October 28, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode of the "Takin a Walk" Music History podcast, host Buzz Knight talks with musician and author Roddy Bottom, known for Faith No More and Imperial Teen. Roddy discusses his creative process, the writing of his memoir "The Royal We," and his journey as a queer artist in the music industry. He reflects on his musical evolution, current projects, and the importance of authenticity and persistence for independent musicians. The episode offers candid insights into Roddy’s influences, challenges, and advice for artists navigating today’s changing music landscape.
Support the show: https://takinawalk.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a walk, And I remember at one point like
I didn't know how to set up that keyboard stand
because I had never set it up. I was like, Oh,
I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not having to set
my keyboard up on the stage. I don't even know
how to set that keyboard stand up. I was like,
oh my god. I had to check myself, like, oh
(00:20):
my god, I'm very entitled right now.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Take a stroll down memory Lane today on Buzznight, Taking
a walk steps into the vivid, untamed world of Roddy Bottom.
From the keys that drove faith No Moore's Unclassifiable sound
to the shimmering pop of Imperial Teen, Roddy's journey through
music mirrors his fearless journey through life. Now, with his
(00:46):
new memoir The Royal Wee, Roddy cracks open the vault,
offering stories of nineteen eighties San Francisco wild nights with
punk and all legends, and the raw honesty of coming
out when it meant risking everything. What secrets does Roddy
Bottom's walk reveal? And how does retracing these steps rewrite
(01:06):
his own soundtrack? Well, I ask you to lace up
this stroll, promises revelations, laughter, and a backstage pass to
decades of reinvention, resilience and unbelievable storytelling. Coming up after
these words.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, welcome Roddy to the Taken a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Thank you, buzz. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
So I like to ask this opening question, Roddy. It's
a little bit of an icebreaker question, but it also
gets answered in all different ways by everybody. If you
could take a walk with someone, living or dead, who
would you take a walk with? Then? Where would you
take that walk with him? Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Wow, that's a good one. I really like I just
finished that second Ocean book. I've seen him speak a
little bit, and he seems like a really nice time.
I'd like to take a walk with him. He lives
in Massachusetts, so I would like to take a walk
with him up on the cape around Provincetown, like in
(02:14):
the not in the like busy part of Provincetown, but
like there's some lakes, some ponds in Provincetown that are
really pretty. I think that would be apt for a
nice conversation for me in Ocean. I was in Massachusetts
last week. I did my first sort of reading for
this book. And I went to met meet my niece
in a cafe and I got there early and Oceanbohm
(02:38):
was there in the cafe. I recognized him. He was
sitting and reading, and so I feel we're kind of
like connected.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
That's pretty cool. You didn't stop by to visit me
in the Metro West suburbs of Boston. I'm so disappointed, Ronnie.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It wasn't Boston. We were in Northampton in western mass.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
All Right, I'm teasing you. That's far. It's an hour
and a half, two hours away. But yeah, it's a
way we felt your royal WE presence, Roddy. Yes, congratulations
on the royal We thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Buzz.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Tell me how long of a process was this for
you to create this work?
Speaker 1 (03:27):
You know, that's a good question. I kind of like
I talked about in an early draft of the book,
that sort of I always consider myself from an early
age to be a writer, but I'd never written anything,
and I never really did write anything. And I was
getting on to be like almost sixty years old, and
I was like, yeah, I'm a writer, but I've never
written like I write like cute texts two people, and
(03:49):
I write pretty good email up to that point. And
I had a conversation with my friend JD and she
was like, well, do you do your morning pages? And
I was like, what is that? And as I said it,
I knew exactly what she meant. Morning pages can only
mean one thing. It means getting up in the morning
and writing. That's part of that book the Artist's Way,
(04:10):
and everybody a lot of people use that sort of process.
But she sort of brought that to my attention and
I was like, Wow, I have a lot to say
and I should really start writing it down, write about now.
So I started. That was like about a year and
a half ago. I started waking up in the morning
and I would just write for an hour every day.
And I didn't really have a design to sort of
(04:31):
writing a book, but it became a book. I kind
of started writing all the stories that have happened to
me in my life, and there's a lot of them
that I find myself repeating, and so I know those
stories really well and it was kind of easy to
just sort of like flesh them out in the mornings.
But I think I wrote probably for close to a year,
(04:55):
and I had a pretty big, sort of semblance of
a book. A memoir of my life at that point.
So I guess it kind of took a year to
sort of like get everything down, and then it took
another six months, I think, to edit stuff out.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
And how difficult was the editing? That must be painstaking
for someone who has poured themselves into it and has
taken people through, you know, your life, So how difficult
in painstaking is the editing?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
You know, you'd think that edit would be rough, and
I hear people like toil over it and talk about
what a process it is and how difficult it is.
But honestly, like my whole life, I think spent the
craft that I've sort of like spent time with music especially,
but writing also now has always sort of benefited from
(05:46):
sort of like stripping things away. I'm in a band
right now called Crickets, and our whole process is to record,
to make songs, and then strip things away from those
songs and have just the bare bones and then necessary
elements that we find work alone. And it's a really
beautiful process that sort of has sort of like pushed
(06:08):
me into other fields like writing especially to sort of
like strip things away and sort of recognize the benefits
of that and I don't know what it is. It's
just I think my intuition is pretty strong. When I
sort of sit down and decide what to cut away,
I'm pretty sure what is sort of like overage and
(06:33):
can be taken away pretty easily. And after it's done,
I feel really refreshed and good, like I've shed something
that doesn't need to be there. And I don't know
it's so for me. The long answer there is like
it was kind of a better experience than a painful one.
