November 17, 2025 • 18 mins
THE ROYAL WE is a poetic survey of a time set in a magical city that once was and is no more. It is a memoir written by Roddy Bottum, a musician and artist, that documents his coming of age and out of the closet in 1980s San Francisco, a charged era of bicycle messengers, punk rock, street witches, wheatgrass, and rebellion. The book follows his travels from Los Angeles, growing up gay with no role models, to San Francisco, where he formed Faith No More and went on to tour the world relentlessly, surviving heroin addiction and the plight of AIDS, to become a queer icon. The book is an elevated wallop of tongue and insight, much more than a tell-all. There are personal encounters with public figures like Kurt and Courtney and Guns N' Roses, and recaps of gold records and arena rock- but it's the testimonies of tragedy and addiction and preposterous life-spins that make this work so unique and intriguing. Bottum writes about his dark and harrowing past in a clear-eyed voice that is utterly devoid of self pity, and his emboldened and confident pronouncements of achievement and unorthodox heroism flow in an unstoppable train that's both captivating and inspirational.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listening to a podcast to me, is like listening to music.
You don't stay in the same genre. You're all over
the place, which is the reason why at Arrow dot
net Arroe dot net seventeen different podcasts to choose from,
because we know that you're everywhere, why not be there
with you. Good morning, Roddy. How are you doing today, Arrow?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm good. How's it going with you?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Very very well, and I'm very excited to share a
conversation with you because one of my very good friends Daily.
The very second that I brought up your name, I
got an entire history lesson about you and man right away,
I kept saying, it is about time that Roddy put
this book together because his fans are here. They are solid.
They Oh my god, I don't know how. There's no
way you could ever shake them because they're so in
(00:43):
love with what you have done, with everything that you do.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
That's sweet of you to say, aero, thanks. I mean,
it's kind of a weird thing. Like I mean, I
wasn't like I think I was a singer. You know,
I've been a singer in bands before, but like I
certainly that's not where I got sort of my notoriety
from like I was a keyboard player in a band,
and you could argue that, like who is this guy
that who cares? He's just like a keyboard player. But like,
I've done a lot in my life and I've made
(01:09):
a lot of friends, and it's nice to hear that
there's people out there that are interested in what I've
got to share because I love that.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Well, the dude is from Israel. That shows your outreach,
that it goes around the globe.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Dude, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
And then for you to be a keyboardist in the
nineteen eighties, oh my god, that to me was the
generation where the keyboard finally came forward and was the
rock star of the band.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I mean kind of era. But honestly, when we started
and where we were coming from, like the world of
we got kind of thrown into a hard rock scene,
you know, kind of unfairly. We weren't really about that.
But at some point, like Metallica became fans of what
we were doing and kind of catapulted the band into
this like rock world, which we hadn't really done before.
(01:59):
And the keys in that rock world was super foreign,
Like it's something that like people didn't really know and
people weren't really into so sort of being who I
was and what I was doing in that world at
that time was a stretch. And it kind of ties
over into a weird way with sort of like going
up queer and sort of being shameful about being queer.
(02:20):
Like playing the keyboards in that world, in that very macho,
kind of aggressive, male dominated sort of world was a stretch.
