From the Bottum to the Top

Photo: Lee Osorio

“It’s a really good time to put out this book,” says musician and author Roddy Bottum, who has written a memoir, The Royal We. “Sitting in the pandemic as things were crumbling and Trump was coming into his second term, it felt like a ripe time to provoke and get people thinking,” he says. “I like the representation of no apologies, and ‘This is who I am.’ ”

The book is a deep dive into Bottum’s early years — from coming out of the closet in pre-tech boom San Francisco to friendships and relationships with some of the most notorious ’90s musicians, like Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain. On Friday, June 5 at 5 p.m., Bottum will read from The Royal We at the Fine Arts Work Center (24 Pearl St., Provincetown) followed by a conversation with musician and producer JD Samson of Le Tigre.

Bottum started the band Faith No More in San Francisco in 1983. Today, he lives in New York and Provincetown and plays in five bands, including Man on Man, a group he started with his partner Joey Holman. Holman is the owner of the Old Baby, a boutique in Provincetown.

The Royal We started out as an exercise in honesty for Bottum. At first, he was unaware his writings were building toward a book. But after losing his mom in the pandemic and seeing his nieces and nephews grow up, he decided it was time to tell his story.

“It’s hard to imagine putting out my book before those things happened,” he says. “My mom reading this book — reading about me having sex as a young boy in the bushes or in department stores in Los Angeles — it would have crushed her.”

Despite that, Bottum has no shame or regrets. “I’ve had a remarkable life of crazy stories — a lot of damage, wreckage, and so much grief, and a lot of people dying. But it’s all pretty glorified in my mind and on the page,” he says.

Bottum thinks of the book as a work about political and queer activism. It’s about coming out and the repercussions of that, especially in the ’90s. He doesn’t shy away from discussing other topics, like his own struggles with heroin. He says half his fans are “Faith No More diehards and half are queer younger people.

“The Fine Arts Work Center is a real coup, a real feather in my cap, where I get to share my book in that forum,” he says. “Where it doesn’t have a lot of trappings of rock.”