I liked stripping things down. I liked getting rid of stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Now had you also thinking of your musical care There's
a few musicians I've noted over time who are fascinated by,
I don't know, reinventing, reimagining, re engineering things. You know,
have you been someone as a musician fixated on reverse
(07:19):
engineering things? Ever?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I don't know. That's a good question. It feels like,
I mean, I think from an outside perspective, looking at
what I've done over the course of my life, it
looks like I've sort of shifted gears quite a bit
and changed costumes quite a bit, and sort of like
h switched things up, and that there's been some sort
of design in which I'm sort of entertaining to do that.
(07:43):
But it's kind of I think, at the bottom of
it all, it's just sort of like I kind of
just do what's comfortable to me, but like I think
it's for myself. I can only speak for myself. As
I got older, sort of my taste changed and what
I like and what I appreciate changed. Like when I
was a kid, like doing faith no more and making
that sort of raucous loud bombardment of cacophony is so
(08:07):
loud and so obnoxious, it just felt right at that age,
you know, at twenty years old, when you're exploring for
the first time and joining a band for the first time.
For me, anyway, it was all about like making the
most noise I could. And I was in a band,
and we were all sort of like competitive in that way.
We'd all make, you know, be as loud as we
could and sort of like who could be the loudest,
(08:28):
who's part could scream the loudest kind of one. And
as I got older, I sort of like, you know,
sort of refined my taste and sort of like maybe
grew up a little bit as I've gotten older, Like
I think me as a person. I've changed, and I
think all the stuff that I've done with regards to
(08:48):
music and writing and you know, production kind of reflects that,
like I think, a maturity. It sounds really boring and
old and kind of like ridiculous, but I think it's
like I'm going to say, yeah, there's a maturity that
set in that sort of like pushed me into different directions.
But at the core of it, I always feel like
(09:10):
I'm being myself. I'm not that different than I was
when I was a kid. I'm just a little quieter maybe,
and a little more thoughtful and sort of like.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
What I do called evolving.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah, evolution buzz, it's that, yeah for sure.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
So what was the first moment you were connected with
music and what music was it that you connected with.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yeah, it's such an awakening when you kind of come
across music. I think I had a piano when I
was a kid, when I was really little, I was
four or five, and I think having that in the
house was a sort of gift to like sort of
a kid that has that sort of taste for like
sort of sound and melody and what the craft of
a song could be. It was a real luxury to
(09:59):
have as a like, to be able to sit at
that piano when I was really young and just like
do whatever I wanted. That was sort of my introduction
to sort of like, oh, I can create things, and
I can make sounds, and I can play something I
think repetitively over and over and oh, that's like a
hook in my little head. I was like, Oh, that
sounds good. Just keep doing it and keep doing it
(10:21):
and then kind of go away from it to do
something else and then come back to that thing that
I was doing over and over and oh, wow, it's
like magic. I remember acknowledging that when I was super young,
like I was five, and then I started taking piano
lessons like around that age when I was six, and
sort of like sunk into the piano in a really
like intense way and did it kind of until like
(10:43):
I graduated from high school, I think, and went to college.
In terms of popular music, though, I was kind of
I think my parents they weren't super hit parents, but
they had. At one point they brought home Bridge over
Troubled Water, the Simon and Garfunkel record, and first that
(11:06):
changed my life. I remember just listening to that over
and over and over and reading the words and holding
the record cover and knowing that these two guys, these
two friends, had made this music that was fascinating to me.
That was kind of the beginning I think of my
obsession with Like Rock.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I guess that's so fascinating thinking about that particular duo
influencing you and then following your career and your trajectory.
I think it's so cool. I'm layering that on top
of the first time. I remember, like a lot of people,
(11:47):
hearing Faith No More and going, wait a minute, what
do I call this? This is so many different things,
like you were describing it earlier, which was the I think,
the magical piece we all became fixated with. Tell me
how you think about it now, do you? I'm not
(12:11):
asking you to contradict yourself from your earlier statements here,
but when you reflect on Faith No More now and
the legacy left, what are your thoughts on it?
Speaker 1 (12:24):
It's a super the Faith No More era for me,
like it started when I was pretty young, like I
was saying earlier, and it remained super special to me.
It was a sort of project in which like Billy
who I grew up with, he was the bass player
of Faith No More. We grew up together, a bunch
of grammar school together, so we were really close, and
(12:47):
we moved to San Francisco at the same time, and
we were on the same sort of journey and it
was a really special time in our lives, like being
twenty years old and moving away from your family or
I mean we were actually I was seventeen, but we
started the bad I think when we were probably eighteen
or nineteen, But that specific age for me was very potent.
(13:08):
It was I was just so sort of like overwhelmingly
like in tune with like what was going on in
San Francisco, which I kind of write about in my book,
was such a special place and it created this fascinating
sort of like combination of the sort of different things.
Like we met the drummer who was sort of like
into like really like busy kind of like African beats
(13:31):
sort of like, and we started playing with a guitar
player later on who was like very immersed in sort
of like big chunk of chunk of hard loud rock.
I was not anything close to that. Billy and I
were really into punk rock and sort of performance art
and weird art music like throbbing gristle and strange sort
of odd stuff that came from England that we were
(13:53):
obsessed with, like crass and weird sounds. So for us
sort of it was crazy just combination of all these
different people coming together and.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Making it work.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
But what I was talking about earlier was like we
did have a really competitive sort of sense in our
songwriting where we all sort of like we're bringing different
things to the table, and we had to do it
in such a way where our voices were heard. And
it was a special thing for myself as a keyboard
player to be in that situation because it was a
(14:28):
really loud sort of music and to bring in keyboards
into that was sort of like it was a little
bit of a like what is that It was a
good opportunity for me as a gay kid in that
sort of scenario to bring in like a sense of
sort of beauty into the cacophony that we were sort
(14:49):
of creating, and it took a lot. I had to
sort of like step up to the plate, and I
had to fight for sort of like what I was
and what I was bringing into the band at the time,
which is not to say we were all fighting. We fighted.
