Writing Process
The writing for Angel Dust took up most of 1991 with large portion of the songs being written by either Billy Gould, Roddy Bottum, Mike Bordin, and for the first time, Mike Patton. Regarding this Patton said:
| “ | There had never been any question of my staying in the band. We started writing the music for this album, and being part of something so fundamental was what made sure of it for me. The Real Thing had been like someone else's, someone else's band, it had felt like an obligatory thing. They hadn't needed a damn singer, it was just that they had to have a singer. That's why I was there, that's why Chuck was there, we weren't needed there. | ” |
Some attributed this to its sonic difference with its predecessors, however, Mike Patton credits it to being "better at playing what hear in heads" and went on to say that "before, we used to kinda cheat around, and play around what it was. We could never translate it into the band, and we're getting better at doing that. Like, we wanted to do a real lazy, sappy kinda ballad, so we covered the theme from Midnight Cowboy! And there's even a song that sounds like The Carpenters! In a trend that started when then-vocalist Chuck Mosley lived in Los Angeles while the rest of the band resided in the Bay Area, the band would record demo tapes of the songs and exchange them between each other in Los Angeles before sending send them to Jim Martin so that he could work on his guitar arrangements after which he would send them back for approval.
The lyrics for Angel Dust were written for the most part by vocalist Mike Patton. He got his inspiration for the lyrics from many different places such as questions from the Oxford Capacity Analysis, fortune cookies and late-night television. After engaging in a sleep deprivation experiment, he wrote "Land of Sunshine" and "Caffeine": "I drove around a lot in my Honda, drove to a real bad area of town, parked and just watched people. Coffee shops and white-trash diner-type places were great for inspiration."
Songs with lyrics written by someone other than Patton include "Be Aggressive" by Roddy Bottum (about oral sexuality); "Everything's Ruined", which was written by Mike Patton and Billy Gould; "Kindergarten" by Mike Patton and Roddy Bottum; and "Jizzlobber", by Jim Martin and Mike Patton which, according to Patton is about his fear of going to jail. Bill Gould, in response to a question by a fan, suggests that the song is about a porn star.
Read more about this topic: Angel Dust (Faith No More album)
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