The Real Thing (Faith No More album)

Production

The writing for the majority of the music for The Real Thing took place after the tour for Introduce Yourself. An early version of "The Morning After", with alternate lyrics written and sung by Chuck Mosley, was released under the moniker, "New Improved Song" on March 12th, 1989. The track appeared on the Sounds·Waves 2 EP included with Sounds magazine issue 1574.^[2] "Surprise! You're Dead!" was composed by Jim Martin^[3] in the 1970s, while he was guitarist for Agents of Misfortune, which also featured Cliff Burton in their line up.^[4] The recording of the song took place in December 1988 after Chuck Mosley was fired from the band, and was completed prior to the hiring of Mike Patton, who then wrote all the lyrics for the songs, and recorded them the following month over the music.^[5]

Producer Matt Wallace said that Patton wrote the lyrics over a 10 to 12 day period; this is considered an impressive feat considering Patton was only 19-20 years old, and "pulled it out of thin air". The only input from Wallace came during a few days spent at a San Francisco coffee shop, where he advised Patton to incorporate more metaphors to soften some of the darker, heavier lyrical themes.^[6] Among the darker lyrics on the album are "The Morning After", "Surprise! You're Dead" and "Underwater Love". In 1995, British music publication Q described all three of these songs as lyrically revolving around murder.^[7] "Underwater Love" has upbeat music which contrasts the apparent lyrical matter.^[7]

The recording sessions yielded several songs that did not appear on the album. Two of them, "Cowboy Song" and "The Grade" originally appeared in October 1989 on the B-side of the "From Out Of Nowhere" 12" single.^[8] Both songs were later included as bonus tracks on CD editions of Live at the Brixton Academy.^[9] A third song, "Sweet Emotion" was released on Flexible Fiend 3, which was included with the September 1989 issue of Kerrang! magazine (issue 258).^[10] The track was later re-recorded with new lyrics as "The Perfect Crime". The new veraion was released on the soundtrack to the film, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, which also featured a cameo appearance from guitarist Jim Martin The original version waa later remastered for inclusion on the 2009 greatest hits compilation, 'The Very Best Definitive Ultimate Greatest Hits Collection, that was released to coincide with the band's reunion tour.^[11]

Tours

The tour in support of The Real Thing was the first Faith No More tour conducted with Mike Patton. The band had begun to be marketed as metal by the media after the album's release, and they were now primarily playing with other bands from the heavy metal genre.^[12][13] Notable artists Faith No More performed with during the touring cycle include Metallica, Billy Idol, Soundgarden, Voivod, Sacred Reich, Forbidden, Primus, Babes in Toyland and Poison.^[14] They managed to attract controversy for mocking the party/sex-filled lifestyles of glam metal tourmates such as Poison at several shows in Europe during 1990.^[15][16] At a 1990 Monsters of Rock show in Italy, Patton asked the crowd "which member of Poison can suck his own dick?", and also made fun of Aerosmith, saying to the crowd "out of all the bands today, who do you think does the most drugs? I think it's Aerosmith."^[17] Ironically, Faith No More would later cover parts of Aerosmith's song "Walk This Way" on their subsequent Angel Dust tour, and were originally scheduled to go on a European tour with them in 1998, which was cancelled due to Faith No More's split that year.^[18]

In 1989, the second show of the tour was filmed for the music video to "From out of Nowhere" in the I-Beam nightclub. During the show, Patton had a beer bottle smashed over his right hand, causing lacerations to some tendons.^[19] He regained use of his hand after it healed, but he no longer has feeling in it.^[20] The band's August, 28 1990 concert at Burgherrenhalle in Kaiserslautern, Germany is notable for featuring the only ever performance of the song "Faster Disco" with Patton on vocals. The concert also featured several other Chuck Mosley-era songs which have almost never been performed live with Patton, including "Blood", "Greed" and "The Jungle".^[21] At that time, the band's first independent album We Care a Lot was not in circulation. "As the Worm Turns" and "Why Do You Bother" were the only songs from the album to be regularly worked into the band's setlists on the tour (aside from the title track, which was re-recorded for their major label debut Introduce Yourself). Regarding the decision to still perform material from We Care a Lot, Gould said to Metal Hammer in May 1990 that, "we'd feel weird cutting that part of ourselves off. We'd be ignoring a root of the tree, if you will."^[22]