We fought an awful lot in that band, but we
created this special thing where it was like a lot
(15:09):
of different voices coming together, and that was really special
at that time in my life, and it's still special
now I look back on it and with only fondness.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Do you remember the first moment when you realize that
Faith No More went from being underground to having global recognition.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
I remember at one point I we toured so much,
so it was kind of like a really slow transition
from like the van, you know, five of us in
a van loading our own equipment, to sort of like
playing bigger theaters. But I remember remember at one point
I had a new keyboard stand, and I realized at
(16:04):
one point, like a couple months later, and we've been
touring for like, you know, we would just touring to
a tour, We've probably been touring for a year and
a half at that point without a break. And I
remember at one point, like I didn't know how to
set up that keyboard stand because I had never set
it up. I was like, oh, I'm not doing this anymore.
(16:25):
I'm not having to set my keyboard up on the stage.
I don't even know how to set that keyboard stand up.
And I was like, oh my god. I had to
check myself, like, oh my god, I'm very entitled right now.
But that was a moment.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Was there a live performance that in particular stands out
with Faith No More that was kind of transformative?
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah, I think when we started playing, like it took
us a really long time as Faith No More to
sort of like get any sort of notoriety in the US.
We would tour and tour and tour, and people would
come to the shows and we had a pretty good
sort of like following, but it wasn't until we went
to England that people really started getting into the band
in that's sort of a big kind of way. And
(17:15):
during that stage of our career, we kept going back
and forth from England to America to England to America,
and I remember like we were kind of big in
England and America didn't quite get it. And I remember
sort of like our managers brought our record company, the
people in our record company from America over to England
(17:35):
to see kind of like what was happening with us there,
and I remember playing that show in London, and I
remember like even before we went on, like the audience
was really rabid and they were pushing, pushing, pushing, and
then we started the first song and they broke the
barriers and the audience was like coming to the stage
and that was super exciting but kind of dangerous. We
(17:57):
had to stop the show and then started again. But
I remember at that moment like, oh wow, yeah, this
is really this is really like a really popular thing.
And it was sort of like the record company, our
American record company, being in the audience for the side
of the stage and watching it. I remember looking at
them and they were shocked, like oh wow, oh okay,
(18:18):
like oh this is a big band, And it felt
like a turning point for who we are.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
And what we A light bulb moment for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah. I think they saw like, oh my gosh, opportunity.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Oh, a record company wouldn't think that way, Roddy, come
on please. Yeah. So then you went on to co
found Imperial Team, which was a completely different vibe, more
pop for sure. How did that shift reflect where you
(18:56):
were personally and musically at that time?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, it was a big shift for me to sort
of like we were still doing Faith No More at
the time, but I think I had recently got sober,
which was a big change in my life, and a
lot happened. I write about it in the book, but
a lot happened all at once. My father passed away,
Kurt Cobain was a good friend and he passed away,
(19:22):
and another guy I knew, Cliff, who I had gone
through sort of rehab with three people through big people
in my life all passed away within the course of
like two weeks, and I had recently got sober, and
it was just sort of like I think it was
a point in my life about sort of prioritizing things,
(19:42):
and I don't know, for some reason, I felt like
I had more to say than just playing the keyboard
and Faith No More, which is I don't know. I mean,
there was a it was sort of like an opportunity
to sort of do something else also, and I did
that for a while. So it was like possible to
like continue playing in Faith No War, but to also
(20:04):
sort of like start my own thing and play a
different instrument and sing and write songs with people. It
just felt sort of like something that I needed to
do in a safe space that I kind of needed
to be in. I don't I haven't thought about it
for a while. I mean, I just wrote a book
a lot and a lot of it's about that sort
of chapter, but I haven't really spoken about it in
(20:25):
a whilence. It feels weird to hear myself talking about
it in those terms, Like I mean, faith No, war
was not a toxic place to be at all. It was,
but it was just something I think that I had
done for quite a while. I had done for like
you know, coming up on fifteen years, and it just
felt like sort of I owed it to myself to
sort of like sing, to be able to express words
(20:49):
on stage, and to also sort of like try new things.
So that was the opportunity, and it was also an
opportunity to sort of like we were in a very
sort of toxic place in the world in terms of omophobia,
and it was a good place to be able to
sing gay lyrics and to be able to sort of
(21:10):
like share things about us as people as a gay community.
That felt really strong to me and very honest. It
felt good at the time.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Which leads me really to the fact that have you
seen the music industry take a shift in terms of
its inclusivity, especially for queer artists. You know, since the
days that you're referencing, I mean, have you noted the
shift in terms of the way the industry is.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Yeah, I think absolutely the industry has changed, and people's
perspectives in terms of like accepting like queer people on
stage or queer voices out in the world have radically changed.
