter days. Martin has since been replaced by former Mr. Bungle axe man Trey Spruance (who recorded King...then left) and more recently, ex0roadie Dean Menta, who's prepared to take FNM's long-overdue tour commitments to the hilt. King is the record FNM had to make. Focused, tender, crushing and emotionally straining. From the instant gems 'Ricochet' and 'Caralho Voador'[??] to the underlying humour of 'Take This Bottle' and pounding 'Ugly in the Morning', King is assured to land FNM back on their feet. Apart from front-man Mike Patton's annoying tantrum-shrieks, the band has rounded off the edges of extremity that made them a household name with 'Epic'. Well-executed and long-winded leaves the listener a hearty chunk to chew on, but the ensuing digestion is assured to please the palate.

SPUTNIK Music | Meatplow | 2007 | 4 out of 5

In short King For A Day... Fool For A Lifetime is an excellent album. It is by no means perfect, but Faith No More were one of the greatest left field rock acts of the 90's and this album is one of their very best. I would aim this one at the discerning rock/metal fan wanting to try something different, most of the album leans towards a straight rock/metal sound in comparison to much of their other work but the branching off into other genres along with the blending of sincerity and absurdity make for some strange turns. This is a band that has the ability to open doors musically for people.

ALL MUSIC | Greg Prato | 3.5 out of 5

Long-time Faith No More guitarist Jim Martin split from the band under less-than-amicable circumstances in 1994. Consequently, the group hired Trey Spruance (the guitarist from Mike Patton's other band, Mr. Bungle) to handle six-string duties for 1995's King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime. While it wasn't exactly the mind-bending masterpiece that 1992's Angel Dust was, it was easily their most musically straightforward album and was another challenging, exceptional release. As on Angel Dust, Patton truly shines on vocals, as he tackles any genre put in front of him -- romantic love songs (the soulful smooth funk of "Evidence"), bile-spitting rants of hate ("The Gentle Art of Making Enemies"), cacophonous freak-outs ("Ugly in the Morning"), gospel (the light-hearted album closer, "Just a Man"), and breezy pop ("Caralho Voador"). But there was also plenty of FNM's signature heavy sound to go around -- the furious opener "Get Out," "Ricochet," "Cuckoo for Caca," "Digging the Grave," "The Last to Know," and the almost progressive title track. While Spruance did a masterful job of filling in the shoes of an integral founding member, he abruptly split from the band himself on the eve of the album's ensuing worldwide tour (replaced by roadie Dean Mentia). King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime remains one of Faith No More's underrated releases.

ULTIMATE GUITAR | Monster Of Rock | 2008 | 9.5 out of 10

Overall, this album finds a nice middle ground between "Angel Dust" and "Album of the Year". Although it could never live up to the intensity of "Angel Dust", this album is a lot more approachable and doesn't disappoint. If this was to be looked upon as the usual rock album, it would sound disastrous. But the experimental talent of Faith No More has shown us over the years about how risky and unique an album can afford to be and still have the intensity. This was the Faith No More album that has gotten me into their music, and from a musician point of view, this album (along with other FNM albums) goes to prove how a band can synchronise and synthesise awesome and unique music. If my copy was stolen, I would happily purchase another one, because FNM is something no one should miss. Thanks for reading.

LIVEWIRE | May 1995

Resembling no other fantastical FNM opus, King For A Day is nevertheless a return of sorts to conventionally instrumentalised rock songs, back to (oxymoronic) prog-funk basics, chugging guitars, manic grooves, melody-pegging keys, swirling and thrashing smartly beneath a suave, unsettled and stellar Mike Patton performance. And suave is definitely the set-up on such smarmy, r&b-tinged complex-ballads as "Take This Bottle", "Just A Man" and the melancholic title track, songs that are easy to love, that drinkability carrying into the itchy, perky, bombastic rock numbers too, solidifying a record with an intellectual but toned-down character, peaceable agitation, busy buzz on neurotic simmer. The crazy professors have hatched an enigmatic one here, in remission from the insanity of ANGEL DUST, rediscovering THE REAL THING, but sawing off the edges to load up the layers, a kind of world-weary loungy maturity when mellow and introspective, which is nearly half the record. And when heavy, the band moshes on pins and needles, churning out the decibels only inches from Anthrax, finding punk-funk that manifests itself as sturdy face-flung-forward songs. Executive summary: artists off-the-rails harnessing the mania for something altogether rational.