It was weird, Like, on one hand, we had this
really heavy sound that we were really proud of, like
chunk of chunk of guitars and heavy rhythms and bass
and drums and loudness, and then we put always this
(02:42):
really pretty like strings or like heavenly sort of like
sound on top of it, and that kind of like
helped identify and make who we were. So on one hand,
like I was responsible for that, but on the other hand,
it was kind of unheard of. People were just like
it confused people, Like I think eventually keyboards really took
(03:05):
sort of like a front and center position in music,
but never really hard rock. Hard rock was a stretch.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because we as a mobile entertainer, a
DJ inside those schools, it was a stretch even for us,
because we didn't know how to go from Metallica, We
didn't know how to go into Reba McIntyre. And I'm
gonna be very honest with you, I had to have
your music in order to make that bridge happen because
it really gave me that opportunity to explore other genres
in between the metallicas and the nirvanas.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
What a cool thing that is. That's awesome era to
know that, Like, I mean, we did sort of lead
with that for sure. Part of our thing, like in
writing songs was like it became this thing like let's
play a country western song, like let's try something classical,
Let's try something like with a Portuguese sort of, which
is insane. It's a weird and crazy appropriation sort of
(03:56):
we were going after and we kind of encouraged. But
at the same time time it did open doors and
it did challenge people's ears, and it did sort of like, yeah,
made things a little bit more acceptable across the map
in terms of like variety.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
So was it a shifting of the gears though when
we're talking about Kim Deal and the breeders, because I mean,
I mean I realized that, you know, the first band
is that here we are. But then when you started
to explore that, all of a sudden, now I'm invited
into the picture because I love it when artists do that,
they say, you know what, there's more to me than
what you think, and we're going to find it.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah. I mean it's a stretch. Like I had done
faith no More for a long time, and like we
were saying earlier, like I was kind of like, you know,
I was a keyboard player and not inconsequential and not unimportant,
but definitely not the center point and not sort of
using my words, using my voice, like speaking my own lyrics.
But at one point we kind of shifted gears and
(04:51):
I started the band Imperial Team, That's it. And in
that band, I started to sing, and we started to
come from like a really true perspective in terms of
like sharing sort of from the heart. We sang gay lyrics,
which kind of at that time really hadn't been done,
and we were pushing boundaries in that way that I
(05:12):
think sort of got the attention to be. Like I
knew Kim deal from the Pixies. I was a big
Pixies fan, and we had met each other and knew
each other. But I think a sound like that appealed
to someone like Kim Deal, and we became closer, and
it did open up worlds for like sort of me
and who I was and how I spoke to other musicians.
It was definitely way different from what I'd been doing
(05:34):
with Faith No more.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
So then, what was it like for you to appear
on the soundtrack for Jobbreakers? Because I mean, all of
a sudden, you guys were there in the movie. People
were singing with it, and even today, man, you can
hoolo that monkey and all of a sudden, there's your
music still move pump, you know, pumping forward.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, that was a good opportunity. It's funny. At the time,
it was a real decision for us, Like we had
written that song and we wanted to make a video
for it, and then that movie gone involved. And one
of the sort of like constituents of being involved in
a movie is that you're sort of we made a
video with the people that made the movie, so they
(06:11):
paid for like half of the video and we paid
for half of a video just to speak brass text.
And with that sort of like agreement, we kind of
both had to share the aesthetic and the visual presentation
and make decisions on what the video was going to
look like with the people that made the movie. And
it was kind of awkward for us because we had
written the song that had nothing to do with the movie.
(06:34):
So it was a blessing for sure. We got a
lot more money and we got a lot more coverage,
a lot more people heard the song because of the movie.
But as a band who has like really strong integrity
and a really strong sense of self, like, we didn't
write the song for a movie. We wrote this song
that was really cool and it kind of existed on
its own. In some way, it kind of got taken
(06:54):
away from us, but you know, you can't let get
to us in the mouth. You know. It was a
great opportunity, Like you said, like a lot of people
know us from that movie, and so that's a gift
in and of it.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
So please do not move. We're back with Roddy Bottom
coming up next the name of his book The Royal.
We We are back with Roddy Bottom. We have something
in common. Julia Cameron. The artist way. I've been doing
the artist way since July of nineteen ninety four. It
is every reason why I am today because I put
my faith in those pages, and to this day I
(07:28):
still write my daily pages.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
That's so good. That's how I started writing my book
to daily pages, you know era. When I started it too,
I didn't even know what it was. But my friend JD. Sampson,
she's in my bank crickets, and she asked me when
we were doing COVID and we were first spending time,
you know, behind closed doors, she asked me when we
(07:52):
were talking about staying sane in that sort of era.
She asked me, she says, are you doing your daily pages?
And I was like, what's that? And as I said
what's that? I knew exactly what it was like. I
had explored that book a little bit. What wasn't so
adept at it? And I was like, oh yeah, And
I just realized something clicked. To that point, I was like, Oh,
(08:13):
that's the key to getting stuff done in a writing sense,
is like daily pages, which listeners. If you've never heard
of this concept, it's super simple. It's just like getting
up in the morning and first thing that you do,
like get out of bed, you just write for you know,
however long. For me, I wrote for an hour every morning.