Like when I was a kid, Like I talk about
this in the book too, but when I was a kid,
I didn't really have any role models. There was really
no one I could look up to in terms of
sort of like gay voice in the media. It was
(22:01):
so shunned and people were so sort of like quiet
about their homosexuality, and people didn't hear that. People hid that,
like you know, I mean, watching that Pee Wee Hermann
documentary was like, oh my god, like like what he
went through and what people went through, what we went
through as a people in that time was so such
a struggle. It feels like now, more importantly than the
(22:24):
industry having changed, is like sort of like the consensus
of the world's sort of perspectives has changed. People are
way more willing to listen to a queer voice and
not to be sort of thrown by sort of like
the difference of that between their own straight voices. I
think when the industry sort of got on board, which
is kind of what you were hinting at earlier, it
(22:45):
was sort of like more than anything. I think queer
voices and queer sort of like product and queer songs
were sort of an opportunity. And when it became clear,
I think to record companies that oh, this was of
a viable sort of like income channel, then it was
a lot easier to sort of get on board with
(23:06):
the queer voice.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
You know.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
There, I was being facetious earlier about it, and then
it comes back and it's actually a reality. It's not
my facetiousness seeping through.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
So when you sit down at the keys today, what
inspires you and what's different and you reference it a
bit earlier as well, what's different than your younger self
in terms of that inspiration.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I think I kind of when I make music now,
I'm sort of specific in what I'm doing. I'm like,
I'm involved in a lot of projects, so I have
a lot of bands, and I think sort of like
like Crickets I was talking about earlier is a really
simple band, Like I approached that with one sort of
like really simple sort of like spectral sort of like process.
Like I know, it's really like a simple bassline and
(24:01):
a simple drum machine and a simple guitar, and I
think about that sort of like creation or production or
writing in a very specific way. Imperial Teene is the
same way a different When we write together, we have
sort of a go to that's based a lot on
lyrics that's more sort of lyrically driven. I think, so
(24:24):
through the lens of maybe sort of words more With
Imperial Tene, I'm kind of trying to finish this musical now,
and that's very specific too, and the sort of like
also very word driven. But it's a way different kind
of music, you know, And I'm thinking about in terms
of like what will be on stage at that point,
like in a musical, and how many instruments will there be.
(24:45):
I think when I was a kid, I would just
sit down, like when I was talking about like the piano,
I would just sit down and just like bang on
the piano or do whatever I want and create something
and have no real purpose, just sort of like entertain myself.
I think the difference now is that I have I
like sort of like I know what I'm doing a
little bit more, and I'm really specific. When I sit
down and start creating, I know that it's going to
(25:08):
a specific project.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
And what are you listening to now that you can
share that would be a glimpse into your personal playlist.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
I don't know. I tend to listen to, like, I
don't know, for a lot of women, A lot of women,
I don't know. I think I was raised like by
three sisters and my mom. Basically my father died when
I was pretty young, but there's always been a lot
of women in my life. So I think I was
just recognizing this the other day. I work at my
boyfriend's shop, and he has a store here in Provincetown
(25:39):
called the Old Baby, and I work at it and
we played music and that's the sort of the one
thing you get one of the perks of working behind
the counters. You get to choose the music. And I
was thinking that the other day, like, why am I
only playing like women? I was like, that's just what
I'm comfortable with. I guess, So I was listening to
the other day Sarah Mary Chadwick. I don't know if
(26:01):
you know her. She's from Australia. He's a really intense,
beautiful songwriter. I love her music so much. I also
listened the other day to fright Wig, which is an
old band from San Francisco that was an all women
band that I really really like a whole lot. Standing
on the Clams I played too. I really like that band.
(26:21):
They're sort of from Oakland, Los Angeles, California based. That's
all I can think of right now.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Some pretty pretty good ones. I don't know them, but
I love exploring and finding. That's good, finding new new things.
So it's kid. So in closing, if a musician who's
fighting to be heard, to stay independent but trying to
break through in the industry is listening to this podcast,
(26:52):
what advice would you give them.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Like a musician, kid, someone that's creating stuff, I'm hoping
to have some sort of sick sets. Yes, yeah, that's
a hard one. Like it's so hard right now to
like go out in the world and sort of like
I mean, if we're talking about making money, it's really
hard to make money. It's hard to break even, especially
as a band.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Right now.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
The flip side of that, though, is it's so easy
to make music without sort of like spending a lot
of money, which when I was a kid, that wasn't such.
It wasn't an opportunity that we had. We weren't able
to sort of like make I mean we did, we
made music on four tracks, but it was really crappy music.
It didn't sound so good. But it seems like these
(27:36):
days it's a lot easier to sort of like sit
down with the computer and plug stuff in and make
something that sounds the way you want it to sound.
The opportunity for sort of creation is a lot more
cheap these days and a lot more easy, And it
feels like I think kids know this already, but like
(27:58):
technology is such a good thing to sort of wrap
your head around. To be able to record yourself, to
be able to sort of like create something on your
own without having to pay someone money or about having
to sort of go into a studio seems really smart. Also,
I think it's just sort of like that thing that
people always say, sort of tenacity and sort of like
keeping at it and just keeping doing what you're doing
(28:21):
and being comfortable sort of with the doing. I think
is really key to sort of like success. And I'm
talking about success in terms of like making yourself happy
and getting to a place where you're sort of comfortable
sort of like and happy and proud of yourself. I'm
not talking so much about money, and the money part
(28:42):
is like, I don't know how that works. I mean,
I think there's accidentally things that happen that sort of
put you into sort of like a place of sort
of making money. But like success in terms of happiness,
it just seems like people are best sort of like
working on their craft and becoming better and better at
what they do, finding their voices.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
That's a brilliant way to end because I think the
road to success for so many people is about oh
I need, you know, to make that money. I need
the next thing and I subscribe to that. When is
enough enough in regard to that? How about just pursuing
it from happiness and creative spirit?
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Right, It's a good place to start anyway.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Sure is. That's and the Royal We I want to
congratulate you on that again, your new memoir. You and Roddy.
It's been so nice to have you on taking a walk.
I really really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
We thank you so much for having me. It's a
fun chat.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Taking a Walk is made possible by the support of
our great sponsors, and we thanked them, including Chase Sapphire Reserve.
