In 1992, Mike Patton’s band Faith No More was opening for Guns N’ Roses during their hugely popular co-headlining tour alongside Metallica. The tour took place in the middle of Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion Tour, promoting their Use Your Illusion I & II albums, and between Metallica’s Wherever We May Roam Tour and Nowhere Else to Roam, promoting their eponymous fifth album Metallica. Patton admitted to urinating on Axl Rose’s teleprompter during this time, while also revealing the reason behind his actions.
“It was such a drag touring with [GNR], I hate to say it. They treated us like shit,” Patton explained, recalling the story during a conversation with Scott Ian of Anthrax and Andreas Kisser of Sepultura. “They paid us really well, but we were really, just every day, looking for something fucked up to do. So one day, I just took it out, and I pissed all over his teleprompter.”
Patton also explained another time a prank against Guns N’ Roses almost went wrong. “What I did is I took a chocolate cake. It was at a big table of catering.
“I took this cake and I put some of my shit inside of it, [then] put it back there. And then we watched because I was hoping like, ‘Oh, maybe Axl Rose will eat it.’ Instead, our crew guy fuckin’ picks it up. He’s about it eat it and I’m like, ‘Don’t do it! Don’t do it!’ Like, at the last second.”
Photo credit: Raymond Flotat