Legendary '90s Band, Once Subject of Music Video Controversy, Plots Comeback
For years, every update on Faith No More felt like a downward spiral for fans of the '90s rockers. Canceled tours, health struggles, and lead singer dismissals looked like they would keep the group offstage permanently. Then, on the morning of June 16, the band posted a single image to social media. It was their eight-pointed star logo and the word '2027' superimposed over a shot of a live crowd, and years of uncertainty gave way to renewed optimism that fans might see 'Epic' performed live once again.
The music video for that song, their breakout hit, caused backlash and and controversy that still bubbles up today. It famously features a fish flopping around on dry land at the end causing fans, detractors, and activists to loudly question if they had killed the creature in the making of the video. Reportedly, however, the fish (or multiple fish) suffered no harm.
Faith No More last performed together in 2016, at the end of the touring cycle for their 2015 album Sol Invictus. What followed was a slow unraveling. A 2020 co-headlining tour with Korn was scrapped due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and additional dates in 2021 were canceled after Patton cited mental health issues exacerbated by heavy drinking. In a 2022 interview with The Guardian, Mike Pattonrevealed he had been diagnosed with agoraphobia during the pandemic, describing how isolation had made going outside feel genuinely difficult, and how the prospect of more Faith No More shows had become stressful. The band's drummer, Mike "Puffy" Bordin, later said that Patton had 'gone from being unable to do the shows to clearly being unwilling to do shows with us. And that's heavy.'
The ice began cracking earlier this year. During AVTT/PTTN's April tour, Patton's collaborative project with the Avett Brothers, he performed Faith No More songs 'Ashes to Ashes' and 'Digging the Grave' live, material he hadn't played in over a decade. Then, in May, Patton and Bordin were seen together backstage at an AVTT/PTTN show at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, a small but notable signal that the estrangement between members had begun to ease.
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Now a reunion seems to be coming. Brazilian entertainment company 30e announced a global deal with Faith No More for the band's future worldwide tours. This past January, System of a Down struck a similar global deal with 30e, signaling the company's growing foothold in representing legacy rock acts. In their statement, Faith No More described 30e's approach as something that 'doesn't feel like the usual machinery.'
The Real Thing, the landmark album that transformed Faith No More into a crossover phenomenon, was released on June 20, 1989, making this week the record's 37th anniversary. 'Epic,' the album's breakout single, peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100, the band's only top-ten hit in the United States. The album earned the band a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance, and 'Epic' garnered a second nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance in 1991. The Real Thing ultimately sold more than four million copies worldwide.
No specific dates have been announced yet. Patton is currently finishing out the AVTT/PTTN run with remaining shows in Cleveland, Ann Arbor, and Waukegan before the month is out. For now, the band is letting '2027' speak for itself, and for a fanbase that spent years hearing reasons why this reunion would never happen, one word is plenty.
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This story was originally published June 17, 2026 at 11:42 AM.