My gateway to the world's most captivating destinations is from
Chase Sapphire Reserve, Claude Ai. Try Claud for free at
claude dot Ai, slash Buzz and Lexus. Experience Amazing at
your Lexus dealer now
Taking a walk, And I remember at one point like
I didn't know how to set up that keyboard stand
because I had never set it up. I was like, Oh,
I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not having to set
my keyboard up on the stage. I don't even know
how to set that keyboard stand up. I was like,
oh my god. I had to check myself, like, oh
(00:20):
my god, I'm very entitled right now.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Take a stroll down memory Lane today on Buzznight, Taking
a walk steps into the vivid, untamed world of Roddy Bottom.
From the keys that drove faith No Moore's Unclassifiable sound
to the shimmering pop of Imperial Teen, Roddy's journey through
music mirrors his fearless journey through life. Now, with his
(00:46):
new memoir The Royal Wee, Roddy cracks open the vault,
offering stories of nineteen eighties San Francisco wild nights with
punk and all legends, and the raw honesty of coming
out when it meant risking everything. What secrets does Roddy
Bottom's walk reveal? And how does retracing these steps rewrite
(01:06):
his own soundtrack? Well, I ask you to lace up
this stroll, promises revelations, laughter, and a backstage pass to
decades of reinvention, resilience and unbelievable storytelling. Coming up after
these words.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, welcome Roddy to the Taken a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Thank you, buzz. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
So I like to ask this opening question, Roddy. It's
a little bit of an icebreaker question, but it also
gets answered in all different ways by everybody. If you
could take a walk with someone, living or dead, who
would you take a walk with? Then? Where would you
take that walk with him? Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Wow, that's a good one. I really like I just
finished that second Ocean book. I've seen him speak a
little bit, and he seems like a really nice time.
I'd like to take a walk with him. He lives
in Massachusetts, so I would like to take a walk
with him up on the cape around Provincetown, like in
(02:14):
the not in the like busy part of Provincetown, but
like there's some lakes, some ponds in Provincetown that are
really pretty. I think that would be apt for a
nice conversation for me in Ocean. I was in Massachusetts
last week. I did my first sort of reading for
this book. And I went to met meet my niece
in a cafe and I got there early and Oceanbohm
(02:38):
was there in the cafe. I recognized him. He was
sitting and reading, and so I feel we're kind of
like connected.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
That's pretty cool. You didn't stop by to visit me
in the Metro West suburbs of Boston. I'm so disappointed, Ronnie.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It wasn't Boston. We were in Northampton in western mass.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
All Right, I'm teasing you. That's far. It's an hour
and a half, two hours away. But yeah, it's a
way we felt your royal WE presence, Roddy. Yes, congratulations
on the royal We thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Buzz.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Tell me how long of a process was this for
you to create this work?
Speaker 1 (03:27):
You know, that's a good question. I kind of like
I talked about in an early draft of the book,
that sort of I always consider myself from an early
age to be a writer, but I'd never written anything,
and I never really did write anything. And I was
getting on to be like almost sixty years old, and
I was like, yeah, I'm a writer, but I've never
written like I write like cute texts two people, and
(03:49):
I write pretty good email up to that point. And
I had a conversation with my friend JD and she
was like, well, do you do your morning pages? And
I was like, what is that? And as I said it,
I knew exactly what she meant. Morning pages can only
mean one thing. It means getting up in the morning
and writing. That's part of that book the Artist's Way,
(04:10):
and everybody a lot of people use that sort of process.
But she sort of brought that to my attention and
I was like, Wow, I have a lot to say
and I should really start writing it down, write about now.
So I started. That was like about a year and
a half ago. I started waking up in the morning
and I would just write for an hour every day.
And I didn't really have a design to sort of
(04:31):
writing a book, but it became a book. I kind
of started writing all the stories that have happened to
me in my life, and there's a lot of them
that I find myself repeating, and so I know those
stories really well and it was kind of easy to
just sort of like flesh them out in the mornings.
But I think I wrote probably for close to a year,
(04:55):
and I had a pretty big, sort of semblance of
a book. A memoir of my life at that point.
So I guess it kind of took a year to
sort of like get everything down, and then it took
another six months, I think, to edit stuff out.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
And how difficult was the editing? That must be painstaking
for someone who has poured themselves into it and has
taken people through, you know, your life, So how difficult
in painstaking is the editing?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
You know, you'd think that edit would be rough, and
I hear people like toil over it and talk about
what a process it is and how difficult it is.
But honestly, like my whole life, I think spent the
craft that I've sort of like spent time with music especially,
but writing also now has always sort of benefited from
(05:46):
sort of like stripping things away. I'm in a band
right now called Crickets, and our whole process is to record,
to make songs, and then strip things away from those
songs and have just the bare bones and then necessary
elements that we find work alone. And it's a really
beautiful process that sort of has sort of like pushed
(06:08):
me into other fields like writing especially to sort of
like strip things away and sort of recognize the benefits
of that and I don't know what it is. It's
just I think my intuition is pretty strong. When I
sort of sit down and decide what to cut away,
I'm pretty sure what is sort of like overage and
(06:33):
can be taken away pretty easily. And after it's done,
I feel really refreshed and good, like I've shed something
that doesn't need to be there. And I don't know
it's so for me. The long answer there is like
it was kind of a better experience than a painful one.
I liked stripping things down. I liked getting rid of stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Now had you also thinking of your musical care There's
a few musicians I've noted over time who are fascinated by,
I don't know, reinventing, reimagining, re engineering things. You know,
have you been someone as a musician fixated on reverse
(07:19):
engineering things? Ever?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I don't know. That's a good question. It feels like,
I mean, I think from an outside perspective, looking at
what I've done over the course of my life, it
looks like I've sort of shifted gears quite a bit
and changed costumes quite a bit, and sort of like
h switched things up, and that there's been some sort
of design in which I'm sort of entertaining to do that.
