Fans of legendary alternative metal, etc. vocalist Mike Patton and his countless bands and projects have long grown accustomed to hiatuses and prolonged periods of absence. From Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, to Tomahawk and Fantômas, the future of any one of the bands Patton fronts has never been guaranteed.
However, the pandemic era disappearance of Faith No More hit fans pretty hard, given that the band seemingly once again fell apart in the wake of a canceled tour in 2021. While Patton himself was later revealed to be struggling with mental health issues at the time, he has since taken to the road with other projects in the years that followed after seeking out professional help.
Those holding out hope that Faith No More may yet set aside whatever their latest differences are and resurface from this current hiatus were given a shot in the arm this month. A mini-reunion between two of the group’s seemingly estranged members took place this month in San Francisco. Patton and Faith No More drummer Mike “Puffy” Bordin were seen together backstage during AVTT/PTTN‘s May 08th show at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, CA.
Back in the spring of 2025, Bordin expressed his own confusion over the Faith No More‘s status and the lack of communication he had with Patton about it. Speaking with the ‘Let There Be Talk‘ podcast of the hiatus that has sidelined that influential band since 2021, Bordin offered:
“All I can say is, and I think I do want this to be on the record, actually — because we don’t promote ourselves, we don’t talk about ourselves, and that’s, that’s really been to our detriment. But we’d been rehearsing for six months for these dates [in September/October 2021]. We’d been rehearsing instrumentally and we incredibly sounded phenomenal. I mean, the bass player said, ‘I’ve never heard us sound this good. This is how these songs sounded in my mind.’ And we’ve never gotten that on album, on live, whatever.
I mean, we were ready, we were prepared. And it came to pass that when the gear was in the truck, when it was rolling to Chicago, 36 hours before we were supposed to be on stage, and our guy [Mike Patton] doesn’t show for the rehearsal, the one rehearsal that we’re gonna do. And we go to go see him and see what’s going on. ‘What the hell’s going on here? Our gear’s rolling already to the gig.’ And it was very clear that he was unable at that point to physically do it. We made the decision that, ‘Look, we’ve gotta support our guy.’
It’s gonna be a shit storm canceling fucking 75 shows, but none of us wants to be the guy that breaks his back and forces him to do something that he’s not in the position to be able to do. It wasn’t even an argument. The only argument was, ‘How the fuck did we logistically do this? Because we have to.’ I mean, we did support him in our way, and whether that’s perceived or not is beyond — I can’t control it. So we pull these shows and just wait to see. Hopefully things are better, and try to find out what we can around the edges.
But ultimately shows get started to get booked with another band [Mr. Bungle] and that’s continued to this day. So it’s my take, my position, my statement on it is that he’s gone from being unable to do the shows to clearly being unwilling to do shows with us. And that’s heavy. That’s a big difference. That’s a big difference. And we haven’t really had much dialogue on it.”
With a year having passed since Bordin‘s comments, it would appear that the lines of communication have since reopened. The pair certainly seemed happy to see each other in the below photos from the San Francisco show. Whether or not this has any impact on the status of Faith No More remains to be seen however, though it is at least nice to know they are still friendly with each other.
AVTT/PTTN has been Patton‘s primary focus as of late, and it finds him united with members of folk rock outfit The Avett Brothers. Their self-titled debut album was released this past November. Notably, recent touring from that collective has found them covering Faith No More songs. That trend also continued during the aforementioned AVTT/PTTN show Puffy was spotted at.