I would get up my coffee and write for an hour.
(08:33):
And that really that turned into the book. That's why
I wrote this book.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
So what is that like for you, though, to take
from those pages? Because my first book also came from
the daily pages. And the thing is is that what
I grab from it the thoughts that I felt that
could live a lot longer than the five minutes I
spent putting that on the page. And so I mean,
and so when I when I read that the Royal
Wee came from these pages, It's like, let me in
on the inside, dude, because I want to know where
you gained that confidence to let us into your prime
(09:00):
in moments.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, I mean it was a leap for sure. I
think part of what made it easy for me was
I was all by myself just writing these words. No
one was reading them, and I could be as open
as I wanted to be, you know, And that was
sort of my intentions when I started. I was just like,
I'm just going to put it all out, Like I've
had a lot of secrets my whole life, Like growing
(09:23):
up gay, thats just sort of like is a sort
of like that's a place you go as a kid,
you keep that secret and then I was like aug
a drug user. I was a heroin addict for a
long time, and that sort of particular drug and that
sort of vibe is something that you keep secret. So
I'd grown up for a long time keeping these secrets.
(09:44):
And it was a really good exercise, this morning Pages
process for me in which I could just kind of
be open and no one, you know, no one was
reading it, so what did I have to lose? And
so I started doing that and I just wrote and
wrote and wrote because no one's going to read it.
And then at some point I was like putting so
much work into this, and I was writing kind of
(10:07):
my life story just to sort of like chronicle, and
then it's one to me like, yeah, this is I
liked the way that I was writing. Honestly, I really
have a style and a literary prosy kind of way
that I wrote this book. And I realized, yeah, this is.
This really stands on its own. So rather than take
out those secrets and like hi, item or change them,
(10:27):
I just kind of in the sort of era that
we're in, it felt really important to me for me
to throw my truth into the world and just share
it and sort of give that perspective.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
As long as you're keeping those secrets, you have what
she calls the wet blanket theory. And you've got the
people around you that are thinking that they know but
they don't know, but yet you think they do know.
And it's like, oh my god, because I mean with
your sisters and you're holding back that secret. Did you
not at least sit down and have them put makeup
on your eyes like I did? It's like put some
put something in my eyes. So when we went through
the androgyny period, I had permission to wear makeup.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
That's wild. He did. Yeah, it'sistitis. They were put backup
on your eyes.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
They did, so did my first wife. Dude. They and
I did not mind because because it was the androgeny period,
I could get away with it.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
That's so cool. Was it also because you were behind
closed doors and no one was seen?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Absolutely? Radio, You're absolutely right. But when I did do
personal appearances, if I wasn't coming across with that eyeliner
like Duran, Duran and everybody else, it is, who is
this guy?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Oh my god?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
You know? So you you know, you had to play
the role. And then when break dancing took me over,
it was like, Oh, I'm going to break every bone
in my body to make sure that I get popularity.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
That's cool. Yeah, it was sort of. I don't know,
I did have There was a point at which when
I decided to make the book, I did have to
come clean and tell people, you know, a lot of
the secrets that I kept on things people didn't know
about me, particularly my sisters. I had to like sort
of come clean with them and tell them things that
(12:00):
they had never known, which was weird because my sisters
and I are really close. They know everything about me.
But at some point I had to sort of come
clean and like tell them before the book came out.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
So growing up gay, you had no role models. I
mean in that era, there wasn't anybody like what Alpha
and Beta has today, where it's like you ever just
sit back and go you have no clue what I
went through. And it's not about me. It's about what
our generation and what our community went through in order
to be seen as well as heard.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, I mean that's a big premise of my book
is And it was odd writing it and coming sort
of from a place that kind of happened a long
time ago, but it really was a different era. We
didn't have anyone to I didn't have anyone to look
up to when I was a kid and getting into
the world of music and rock in particular, there were
no people in my world that I could look up to.
