In the early 1990s, Faith No More opened for Guns N’ Roses (and stadium co-headliners Metallica) during GNR’s Use Your Illusion tour. It’s widely regarded as one of the most controversial tours in rock and metal history, and during a recent interview, co-founding keyboardist Roddy Bottum dove into why the tour was “offensive” and a “turning point” for him.
What Bottum Said About the Tour
Bottum recently appeared on YouTube channel Birthday Cake For Breakfast’s 60 Minutes or less podcast – uploaded on Dec. 16, 2025 – to discuss a wide range of topics (including his memoir, 2025’s The Royal We).
Eventually, the conversation turned to the Use Your Illusion tour (which featured verbal and physical assaults, rioting, ranting, on-stage debauchery, property damage and numerous arrests).
Host Andy Hughes asked Bottum (who’s openly gay) how he felt touring with Guns N’ Roses since there was allegedly “a lot of misogyny abound” and because “apparently, they’d just put out a tune that had homophobia and racism in it [‘One in a Million’].”
Bottum responded:
I think it was a challenge, but honestly, only for me. It was very much the rock and roll norm at that point. Misogyny, male aggression [and] toxic masculinity was all just part of the equation at that time. Everyone was on board for it. I don’t know anyone who wasn’t, honestly. . . . [Most of Faith No More] were leftist-leaning, progressive, weird and . . . liberal-minded. Billy [Gould, bass], Mike [Bordin, drums] and Mike [Patton, vocals]. We were all like, “Oh, my god.” Kinda blown away by the audacity of that environment. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing.
But we were very much alone in that mindset. Everyone on that tour – the Guns N’ Roses people, the crew, the Metallica people, their crew, Jim [Martin] [and] probably a lot of our crew – were down with the hedonism. They were okay with it, and it was just an era in which people got on board. Me, being the gay man, was sort of like – I grew up with three sisters, you know, basically. That was just, like, offensive and wild and “What the fuck?” to me more than anyone else, for sure.
Bottum then referenced something he says in The Royal We:
Seeing the potential association of us as a band – and me in that band – being sort of regarded as that was, like, “No, no, no, no, no.” Up to that point, I hadn’t really been open about my sexuality in the press, so it kind of did stir me onto making that declaration in the press and talking about being gay.
He also mentioned finding some artwork included in 1987’s Appetite of Destruction (involving an underage schoolgirl) distasteful before discussing more about the isolation he felt during the tour.
“There was definitely solitude in sort of my perspective and who I was, like being the gay person,” he began, adding:
For sure, in that camp, in that world, in that rock and roll circus, there were no gay people. No way. Like, I was the only one for certain, and in that way, certainly so much alone. I didn’t do that interview [in which he came out] until the end of that tour, when something comes up in that circus that I see and it’s like, “Oh, my god.” It’s kind of like the turning point for me.
You can watch the full interview below.
Roddy Bottum Discusses “Offensive” Faith No More Tour With GNR (Dec. 15, 2026)
READ MORE: ‘You Saved My Life’ – Faith No More’s Mike Bordin Recalls Encouraging First Meeting With Ozzy Osbourne
More About the Use Your Illusion Tour
As Loudwire previously wrote, Guns N’ Roses tour for 1991’s Use Your Illusion lasted about two-and-a-half years (from January of 1991 to July of 1993), culminating in “194 shows in 27 countries” and “one of the longest treks in rock history.”
Obviously, it wasn’t all sunshine and, well, roses, though, since the lengthy and combative endeavor saw vocalist Axl Rose repeatedly arriving late to venues and engaging in “onstage tantrums.” In fact, he “stormed offstage and cut shows short several times, in some instances causing audiences to riot and rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage.”
Beyond that, multiple members were dealing with multiple kinds of addiction, and guitarist Izzy Stradlin quit the band in 1991 “after getting sober and realizing he could no longer stomach their hedonistic lifestyle and the glacial pace at which they got things done.”
In terms of specific events, there are almost too many tumulteous ones to count.
For instance, Rose broke his foot at a warm-up gig at the Ritz in New York on May 16, 1991, and about a month later, he challenged a fan to fight during a performance in Philadelphia. Then, in July of 1991, the notorious Riverport riot in St. Louis occurred, and on Aug. 31, Stradlin played his final show with GNR.
Cut to April of 1992 and Rose went on a rant about a Rolling Stone cover story in Chicago. Then, in July, he was arrested for the St. Louis riot and – about two weeks later – he stormed offstage because someone hit him in the groin with a lighter during “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” There was another riot (in Montreal) the next month, and at some point during the summer, Patton urinated on Rose’s teleprompter.
If all that weren’t enough, GNR guitarist Slash died for eight minutes in a San Francisco hotel room in September of 1992. The same month, Rose and Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain had beef at the MTV Video Music Awards, and at the end of November, a “failed military coup that ultimately claimed more than 170 casualties” left the band stranded in Venezuela.
Those are just a few of the many things that made the Use Your Illusion tour so infamous.
10 Rock + Metal Tours From 1992 We Wish We Could See Now
Capping off the 20th century with some remarkable concerts.
