Mike Patton Explains Issues Behind Faith No More’s Cancelled 2021 Tour
Mike Patton has given a new interview to Rolling Stone in which he explains the mental health struggles that led to the cancellation of last year’s Faith No More tour.
Patton opened up about his recent troubles, “It’s still going on — but it’s better. [Pauses]. It’s easy to blame it on the pandemic. But I’ll be honest, man: At the beginning of the pandemic, I was like, ‘This is fucking great. I can stay home and record.’ I’ve got a home studio. So I was like, “Yeah, what’s the big deal?” And then something clicked, and I became completely isolated and almost antisocial [and] afraid of people.
That sort of anxiety, or whatever you want to call it, led to other issues, which I choose not to discuss. But I got some professionals helping me, and now I’m feeling better and getting closer to diving back in. Towards the end of the year, I’ll be doing my first shows in, like, two years, which is the longest time since I started doing this, that I’ve been out of the game.”
Asked to elaborate on his issues, Patton went on, ” I saw some therapists and all that stuff, which is the first time I ever had to do that in my life. And they basically diagnosed me as having agoraphobia; like, I was afraid of people. I got freaked out by being around people. And maybe that was because I spent two years basically indoors during Covid. I don’t know. Maybe it reinforced feelings that I already had. But just knowing about it, talking about it, really helped. And we’ll see how it goes in December.”
Patton continued, discussing the point where he realised that his issues would affect Faith No More’s tour, “Right around the time that Faith No More was about to go back on the road. That’s when I kind of lost it, and it was ugly and not cool. A few days before we were supposed to go on the road. I told the guys, ‘Hey man, I don’t think I can do it.’ Somehow my confidence was broken down. I didn’t want to be in front of people, which is weird because I spent half of my life doing that.
“It was very hard to explain. And there were some broken feelings on both sides about it, but it’s what I had to do. Because otherwise something really bad could have happened.”
Asked where things stand with Faith No More now, Patton was non-committal, ” I don’t know. We may reschedule stuff; we may not. I’ll just leave it at that. It’s a little confusing and complicated. So if we do, we do. If we don’t, that’s cool, too.”