(12:55):
Rob Halford was not out of the closet, Freddie Mercury
was not out of the closet. All of these people
who you consider as sort of queer pioneers at the
time that we were all coming up in the same era,
they weren't open in pride and proud. So it was
it was difficult for me as a young person to
find a direction and find a place that was comfortable
(13:18):
to sort of speak to my true self. It just
didn't exist. So it was a real stretch when I
did come out of the closet and talk to like
a person that interviewed me about being gay, like I
didn't know anyone that had done that, And I really
feel like, I mean, now, I'm so proud of it.
Because I did that, I was able to share my
(13:40):
truth about being gay. And from that point on, like
tour was amazing. Like we would play shows and kids
would sort of wait, you know, at the backstage door,
and I'd come out and like just hug me and
just like I mean tears. It was so powerful to
know that like I had helped kids in that way.
And you know, not to toot my own horn or anything,
(14:01):
but we're talking kids that are going through like, you know,
suicidal thoughts and like so much shame and being shamed
by the world for being who they are. And just
to have me as an example really changed things for
a lot of people, and it made it all worthwhile.
But at the time when I was young, there was
no one. There was no one I could look up to.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, but you know what scary, roddy is that the
thing that happened to you guys in the nineteen eighties,
It didn't just happen naturally all of a sudden when
AIGs took over. Oh my god, everybody was known at
that point in time, because if you had aids then
then all of a sudden, then I was what I
didn't know that about them. I mean, it wasn't fair
to your generation, did that all of a sudden. This
wall is what exposed everything to the rest of the world.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Yeah, and age just definitely did add a whole level,
a whole other level of shame to being gay, Like
not only are you gay, but you probably have aids
and you're probably gonna, like, you know, share that with
someone else. Is so technically you're a killer, Like you're gay,
you're disgusting, and you're probably poisonous. So yeah, I mean
(15:08):
not really updated in terms of like we were the Devil.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah. So when you were putting words down in The
Royal We which is now available in all bookstores including Amazon.
The thing is is that you like to toy around
with words. Did you find yourself being a musician while
you were writing or is it those words they came
out at you? Because there's electricity in the way that
you put this book together. You can feel it. I mean,
it is a presentation of existence, is what it is,
(15:34):
and readers are going to catch on to that immediately.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Thanks. Thanks for noting that era. That feels good. Yeah.
It was always an inclination for me to sort of
lead with a prose and a sense of style and
a sense of elevation, a sense of who I am,
and I've always kind of played with words in that way.
They're not really I mean, I think my words are
really direct. It makes sense, but I think for sure,
(15:59):
they're veryful and they're interesting to read. I think that
comes from like having written lyrics a lot in my
life and just as a kid, I've always played with
words in that way. But I will say the one
thing I didn't want to be was a really dry
sort of like you know, autobiography or memoir that has
you know, the type of book that has like pictures
(16:21):
in the middle, that sort of just like chronologizes a
life from you know, cradle to grave, if you will.
I knew for sure I didn't want to be that
kind of book. And even when we put out the book,
like the publisher was like, well, we're going to put
Roddy from Faith No More on the cover, Like, absolutely not,
We're not doing that. Like, that's not the book I
(16:43):
wanted to write. I didn't write a book about Faith nomore.
I wrote a book about myself, the politics of coming
out of the closet, the politics of like getting off
of drugs, and all of the crazy horror that I've
lived through. It's it's a real personal trauma, and I
think that justifies a sense of voice and prose and
poetry that I felt it really necessary to hone in
(17:06):
on in my writing.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
All right, I'm gonna ask you Julia Cameron question because
I've been with her, We've talked a lot, and I
always said I was going to ask this to anybody
who's creative. Do you use a writing instrument like she suggests?
Or are you typing this into a computer? The spot
is on you, mister, mister, mister, mister, mister, I have.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
No shame about the computer. I love writing. I'm super fast.
Like I started like learning piano when I was really little,
and my fingers got so crazy, dexterous. So when I
learned to type, I learned to type really fast. And
still I can type so fast and my mind works
really quickly. So yeah, I don't have the time to
write things down. I have to use a computer. I
(17:45):
have to use I mean, I would use a typewriter,
but a computer is just faster. It's all about just
fast getting it out.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
It is. You got to come back to this show writing.