SPIN Magazine | Jonathan Gold | May 1995 | 6 out of 10

 What seems like several thousand years ago, before Lolla-palooza, in the days when Kurt Cobain was probably still working out Kiss songs on his guitar, Faith No More was the king of "alternative" rock. It was SPIN's Artist of the Year toward the end of the paleolithic age, a genre-busting post-punk art-rock band whose music veered abruptly between Rush, Metallica, and Devo. And though its hit "Epic" may sound tame after a few years of Beck and the 69 Boyz, at the time, it may have been the rawest single to break into Billboard's top five.
But its last album, Angel Dust, kind of tanked, and its last hit, a rather too faithful rendition of the Commodores' "Easy," nudged the group over to a cramped corner of VH-1-land. On King For A Day, though, the band reinvents itself with a deftness last seen when the Red Hot Chili Peppers signed on producer Rick Rubin and learned to write a hook. Faith No More let go lemuresque guitarist Jim Martin and temporarily picked up Trey Spruance from singer Mike Patton's side project, Mr. Bungle. It abandoned long-time producer Matt Wallace in favour of Andy Wallace (who mixed Slayer's Reign In Blood and Nirvana's Nevermind), and the album's sound has the burnished, jackhammer-sheathed-in-a-lubricated-condom presence of Wallace's best work.
Patton has finally abandoned his adenoidal Dickies whine for a more nuanced Jello Biafra-as-Tom Jones thing, which works better than you might think. Though the music still careens from genre to genre as casually as most bands go from chord to chord--there's a song here for every radio format, and you may grow to despise the "Sukiyaki"-flavoured blue-eyed-soul song "Just a Man"--King for a Day is never less than coherent, which is more than you can say for Primus.
On a few songs, Faith No More may be the first band to surgically join the Bay Area speed-metal crunch chords of bands such as Metallica and Testament with the kind of simply pop melodies Mariah Carey might feel comfortable singing. On parts of King for a Day, Faith No More does for speed metal what REO Speedwagon did for the regular kind of metal more than 20 years ago. And I mean that, I guess, as a compliment.



MIKE PATTON | Metal Maniacs | August 1995

"When we made it, we honestly knew it was special because we put so much into it. Whatever makes you do that, whether it's pride or fear or whatever, you have to have something that drives you. You can't just make a record because you're supposed to and you're very satisfied and comfortable with yourself. You gotta keep reaching and digging. This is probably the only one we've done that we've been instantly gratified with, and I also think it's going to last for a while. When you write a certain kind of song, you can feel what it's going to be like live; what it's going to be like sweating and playing it, and that's really the only test we can give a song - if it's going to last two years on the road."

MIKE BORDIN | Metal Maniacs | August 1995

"You know, music is a pretty goddamn self-agonising thing, and that's not something we're comfortable with. We always thought,' Are we being cheesy? Is this too corny? Are we being stupid?' There's self-examination going on. We checked it out and we felt that AD was something to be proud of and we felt that we had more to say. There were a few dark days there, but it sort of puts you in an extra gear that you didn't even know you had. You feel you're doing it for all the marbles. It changed our focus and I don't mean to say we weren't serious before, but when there's that danger, you really kick it up a notch. Replacing a guitar player, we knew we had something to prove but we knew we could do it. Working with a new producer, moving up to Woodstock for three months, all those things conspired to give us a tremendously sharp focus and I can smell it on this record, where there's not a lot of waste. There's not a lot of extra layers of anything, and that's what we wanted, for it to be quite lean and nasty."

RODDY BOTTUM | Jai Kim Interview | 1994

 "I think the initial impulse in making this record was to kinda keep things a little more stripped down this time around and keep things simpler. 'Cause I think at this point in our lives simpler seems to say a lot more to us than complex does. So we try to keep things to a minimum and try not to be so indulgent in what we were doing. We're keeping in check where to stop adding things to the sound that we were making. I think a lot of that was taking part in the song writing process. So we wrote songs for maybe six months and wrote more songs than we'd ever written for any other record. I think going into the studio we had 20 songs.We also wanted to do something new as far as producers. We'd always use the same producer on all of our previous recordings, Matt Wallace. And we wanted to try someone new - we had a new guitar player, we wanted to try something new, something with a new sound, just someone who would give us different soundscapes, some place to go. So we tried this guy Andy (Wallace, no relation to Matt) and recorded in this studio in upstate New York that he was really crazy about, Bearsville it was called. And we went there, we just got back from there, we were there for five weeks in Bearsville, kinda isolated ourselves up in the woods and made the record up there which was a lot different for us, and mixed the record over the past month in New York City. And that whole process was really different for us too. So hopefully I think this record and the process of making this record... it was a lot different from any other record we've made. And it sounds different, to me."