(07:43):
But it's kind of I think, at the bottom of
it all, it's just sort of like I kind of
just do what's comfortable to me, but like I think
it's for myself. I can only speak for myself. As
I got older, sort of my taste changed and what
I like and what I appreciate changed. Like when I
was a kid, like doing faith no more and making
that sort of raucous loud bombardment of cacophony is so
(08:07):
loud and so obnoxious, it just felt right at that age,
you know, at twenty years old, when you're exploring for
the first time and joining a band for the first time.
For me, anyway, it was all about like making the
most noise I could. And I was in a band,
and we were all sort of like competitive in that way.
We'd all make, you know, be as loud as we
could and sort of like who could be the loudest,
(08:28):
who's part could scream the loudest kind of one. And
as I got older, I sort of like, you know,
sort of refined my taste and sort of like maybe
grew up a little bit as I've gotten older, Like
I think me as a person. I've changed, and I
think all the stuff that I've done with regards to
(08:48):
music and writing and you know, production kind of reflects that,
like I think, a maturity. It sounds really boring and
old and kind of like ridiculous, but I think it's
like I'm going to say, yeah, there's a maturity that
set in that sort of like pushed me into different directions.
But at the core of it, I always feel like
(09:10):
I'm being myself. I'm not that different than I was
when I was a kid. I'm just a little quieter maybe,
and a little more thoughtful and sort of like.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
What I do called evolving.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah, evolution buzz, it's that, yeah for sure.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
So what was the first moment you were connected with
music and what music was it that you connected with.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yeah, it's such an awakening when you kind of come
across music. I think I had a piano when I
was a kid, when I was really little, I was
four or five, and I think having that in the
house was a sort of gift to like sort of
a kid that has that sort of taste for like
sort of sound and melody and what the craft of
a song could be. It was a real luxury to
(09:59):
have as a like, to be able to sit at
that piano when I was really young and just like
do whatever I wanted. That was sort of my introduction
to sort of like, oh, I can create things, and
I can make sounds, and I can play something I
think repetitively over and over and oh, that's like a
hook in my little head. I was like, Oh, that
sounds good. Just keep doing it and keep doing it
(10:21):
and then kind of go away from it to do
something else and then come back to that thing that
I was doing over and over and oh, wow, it's
like magic. I remember acknowledging that when I was super young,
like I was five, and then I started taking piano
lessons like around that age when I was six, and
sort of like sunk into the piano in a really
like intense way and did it kind of until like
(10:43):
I graduated from high school, I think, and went to college.
In terms of popular music, though, I was kind of
I think my parents they weren't super hit parents, but
they had. At one point they brought home Bridge over
Troubled Water, the Simon and Garfunkel record, and first that
(11:06):
changed my life. I remember just listening to that over
and over and over and reading the words and holding
the record cover and knowing that these two guys, these
two friends, had made this music that was fascinating to me.
That was kind of the beginning I think of my
obsession with Like Rock.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I guess that's so fascinating thinking about that particular duo
influencing you and then following your career and your trajectory.
I think it's so cool. I'm layering that on top
of the first time. I remember, like a lot of people,
(11:47):
hearing Faith No More and going, wait a minute, what
do I call this? This is so many different things,
like you were describing it earlier, which was the I think,
the magical piece we all became fixated with. Tell me
how you think about it now, do you? I'm not
(12:11):
asking you to contradict yourself from your earlier statements here,
but when you reflect on Faith No More now and
the legacy left, what are your thoughts on it?
Speaker 1 (12:24):
It's a super the Faith No More era for me,
like it started when I was pretty young, like I
was saying earlier, and it remained super special to me.
It was a sort of project in which like Billy
who I grew up with, he was the bass player
of Faith No More. We grew up together, a bunch
of grammar school together, so we were really close, and
(12:47):
we moved to San Francisco at the same time, and
we were on the same sort of journey and it
was a really special time in our lives, like being
twenty years old and moving away from your family or
I mean we were actually I was seventeen, but we
started the bad I think when we were probably eighteen
or nineteen, But that specific age for me was very potent.
(13:08):
It was I was just so sort of like overwhelmingly
like in tune with like what was going on in
San Francisco, which I kind of write about in my book,
was such a special place and it created this fascinating
sort of like combination of the sort of different things.
Like we met the drummer who was sort of like
into like really like busy kind of like African beats
(13:31):
sort of like, and we started playing with a guitar
player later on who was like very immersed in sort
of like big chunk of chunk of hard loud rock.
I was not anything close to that. Billy and I
were really into punk rock and sort of performance art
and weird art music like throbbing gristle and strange sort
of odd stuff that came from England that we were
(13:53):
obsessed with, like crass and weird sounds. So for us
sort of it was crazy just combination of all these
different people coming together and.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Making it work.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
But what I was talking about earlier was like we
did have a really competitive sort of sense in our
songwriting where we all sort of like we're bringing different
things to the table, and we had to do it
in such a way where our voices were heard. And
it was a special thing for myself as a keyboard
player to be in that situation because it was a
(14:28):
really loud sort of music and to bring in keyboards
into that was sort of like it was a little
bit of a like what is that It was a
good opportunity for me as a gay kid in that
sort of scenario to bring in like a sense of
sort of beauty into the cacophony that we were sort
(14:49):
of creating, and it took a lot. I had to
sort of like step up to the plate, and I
had to fight for sort of like what I was
and what I was bringing into the band at the time,
which is not to say we were all fighting. We fighted.