I love your heart. I love what you're doing. If
you're on some sort of special tour, I hope that
you do like an intimate show here in Charlotte's time,
because we need to hear you, We need to hear
your music. We need to hear your lyrics, We need
to hear everything that you are presenting in this modern
day of now.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Aero, that's sweet of you to say thank you so
much for having me on your show. I'd love to come, Charlotte.
Sounds like a gas.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
It is, it is, it is. Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Okay, sir, thanks a lot eron. You have a great
day to keep up with the money day. Just
Listening to a podcast to me, is like listening to music.
You don't stay in the same genre. You're all over
the place, which is the reason why at Arrow dot
net Arroe dot net seventeen different podcasts to choose from,
because we know that you're everywhere, why not be there
with you. Good morning, Roddy. How are you doing today, Arrow?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm good. How's it going with you?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Very very well, and I'm very excited to share a
conversation with you because one of my very good friends Daily.
The very second that I brought up your name, I
got an entire history lesson about you and man right away,
I kept saying, it is about time that Roddy put
this book together because his fans are here. They are solid.
They Oh my god, I don't know how. There's no
way you could ever shake them because they're so in
(00:43):
love with what you have done, with everything that you do.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
That's sweet of you to say, aero, thanks. I mean,
it's kind of a weird thing. Like I mean, I
wasn't like I think I was a singer. You know,
I've been a singer in bands before, but like I
certainly that's not where I got sort of my notoriety
from like I was a keyboard player in a band,
and you could argue that, like who is this guy
that who cares? He's just like a keyboard player. But like,
I've done a lot in my life and I've made
(01:09):
a lot of friends, and it's nice to hear that
there's people out there that are interested in what I've
got to share because I love that.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Well, the dude is from Israel. That shows your outreach,
that it goes around the globe.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Dude, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
And then for you to be a keyboardist in the
nineteen eighties, oh my god, that to me was the
generation where the keyboard finally came forward and was the
rock star of the band.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I mean kind of era. But honestly, when we started
and where we were coming from, like the world of
we got kind of thrown into a hard rock scene,
you know, kind of unfairly. We weren't really about that.
But at some point, like Metallica became fans of what
we were doing and kind of catapulted the band into
this like rock world, which we hadn't really done before.
(01:59):
And the keys in that rock world was super foreign,
Like it's something that like people didn't really know and
people weren't really into so sort of being who I
was and what I was doing in that world at
that time was a stretch. And it kind of ties
over into a weird way with sort of like going
up queer and sort of being shameful about being queer.
(02:20):
Like playing the keyboards in that world, in that very macho,
kind of aggressive, male dominated sort of world was a stretch.
It was weird, Like, on one hand, we had this
really heavy sound that we were really proud of, like
chunk of chunk of guitars and heavy rhythms and bass
and drums and loudness, and then we put always this
(02:42):
really pretty like strings or like heavenly sort of like
sound on top of it, and that kind of like
helped identify and make who we were. So on one hand,
like I was responsible for that, but on the other hand,
it was kind of unheard of. People were just like
it confused people, Like I think eventually keyboards really took
(03:05):
sort of like a front and center position in music,
but never really hard rock. Hard rock was a stretch.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because we as a mobile entertainer, a
DJ inside those schools, it was a stretch even for us,
because we didn't know how to go from Metallica, We
didn't know how to go into Reba McIntyre. And I'm
gonna be very honest with you, I had to have
your music in order to make that bridge happen because
it really gave me that opportunity to explore other genres
in between the metallicas and the nirvanas.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
What a cool thing that is. That's awesome era to
know that, Like, I mean, we did sort of lead
with that for sure. Part of our thing, like in
writing songs was like it became this thing like let's
play a country western song, like let's try something classical,
Let's try something like with a Portuguese sort of, which
is insane. It's a weird and crazy appropriation sort of
(03:56):
we were going after and we kind of encouraged. But
at the same time time it did open doors and
it did challenge people's ears, and it did sort of like, yeah,
made things a little bit more acceptable across the map
in terms of like variety.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
So was it a shifting of the gears though when
we're talking about Kim Deal and the breeders, because I mean,
I mean I realized that, you know, the first band
is that here we are. But then when you started
to explore that, all of a sudden, now I'm invited
into the picture because I love it when artists do that,
they say, you know what, there's more to me than
what you think, and we're going to find it.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah. I mean it's a stretch. Like I had done
faith no More for a long time, and like we
were saying earlier, like I was kind of like, you know,
I was a keyboard player and not inconsequential and not unimportant,
but definitely not the center point and not sort of
using my words, using my voice, like speaking my own lyrics.