TREY SPRUANCE | Jai Kim Interview | 1994

"Sometimes you end up living with something - for a long time - that not everybody is entirely excited about that suddenly somebody will have an idea where to take it to. We sat on some of them for a while in various states of completion before we actually were gonna record them. So they really evolved more than having like a whole lot of conscious application thrown on top of them."

 MIKE BORDIN | Jai Kim Interview | 1994

"We feel that it's the best album we've ever made, and we're fuckin' thrilled. 'Angel Dust' was us trying to tell people that we really were a band that did different things rather than just whatever people expected us to be - a pop band or whatever. It was a reaction against a lot of people saying that Mike Patton was a fuckin' teeny-bopper and we were a pop band, and that was not true. It was like, "No, it's not like that."And this album I think is somewhere in between. There's heavy stuff, but there's also a lot of melodic stuff, which is important. But I appreciate that - I mean, we put a lot of fuckin' work into this record, no joke. We're a band that jokes around and has fun and doesn't take ourselves too seriously at all, but we fuckin' took this record super-seriously because we said to ourselves, "If this is gonna be the last record we ever make..." When we changed guitar players, we only did it for one reason: We knew that we owed it to ourselves to be as good as we thought we could be, and... there's not many regrets on this record. Everybody's pretty fuckin' proud of it."

MIKE PATTON | CMJ Monthly | April 1995

"Revenge is good, I think revenge is healthy too, and if you can use music in that way, a sort of therapeutic way for yourself, it can't do any harm. So if King is angry in any way, it's angry in a random, chaotic, healthy way. Like the guy who goes into a building, shoots a bunch of holes in the wall and then leaves. He didn't kill anybody."

BILL GOULD | Live Wire | 1995

"The new album was a catharsis for us. We made a record that was very liberating. I think we really learned how to use our power as a unit. I mean, I have a total submarine view of it, but I see it as more of a release type thing. There is a great amount of stress being let off in this album."

MIKE PATTON | M.E.A.T Magazine | May 1995

"We didn't really have any concept or idea, we don't know what it is we do, we just know how to do it. It would be pointless for us to sit down and have a career discussion on what we should sound like or where we should take this next record. It's kind of like if we're feeling it it's going to come out a certain way. Yet we all knew that we wanted to make a record with short, concise statements--three minute songs and that's just it. To analyse it or come up with a plan or philosophy would kind of kill it for us." - Patton meat
It comes from necessity. I think we'd feel trapped if we kept doing the same thing over and over. We wouldn't be able to do it. We get bored easily. We're a rock band; we tour for a long time and the only bone that we can throw ourselves when we're in the cage is interesting songs."

RODDY BOTTUM | VAJ Magazine | 1995

"I think that sounds have gotten a lot more simple, the songs are a little bit more simple, however I'd like to think they may be I know that "Angel Dust" was very chaotic, there was a lot going on there...and we weren't absolutely positive where we were. Maybe "King For A Day" is about us getting older. I know I've heard that some question posed to other members and I absolutely disagree, like no way. This has got to be the heaviest ever made."

MIKE BORDIN | Select Magazine | March 1995

 "The new record is like being hit with a fucking fist, with one finger sticking out. This is the best record we've ever done. But it doesn't just come out of your butt on a plate. The songs, the performance, the recording process, the tones, the mix, the mastering. It's a whole bunch of shit that makes a good album."


On Guitarists.


"We wanted to try other people first and we did. I had my doubts as to whether it would be a happy marriage anyway. Musically he's (Spruance) really an adept musician, but there are a lot of other things that are part of what we do that aren't easy, like touring for two years. It's a hard concept to really grasp. We're glad that he didn't have to grasp it because he probably couldn't handle it. At the last minute he realized this and we all sighed in relief."

"Trey came in kind of half-way through when a lot of the songs were already written, some of the stuff he helped with writing as a lot were gearing towards guitar. It was nice to have a guitarist who could play and had some input. It was like being reborn."

"I'm still kinda scared, because it makes you question everything. The ground under your feet is stolen by a bunch of guys that you don't really know. It's frightening, and you have to reassemble the world and rebuild yourself. So I'm kinda on my way back to the world."


 "I was actually against it. You don't wanna be too much with someone. It gets a little incestuous. It was like we'd been married for a few years and now we could go and fuck our brains out and play with some other people. It was like being reborn. It was liberating. I'd had some bad water under the bridge with him and I didn't wanna be in another aggravating situation. But you do what's best for the music."


