Last fall, the Faith No More keyboardist and Imperial Teen frontman Roddy Bottum published his memoir The Royal We. In his book, Bottum writes about growing up queer in LA and San Francisco, forming Faith No More, and surviving heroin addiction. In the book, Bottum also writes that he made millions as a young man because he was an early investor in Apple.
Recently, Roddy Bottum appeared on the podcast The Hustle: Money & Music, and he and host Jon Lamoreaux talked about it. During that converation Bottum also mentioned a new Imperial Teen album on the way. Here’s a transcription of the relevant exchange:
Lamoreaux: To me, the headline of this book is that after going on tour with Faith No More, you had $12,000 to show for it after a year of touring, assuming I get my facts straight, and you decided to invest at an Apple early on, and now you’re a multi-multi-millionaire. Is this right?
Bottum: Right.
Lamoreaux: That’s one of those dreams that people talk about. Were you into stocks? Were you watching the stock market? How did you even know to do this?
Bottum: I talk about it in the book. It’s all laid out there pretty clearly. Part of the premise of who we were as kids and the buttons that we were pushing and the provocation that we were stewing in in San Francisco at the time was, I mean, you’ve got to sort of like wrap your head around what San Francisco was at that time. It was bicycle messengers. It was punk rock kids. It was kids who wore black, kids who were really pretty judgmental and stuck to their own lanes in terms of like highbrow arts and highbrow punk rock ethics.
Us as kids, me and my crew, were about sort of pushing buttons, and we were really about doing things that were like considered outlandish or that rubbed people the wrong way. And one of those things, believe it or not, was, yeah, we were watching the stock market just because it was so uncool and so ridiculous and so over the top. Like, what punk rock, bicycle messaging, dreadlocked, pot smoking kid would follow the stock market? But that’s the kind of provocative kids that we were, particularly this boyfriend that I had at that time, my first boyfriend.
His name was Jim Olson, He was super smart. He was a little bit older than me, and he kind of tutored me in that way. He showed me the ropes and taught me how to read the stock market, just because it was fascinating and also because I knew that it was provocative and ridiculous and we had no money. I had no money. I wasn’t going to buy stocks, God knows.
But we did follow the stock market, just sort of in an obnoxious way, and brag about it later, to stir shit, if you will. So then when the time came when I made a little bit of money through Faith No More, I’d never made that much money before. I made $12,000 after touring for probably a year and a half straight. I was at my home in Los Angeles, visiting my family for the holidays, and someone delivered that check from the company managing Faith No More at the time. It was like, This is your compensation for what you made over the past year and a half. We have some overage, so everyone in the band is getting $12,000.
It was more money than I’d ever seen, of course, and my dad was super proud. He couldn’t believe that I was getting a check for $12,000. At the time, I was living with that boyfriend in San Francisco. We lived in a studio apartment. I didn’t pay any rent, and I was still sort of working as a bicycle messenger. We were going to go out on the road immediately, so I had no need for that $12,000, and the insane bipolar boyfriend convinced me to just take that $12,000 check and buy Apple stock with it. It was at the time when Apple stock was at its absolute most base. Steve Jobs wasn’t back in the company yet. We were years and years away from the iPhone, and I just bought that stock and I let it sit.
It’s kind of a weird thing to bring up in the book. A couple people read it — my publishers read it, my boyfriend read it— people would say, “Are you sure you want to put that in the book?” I’m not bragging about it. Honestly, it was like winning the lottery. It was just the craziest thing. Who would ever do that, for one? It was this crazy happenstance of luck that I happened to make that decision with this.
The way that I bring it up in the book, I have had insane relationships my whole life. I have been connected with and friends with just absolute maniacal people my whole life. And I’ve been criticized for it. People have hated my friends and judged me for that. But that’s a talent that I have. I have this talent of seeing the light through the darkness in all kinds of people. And I say in the book, oftentimes it bites me in the ass. But there’s always a payoff for the risks that I’m willing to take and the friendships that I make.
That is an example of a payoff, in terms of this boyfriend I had was unbearable. I loved him. And so smart. And I could see that. I could see the light through the darkness in that regard. And in terms of real tangibility, yeah, he made me a millionaire. So there you go.
Lamoreaux: Isn’t that crazy? You were mentioning that you took a chunk of that money and that’s how you bought your home in New York. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it sounds as if Faith No More is not going to be a thing anymore. I don’t know how active you are with Imperial Teen. They haven’t put out an album in six years. So you have the luxury of just living off the Apple money for the rest of your life, probably. There’s not an urgency for you to put these bands back together because you’re good either way.
Bottum: I have that cushion. You’re right. That’s a luxury. But I make music every day. Imperial Teen just finished a record in Paris. We’re just finishing a record, and we’re mixing it right now. I’m making another record in New York with Crickets. We start our record in January. The past two years, I’ve put out two records with Man On Man, and we’re going to make another record in February. So it’s not like I’m not doing something and I’m resting on my laurels and living off of Apple money. Sure, that’s a cushion, and that’s a luxury that I have. But I don’t make music for money. I haven’t written this book for the want for money. That’s not my motivation and what I do artistically.
You can listen to that interview here. The Royal We is out now via Akashic Books, and Bottum’s book tour launches in two weeks.