But at one point we kind of shifted gears and
(04:51):
I started the band Imperial Team, That's it. And in
that band, I started to sing, and we started to
come from like a really true perspective in terms of
like sharing sort of from the heart. We sang gay lyrics,
which kind of at that time really hadn't been done,
and we were pushing boundaries in that way that I
(05:12):
think sort of got the attention to be. Like I
knew Kim deal from the Pixies. I was a big
Pixies fan, and we had met each other and knew
each other. But I think a sound like that appealed
to someone like Kim Deal, and we became closer, and
it did open up worlds for like sort of me
and who I was and how I spoke to other musicians.
It was definitely way different from what I'd been doing
(05:34):
with Faith No more.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
So then, what was it like for you to appear
on the soundtrack for Jobbreakers? Because I mean, all of
a sudden, you guys were there in the movie. People
were singing with it, and even today, man, you can
hoolo that monkey and all of a sudden, there's your
music still move pump, you know, pumping forward.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, that was a good opportunity. It's funny. At the time,
it was a real decision for us, Like we had
written that song and we wanted to make a video
for it, and then that movie gone involved. And one
of the sort of like constituents of being involved in
a movie is that you're sort of we made a
video with the people that made the movie, so they
(06:11):
paid for like half of the video and we paid
for half of a video just to speak brass text.
And with that sort of like agreement, we kind of
both had to share the aesthetic and the visual presentation
and make decisions on what the video was going to
look like with the people that made the movie. And
it was kind of awkward for us because we had
written the song that had nothing to do with the movie.
(06:34):
So it was a blessing for sure. We got a
lot more money and we got a lot more coverage,
a lot more people heard the song because of the movie.
But as a band who has like really strong integrity
and a really strong sense of self, like, we didn't
write the song for a movie. We wrote this song
that was really cool and it kind of existed on
its own. In some way, it kind of got taken
(06:54):
away from us, but you know, you can't let get
to us in the mouth. You know. It was a
great opportunity, Like you said, like a lot of people
know us from that movie, and so that's a gift
in and of it.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
So please do not move. We're back with Roddy Bottom
coming up next the name of his book The Royal.
We We are back with Roddy Bottom. We have something
in common. Julia Cameron. The artist way. I've been doing
the artist way since July of nineteen ninety four. It
is every reason why I am today because I put
my faith in those pages, and to this day I
(07:28):
still write my daily pages.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
That's so good. That's how I started writing my book
to daily pages, you know era. When I started it too,
I didn't even know what it was. But my friend JD. Sampson,
she's in my bank crickets, and she asked me when
we were doing COVID and we were first spending time,
you know, behind closed doors, she asked me when we
(07:52):
were talking about staying sane in that sort of era.
She asked me, she says, are you doing your daily pages?
And I was like, what's that? And as I said
what's that? I knew exactly what it was like. I
had explored that book a little bit. What wasn't so
adept at it? And I was like, oh yeah, And
I just realized something clicked. To that point, I was like, Oh,
(08:13):
that's the key to getting stuff done in a writing sense,
is like daily pages, which listeners. If you've never heard
of this concept, it's super simple. It's just like getting
up in the morning and first thing that you do,
like get out of bed, you just write for you know,
however long. For me, I wrote for an hour every morning.
I would get up my coffee and write for an hour.