"When it became obvious that we were going to have a new guitarist, it was exciting because we started writing stuff with guitar in mind, which was completely new to us. We thought it would be wise at this point to change producers and try something new."

"When [Trey] came into this, Patton said, 'I don't want him in the band. Everybody thinks, 'O he got his guy in the band.' He was the dissenting vote. He said, 'I know him, he's a great guitarist, but he's undependable...We don't work like Bungle where it's: we work when we can or when we feel like it. We commit; we're committed all the way up to Christmas.' When Trey proved Patton right, I told [Trey], 'I'm glad you're telling me now because I would kill you if you dropped out of this while we were on the road. It's too bad because you helped us get the guitar that we wanted, and I enjoyed that."

"Dean's a great guy. He's part of our family. Why didn't we try him before? He was pretty close; he lives with Billy and we didn't think about him. All the while he was on tour with FNM, He was watching us saying, 'Goddamn, I could do that better.' It's so funny because I thought, what's the matter with Dean? He's obviously not being part of the crew. I asked him one day and he said, 'I told Roddy I don't really want to be a tech guy; I'm a musician. I like you guys a lot and it's very frustrating for me to see something that I think I could do better.' Shortly thereafter, we started playing together at sound-checks because we didn't have a guitarist there a bunch of times, and Dean played great. It's a comfortable fit".

"Yeah, it was really obvious. The point when we came back and we knew that he was an option it seemed too obvious and it was the easiest way to go. You know, I mean - there's Trey, he's a great guitar player, Mike knows him, and I played with him and knew he would work - and it seemed so obvious and so easy that I think it just made more sense for us to try out a couple different options before we settled for the most obvious choice. So we did. We played with a lot of different guitar players, trying different things. And a lot of them were really great. But when it came right down to it I think Trey had the most diversity."

"Compositionally, yeah. He has a really good ear for writing stuff, he has a really good ear for what sounds great, he understands keyboards really well, the bounds between keyboards and guitars, and he's really diverse. We've never been wanting to limit ourselves to one particular kind of music or one particular anything. And it was clear from the start that Trey was the same way. He can do anything, from classical to whatever. Not that we're trying to imitate any genre, but he just has a lot of diversity that way. So when we played with him it was just really apparent that that's what sounded the best."




On Andy Wallace.


"We haven't spent that much time hearing Andy Wallace out about Nirvana sessions. To be honest, I am not very much fascinated by other artists. I'm still around because I can see the humour of drugs. The silliness of it all."

"He's a dry sort of guy and not having too much of a personality that he was forcing on the band or a certain trademark stamp that he could slap on us was nice. With our last producer (the unrelated Matt Wallace), there wasn't a whole lot of professional respect. We were more like friends, so if we would make a suggestion or he would make a suggestion, we'd both tell each other to fuck off. For this, there was a little bit of distance, so he was easier to work with."


"Andy Wallace is a bit of a shiny type of producer; there's always that sheen on the top end, whether it's a Slayer record and the ride cymbal, or the Nirvana record with the guitar, he definitely does that. The drum sounds are very clean, very direct, very unaffected. It was recorded in a huge room, a big cathedral room, in the mountains, in the woods; it was beautiful. It was a very super-live room."

"Because of Andy being such a perfectionist, we kept a lot of stuff that was recorded simultaneously, but he always went over it, with guitar and fine-tuned it, and did specific sounds because we had that room and the drums were in that room. So naturally, to record a lot of guitar in there,... Put it this way, the drums were feeding back through the guitar pickups while we tracking the drums. Quite a bit of the vocals were scratch vocals; he was singing along with me. Quite a bit, a lot of the vocals. And that was great. Definitely.But honestly, the guy's a real specific guy... fuck, he's a scientist. And he wanted to make sure that all the sounds were there that he wanted to be there, so he redid a lot of stuff, too."


"I think that shedding some skin was the predominant theme. Like we got rid of our guitar player, Jim Martin. That was a relief for everybody. It was coming for a long time and that felt good. And we used a new producer to get a new set of ears. He's worked with Slayer, Sonic Youth, and Nirvana, and we knew what we wanted from him - a simpler, more acoustic, more punctuated sound than we'd had in the past. The most important thing was that he was really a dry fellow. Dry as a fucking bone. That really helped." 


The Artwork



  1. Wow you guys certainly put in a lot of effort! Thanks

  2. Thanks for this I really enjoyed the blog! I've been thinking about picking up guitar lessons


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