During the tour, they covered parts of the Milli Vanilli songs "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You" and "Baby Don't Forget My Number".^[23][24] Faith No More had earlier met Milli Vanilli at the album launch party for The Real Thing in mid-1989. Faith No More greeted Milli Vanilli at the launch party and told them that they were fans, but Milli Vanilli were unaware of who Faith No More were at that time.^[25] Other songs that Faith No More covered snippets from during the tour include "Buffalo Stance" by Neneh Cherry, "Bust a Move" by Young MC, "Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House, "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" by Elton John, "Get Up! (Before the Night Is Over)" by Technotronic, "Fever" by Peggy Lee, "Für Elise" by Ludwig van Beethoven, "If You Don't Know Me by Now" by Simply Red, "It Takes Two" by Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock, "Let Love Rule" by Lenny Kravitz, "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen, "Macho Man" by The Village People, "Oh Yeah" by Yello, "Paradise" by Sade, "Philadelphia Freedom" by Elton John, "Pump up the Jam" by Technotronic, "Pump up the Volume" by M|A|R|R|S, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" by U2, "Turtle Power!" by Partners in Kryme, "Unskinny Bop" by Poison, "Vogue" by Madonna, "Y.M.C.A." by The Village People, "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" by The New Kids on the Block and the theme from the film Love Story by Francis Lai.^{[26][27][28][29]} They covered a snippet of "Carnaval in Rio" by Heino, but changed the lyrics to "Carnaval in Cologne" when playing it in Cologne, Germany, and to "Carnaval in Munich" when playing it in Munich, Germany.^[29][30] They also covered a song from a German candy commercial, which was by confectionery company Haribo, as well as a song called "Sweet Dreams" from a Nestlé commercial, with the band continuing to cover these two songs on the tour for Angel Dust.^[28][31] For outro music at their shows, the band once used "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong, while for intro music they frequently used Toto's Dune soundtrack song "Big Battle"^[32][33]

Touring in support of the album lasted from 1989 to mid-1991. Due to their small catalog at the time, the band eventually grew tired of playing songs from The Real Thing towards the end of the tour. This has been cited as one of the reasons for their change in sound on their next album, Angel Dust.^[34]

Singles

The first single to be released from the album was "From Out of Nowhere" on August 30, 1989, which failed to make the UK Singles Chart. It was re-released on April 2, 1990, and made number twenty-three on the UK Singles Chart.^[35] In between these releases was "Epic" on January 30, 1990, the music video for which received extensive airplay on MTV throughout the year, despite provoking anger from animal rights activists for a slow motion shot of a fish flopping out of water.^[36][37] "Falling to Pieces" then saw release on July 2, 1990, and made it to number 92 on the Billboard Hot 100 before the reissue of "Epic", which became the band's first number one hit single, on the ARIA Charts,^[38] as well their only top ten single on the Billboard Hot 100, where it reached ninth position.^[39]

"Surprise! You're Dead!" had a music video produced for it, directed by bassist Billy Gould, featuring footage shot in Chile during a South American tour in 1991. However, the song never saw release as an official single, and the video was not released until its appearance on Video Croissant. "Edge of the World" saw limited release as a two track promo single in Brazil on CD and 12" vinyl, with the album version as track one and the Brixton Academy live version as the second track, in a yellow slipcase with basic black text.

Cover versions

• "From Out of Nowhere" has been covered by Canadian new wave/electronic rock band The Birthday Massacre on their 2016 compilation album Imagica, Finnish band Apocalyptica on their second album, Inquisition Symphony (1998), German power metal band Helloween covered the song on their 1999 cover album Metal Jukebox and the Danish metal band, Raunchy covered the song on their 2007 album Velvet Noise Extended. It has also been covered by the band Five Finger Death Punch, and is featured on the UK version of their album The Way of the Fist as well as the soundtrack for The Avengers.
• "The Real Thing" was covered by American progressive metal band Redemption on the 2005 album The Fullness of Time as a bonus track.
• "Epic" has been covered both in concerts and in studio recordings. A cover was included on the 2007 Kerrang! Higher Voltage CD, a compilation of artists covering other songs, with Welsh rock band The Automatic covering the song for the album.^[71] The metalcore band Atreyu also covered the song on their album Lead Sails Paper Anchor, and the Swedish indie band Love Is All covered it on their 2008 tour.^[72] Sugar Ray has also covered the song live.^[73] In early 2023, The Lucid along with Violent J (Insane Clown Posse) re-imagined the song with re-written lyrics and vocal melodies retitling it "Sweet Toof".
• "Surprise! You're Dead!" has been covered by Jim Martin following his departure from the band, on his 1997 solo release Milk and Blood, and by Humans Being for the 2002 Tribute of the Year album.^[74] It was also covered by Belgian death metal band Aborted on their 2007 album Slaughter & Apparatus: A Methodical Overture, by American technical death metal band Revocation as a bonus track on their 2011 album Chaos of Forms, and by American deathcore band All Shall Perish as a bonus track on their 2011 album This Is Where It Ends.
• "Zombie Eaters" was covered by Ill Niño with Chino Moreno for their 2006 extended play The Under Cover Sessions.^[75]
• "Edge of the World" is covered twice on the Tribute of the Year album by both Hate Dept. and Combine Heathen.^[74]
• "Falling to Pieces" was covered in 2014 by music collective Twinkle Twinkle Little Rock Star, as part of an album of lullaby covers for Faith No More.^[76] Other songs from The Real Thing which were covered on the album include "From out of Nowhere" and "Epic". Alien Ant Farm's song "Rubber Mallet", from their 2003 album Truant, incorporates the line "indecision breaks my vision", which has been cited as a reference to a lyric from "Falling to Pieces".^[77][78]