(08:33):
And that really that turned into the book. That's why
I wrote this book.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
So what is that like for you, though, to take
from those pages? Because my first book also came from
the daily pages. And the thing is is that what
I grab from it the thoughts that I felt that
could live a lot longer than the five minutes I
spent putting that on the page. And so I mean,
and so when I when I read that the Royal
Wee came from these pages, It's like, let me in
on the inside, dude, because I want to know where
you gained that confidence to let us into your prime
(09:00):
in moments.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, I mean it was a leap for sure. I
think part of what made it easy for me was
I was all by myself just writing these words. No
one was reading them, and I could be as open
as I wanted to be, you know, And that was
sort of my intentions when I started. I was just like,
I'm just going to put it all out, Like I've
had a lot of secrets my whole life, Like growing
(09:23):
up gay, thats just sort of like is a sort
of like that's a place you go as a kid,
you keep that secret and then I was like aug
a drug user. I was a heroin addict for a
long time, and that sort of particular drug and that
sort of vibe is something that you keep secret. So
I'd grown up for a long time keeping these secrets.
(09:44):
And it was a really good exercise, this morning Pages
process for me in which I could just kind of
be open and no one, you know, no one was
reading it, so what did I have to lose? And
so I started doing that and I just wrote and
wrote and wrote because no one's going to read it.
And then at some point I was like putting so
much work into this, and I was writing kind of
(10:07):
my life story just to sort of like chronicle, and
then it's one to me like, yeah, this is I
liked the way that I was writing. Honestly, I really
have a style and a literary prosy kind of way
that I wrote this book. And I realized, yeah, this is.
This really stands on its own. So rather than take
out those secrets and like hi, item or change them,
(10:27):
I just kind of in the sort of era that
we're in, it felt really important to me for me
to throw my truth into the world and just share
it and sort of give that perspective.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
As long as you're keeping those secrets, you have what
she calls the wet blanket theory. And you've got the
people around you that are thinking that they know but
they don't know, but yet you think they do know.
And it's like, oh my god, because I mean with
your sisters and you're holding back that secret. Did you
not at least sit down and have them put makeup
on your eyes like I did? It's like put some
put something in my eyes. So when we went through
the androgyny period, I had permission to wear makeup.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
That's wild. He did. Yeah, it'sistitis. They were put backup
on your eyes.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
They did, so did my first wife. Dude. They and
I did not mind because because it was the androgeny period,
I could get away with it.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
That's so cool. Was it also because you were behind
closed doors and no one was seen?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Absolutely? Radio, You're absolutely right. But when I did do
personal appearances, if I wasn't coming across with that eyeliner
like Duran, Duran and everybody else, it is, who is
this guy?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Oh my god?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
You know? So you you know, you had to play
the role. And then when break dancing took me over,
it was like, Oh, I'm going to break every bone
in my body to make sure that I get popularity.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
That's cool. Yeah, it was sort of. I don't know,
I did have There was a point at which when
I decided to make the book, I did have to
come clean and tell people, you know, a lot of
the secrets that I kept on things people didn't know
about me, particularly my sisters. I had to like sort
of come clean with them and tell them things that
(12:00):
they had never known, which was weird because my sisters
and I are really close. They know everything about me.
But at some point I had to sort of come
clean and like tell them before the book came out.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
So growing up gay, you had no role models. I
mean in that era, there wasn't anybody like what Alpha
and Beta has today, where it's like you ever just
sit back and go you have no clue what I
went through. And it's not about me. It's about what
our generation and what our community went through in order
to be seen as well as heard.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, I mean that's a big premise of my book
is And it was odd writing it and coming sort
of from a place that kind of happened a long
time ago, but it really was a different era. We
didn't have anyone to I didn't have anyone to look
up to when I was a kid and getting into
the world of music and rock in particular, there were
no people in my world that I could look up to.
(12:55):
Rob Halford was not out of the closet, Freddie Mercury
was not out of the closet. All of these people
who you consider as sort of queer pioneers at the
time that we were all coming up in the same era,
they weren't open in pride and proud. So it was
it was difficult for me as a young person to
find a direction and find a place that was comfortable
(13:18):
to sort of speak to my true self. It just
didn't exist. So it was a real stretch when I
did come out of the closet and talk to like
a person that interviewed me about being gay, like I
didn't know anyone that had done that, And I really
feel like, I mean, now, I'm so proud of it.