We fought an awful lot in that band, but we
created this special thing where it was like a lot
(15:09):
of different voices coming together, and that was really special
at that time in my life, and it's still special
now I look back on it and with only fondness.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Do you remember the first moment when you realize that
Faith No More went from being underground to having global recognition.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
I remember at one point I we toured so much,
so it was kind of like a really slow transition
from like the van, you know, five of us in
a van loading our own equipment, to sort of like
playing bigger theaters. But I remember remember at one point
I had a new keyboard stand, and I realized at
(16:04):
one point, like a couple months later, and we've been
touring for like, you know, we would just touring to
a tour, We've probably been touring for a year and
a half at that point without a break. And I
remember at one point, like I didn't know how to
set up that keyboard stand because I had never set
it up. I was like, oh, I'm not doing this anymore.
(16:25):
I'm not having to set my keyboard up on the stage.
I don't even know how to set that keyboard stand up.
And I was like, oh my god. I had to
check myself, like, oh my god, I'm very entitled right now.
But that was a moment.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Was there a live performance that in particular stands out
with Faith No More that was kind of transformative?
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah, I think when we started playing, like it took
us a really long time as Faith No More to
sort of like get any sort of notoriety in the US.
We would tour and tour and tour, and people would
come to the shows and we had a pretty good
sort of like following, but it wasn't until we went
to England that people really started getting into the band
in that's sort of a big kind of way. And
(17:15):
during that stage of our career, we kept going back
and forth from England to America to England to America,
and I remember like we were kind of big in
England and America didn't quite get it. And I remember
sort of like our managers brought our record company, the
people in our record company from America over to England
(17:35):
to see kind of like what was happening with us there,
and I remember playing that show in London, and I
remember like even before we went on, like the audience
was really rabid and they were pushing, pushing, pushing, and
then we started the first song and they broke the
barriers and the audience was like coming to the stage
and that was super exciting but kind of dangerous. We
(17:57):
had to stop the show and then started again. But
I remember at that moment like, oh wow, yeah, this
is really this is really like a really popular thing.
And it was sort of like the record company, our
American record company, being in the audience for the side
of the stage and watching it. I remember looking at
them and they were shocked, like oh wow, oh okay,
(18:18):
like oh this is a big band, And it felt
like a turning point for who we are.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
And what we A light bulb moment for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah. I think they saw like, oh my gosh, opportunity.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Oh, a record company wouldn't think that way, Roddy, come
on please. Yeah. So then you went on to co
found Imperial Team, which was a completely different vibe, more
pop for sure. How did that shift reflect where you
(18:56):
were personally and musically at that time?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, it was a big shift for me to sort
of like we were still doing Faith No More at
the time, but I think I had recently got sober,
which was a big change in my life, and a
lot happened. I write about it in the book, but
a lot happened all at once. My father passed away,
Kurt Cobain was a good friend and he passed away,
(19:22):
and another guy I knew, Cliff, who I had gone
through sort of rehab with three people through big people
in my life all passed away within the course of
like two weeks, and I had recently got sober, and
it was just sort of like I think it was
a point in my life about sort of prioritizing things,
(19:42):
and I don't know, for some reason, I felt like
I had more to say than just playing the keyboard
and Faith No More, which is I don't know. I mean,
there was a it was sort of like an opportunity
to sort of do something else also, and I did
that for a while. So it was like possible to
like continue playing in Faith No War, but to also
(20:04):
sort of like start my own thing and play a
different instrument and sing and write songs with people. It
just felt sort of like something that I needed to
do in a safe space that I kind of needed
to be in. I don't I haven't thought about it
for a while. I mean, I just wrote a book
a lot and a lot of it's about that sort
of chapter, but I haven't really spoken about it in
(20:25):
a whilence. It feels weird to hear myself talking about
it in those terms, Like I mean, faith No, war
was not a toxic place to be at all. It was,
but it was just something I think that I had
done for quite a while. I had done for like
you know, coming up on fifteen years, and it just
felt like sort of I owed it to myself to
sort of like sing, to be able to express words
(20:49):
on stage, and to also sort of like try new things.
So that was the opportunity, and it was also an
opportunity to sort of like we were in a very
sort of toxic place in the world in terms of omophobia,
and it was a good place to be able to
sing gay lyrics and to be able to sort of
(21:10):
like share things about us as people as a gay community.
That felt really strong to me and very honest. It
felt good at the time.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Which leads me really to the fact that have you
seen the music industry take a shift in terms of
its inclusivity, especially for queer artists. You know, since the
days that you're referencing, I mean, have you noted the
shift in terms of the way the industry is.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Yeah, I think absolutely the industry has changed, and people's
perspectives in terms of like accepting like queer people on
stage or queer voices out in the world have radically changed.
Like when I was a kid, Like I talk about
this in the book too, but when I was a kid,
I didn't really have any role models. There was really
no one I could look up to in terms of
sort of like gay voice in the media. It was
(22:01):
so shunned and people were so sort of like quiet
about their homosexuality, and people didn't hear that. People hid that,
like you know, I mean, watching that Pee Wee Hermann
documentary was like, oh my god, like like what he
went through and what people went through, what we went
through as a people in that time was so such
a struggle. It feels like now, more importantly than the
(22:24):
industry having changed, is like sort of like the consensus
of the world's sort of perspectives has changed. People are
way more willing to listen to a queer voice and
not to be sort of thrown by sort of like
the difference of that between their own straight voices. I
think when the industry sort of got on board, which
is kind of what you were hinting at earlier, it
(22:45):
was sort of like more than anything. I think queer
voices and queer sort of like product and queer songs
were sort of an opportunity. And when it became clear,
I think to record companies that oh, this was of
a viable sort of like income channel, then it was
a lot easier to sort of get on board with
(23:06):
the queer voice.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
You know.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
There, I was being facetious earlier about it, and then
it comes back and it's actually a reality. It's not
my facetiousness seeping through.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
So when you sit down at the keys today, what
inspires you and what's different and you reference it a
bit earlier as well, what's different than your younger self
in terms of that inspiration.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I think I kind of when I make music now,
I'm sort of specific in what I'm doing. I'm like,
I'm involved in a lot of projects, so I have
a lot of bands, and I think sort of like
like Crickets I was talking about earlier is a really
simple band, Like I approached that with one sort of
like really simple sort of like spectral sort of like process.
Like I know, it's really like a simple bassline and
(24:01):
a simple drum machine and a simple guitar, and I
think about that sort of like creation or production or
writing in a very specific way. Imperial Teene is the
same way a different When we write together, we have
sort of a go to that's based a lot on
lyrics that's more sort of lyrically driven. I think, so
(24:24):
through the lens of maybe sort of words more With
Imperial Tene, I'm kind of trying to finish this musical now,
and that's very specific too, and the sort of like
also very word driven. But it's a way different kind
of music, you know, And I'm thinking about in terms
of like what will be on stage at that point,
like in a musical, and how many instruments will there be.
(24:45):
I think when I was a kid, I would just
sit down, like when I was talking about like the piano,
I would just sit down and just like bang on
the piano or do whatever I want and create something
and have no real purpose, just sort of like entertain myself.
I think the difference now is that I have I
like sort of like I know what I'm doing a
little bit more, and I'm really specific. When I sit
down and start creating, I know that it's going to
(25:08):
a specific project.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
And what are you listening to now that you can
share that would be a glimpse into your personal playlist.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
I don't know. I tend to listen to, like, I
don't know, for a lot of women, A lot of women,
I don't know. I think I was raised like by
three sisters and my mom. Basically my father died when
I was pretty young, but there's always been a lot
of women in my life. So I think I was
just recognizing this the other day. I work at my
boyfriend's shop, and he has a store here in Provincetown
(25:39):
called the Old Baby, and I work at it and
we played music and that's the sort of the one
thing you get one of the perks of working behind
the counters. You get to choose the music. And I
was thinking that the other day, like, why am I
only playing like women? I was like, that's just what
I'm comfortable with. I guess, So I was listening to
the other day Sarah Mary Chadwick. I don't know if
(26:01):
you know her. She's from Australia. He's a really intense,
beautiful songwriter. I love her music so much. I also
listened the other day to fright Wig, which is an
old band from San Francisco that was an all women
band that I really really like a whole lot. Standing
on the Clams I played too. I really like that band.
(26:21):
They're sort of from Oakland, Los Angeles, California based. That's
all I can think of right now.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Some pretty pretty good ones. I don't know them, but
I love exploring and finding. That's good, finding new new things.
So it's kid. So in closing, if a musician who's
fighting to be heard, to stay independent but trying to
break through in the industry is listening to this podcast,
(26:52):
what advice would you give them.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Like a musician, kid, someone that's creating stuff, I'm hoping
to have some sort of sick sets. Yes, yeah, that's
a hard one. Like it's so hard right now to
like go out in the world and sort of like
I mean, if we're talking about making money, it's really
hard to make money. It's hard to break even, especially
as a band.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Right now.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
The flip side of that, though, is it's so easy
to make music without sort of like spending a lot
of money, which when I was a kid, that wasn't such.
It wasn't an opportunity that we had. We weren't able
to sort of like make I mean we did, we
made music on four tracks, but it was really crappy music.
It didn't sound so good. But it seems like these
(27:36):
days it's a lot easier to sort of like sit
down with the computer and plug stuff in and make
something that sounds the way you want it to sound.
The opportunity for sort of creation is a lot more
cheap these days and a lot more easy, And it
feels like I think kids know this already, but like
(27:58):
technology is such a good thing to sort of wrap
your head around. To be able to record yourself, to
be able to sort of like create something on your
own without having to pay someone money or about having
to sort of go into a studio seems really smart. Also,
I think it's just sort of like that thing that
people always say, sort of tenacity and sort of like
keeping at it and just keeping doing what you're doing
(28:21):
and being comfortable sort of with the doing. I think
is really key to sort of like success. And I'm
talking about success in terms of like making yourself happy
and getting to a place where you're sort of comfortable
sort of like and happy and proud of yourself. I'm
not talking so much about money, and the money part
(28:42):
is like, I don't know how that works. I mean,
I think there's accidentally things that happen that sort of
put you into sort of like a place of sort
of making money. But like success in terms of happiness,
it just seems like people are best sort of like
working on their craft and becoming better and better at
what they do, finding their voices.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
That's a brilliant way to end because I think the
road to success for so many people is about oh
I need, you know, to make that money. I need
the next thing and I subscribe to that. When is
enough enough in regard to that? How about just pursuing
it from happiness and creative spirit?
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Right, It's a good place to start anyway.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Sure is. That's and the Royal We I want to
congratulate you on that again, your new memoir. You and Roddy.
It's been so nice to have you on taking a walk.
I really really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
We thank you so much for having me. It's a
fun chat.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Taking a Walk is made possible by the support of
our great sponsors, and we thanked them, including Chase Sapphire Reserve.
My gateway to the world's most captivating destinations is from
Chase Sapphire Reserve, Claude Ai. Try Claud for free at
claude dot Ai, slash Buzz and Lexus. Experience Amazing at
your Lexus dealer now
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.