Because I did that, I was able to share my
(13:40):
truth about being gay. And from that point on, like
tour was amazing. Like we would play shows and kids
would sort of wait, you know, at the backstage door,
and I'd come out and like just hug me and
just like I mean tears. It was so powerful to
know that like I had helped kids in that way.
And you know, not to toot my own horn or anything,
(14:01):
but we're talking kids that are going through like, you know,
suicidal thoughts and like so much shame and being shamed
by the world for being who they are. And just
to have me as an example really changed things for
a lot of people, and it made it all worthwhile.
But at the time when I was young, there was
no one. There was no one I could look up to.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, but you know what scary, roddy is that the
thing that happened to you guys in the nineteen eighties,
It didn't just happen naturally all of a sudden when
AIGs took over. Oh my god, everybody was known at
that point in time, because if you had aids then
then all of a sudden, then I was what I
didn't know that about them. I mean, it wasn't fair
to your generation, did that all of a sudden. This
wall is what exposed everything to the rest of the world.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Yeah, and age just definitely did add a whole level,
a whole other level of shame to being gay, Like
not only are you gay, but you probably have aids
and you're probably gonna, like, you know, share that with
someone else. Is so technically you're a killer, Like you're gay,
you're disgusting, and you're probably poisonous. So yeah, I mean
(15:08):
not really updated in terms of like we were the Devil.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah. So when you were putting words down in The
Royal We which is now available in all bookstores including Amazon.
The thing is is that you like to toy around
with words. Did you find yourself being a musician while
you were writing or is it those words they came
out at you? Because there's electricity in the way that
you put this book together. You can feel it. I mean,
it is a presentation of existence, is what it is,
(15:34):
and readers are going to catch on to that immediately.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Thanks. Thanks for noting that era. That feels good. Yeah.
It was always an inclination for me to sort of
lead with a prose and a sense of style and
a sense of elevation, a sense of who I am,
and I've always kind of played with words in that way.
They're not really I mean, I think my words are
really direct. It makes sense, but I think for sure,
(15:59):
they're veryful and they're interesting to read. I think that
comes from like having written lyrics a lot in my
life and just as a kid, I've always played with
words in that way. But I will say the one
thing I didn't want to be was a really dry
sort of like you know, autobiography or memoir that has
you know, the type of book that has like pictures
(16:21):
in the middle, that sort of just like chronologizes a
life from you know, cradle to grave, if you will.
I knew for sure I didn't want to be that
kind of book. And even when we put out the book,
like the publisher was like, well, we're going to put
Roddy from Faith No More on the cover, Like, absolutely not,
We're not doing that. Like, that's not the book I
(16:43):
wanted to write. I didn't write a book about Faith nomore.
I wrote a book about myself, the politics of coming
out of the closet, the politics of like getting off
of drugs, and all of the crazy horror that I've
lived through. It's it's a real personal trauma, and I
think that justifies a sense of voice and prose and
poetry that I felt it really necessary to hone in
(17:06):
on in my writing.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
All right, I'm gonna ask you Julia Cameron question because
I've been with her, We've talked a lot, and I
always said I was going to ask this to anybody
who's creative. Do you use a writing instrument like she suggests?
Or are you typing this into a computer? The spot
is on you, mister, mister, mister, mister, mister, I have.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
No shame about the computer. I love writing. I'm super fast.
Like I started like learning piano when I was really little,
and my fingers got so crazy, dexterous. So when I
learned to type, I learned to type really fast. And
still I can type so fast and my mind works
really quickly. So yeah, I don't have the time to
write things down. I have to use a computer. I
(17:45):
have to use I mean, I would use a typewriter,
but a computer is just faster. It's all about just
fast getting it out.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
It is. You got to come back to this show writing.
I love your heart. I love what you're doing. If
you're on some sort of special tour, I hope that
you do like an intimate show here in Charlotte's time,
because we need to hear you, We need to hear
your music. We need to hear your lyrics, We need
to hear everything that you are presenting in this modern
day of now.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Aero, that's sweet of you to say thank you so
much for having me on your show. I'd love to come, Charlotte.
Sounds like a gas.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
It is, it is, it is. Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Okay, sir, thanks a lot eron. You have a great
day to keep up with the money day. Just
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