The Royal We by Roddy Bottum
2025 Akashic Books
“The Royal We” is an autobiography that reads like a Lost Generation novel, following its lead character’s childhood and adult years in California. Recollections abound of melancholy, heartache, addiction, love, relationships, family, growing up gay in the 70s-80s, death, Courtney Love, Kurt, music, L.A., and San Francisco. Roddy Bottum doesn’t just recount the events of his life, he describes them with shrewd, keen, intelligent, personal detail. Many of the passages feel like diary entries, but others hit like the lush prose of a great novelist. Bottum not only evokes Fitzgerald, Miller, Salinger, Kerouac, and Steinbeck, but also channels more modern writers like Hornby, Perrotta, and Straczynski.
Dear reader, you’re welcome to skip this next paragraph: it’s directly solely at the author:
Dear Roddy (can I call you Roddy?),
We’ve seen what you can do with words. Please deliver your fans a novel – – or at least some short stories. I’d never ask you to compromise your music; I’m just requesting that you invest the same energy, voice, talent, and passion that you gave “The Royal We” into some fiction.
Sincerely, Jack.
OK, where were we?
The book chronicles Roddy’s upbringing in L.A., walking us by hand from childhood to his young adult days, living a precarious, casually desperate life of playfulness, mischief, occasional squalor, friendship, love, sex, heroin, rehab, and exploration – – mostly in San Francisco, but sometimes drifting back to Los Angeles. Roddy comes across as someone who lives fearlessly, especially in his art, always eschewing the safe and well-trod in favor of the progressive and risky. Paradoxically, however, in interpersonal relationships – – i.e.: friends, partners, bandmates, etc. – – he comes across as someone who tries to keep the peace and smooth tensions.
He shares his observations of those around him with candor and honesty, but also with sensitivity, empathy, and affection. Only a few get his full-on contempt – – and those are never directly named (although their fame gives them away). He rarely uses anyone’s last names, which often leaves the reader unsure (e.g.: “Does he mean that Billy?”). This doesn’t cause confusion or frustration, though, as you might expect; it makes the stories more intimate, as if you’re sitting for a coffee conversation with him, discussing a shared community of friends.
It must be noted that this is the story of Roddy Bottum’s life, not a step-by-step history of Faith No More. . . There are numerous sections about the band’s origins and rise to fame, with many anecdotes about various members, but not a ton of details about the records beyond “Angel Dust.” He touches on Imperial Teen’s formation and first record, but that’s it. There’s only a closing hint of Man on Man.
That’s ok. We sat down together to read about Roddy’s entire life, not just his rock stardom. The passages about his closeness with Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain are among the most moving. Before “The Royal We,” I was unaware of their intimacy. The period following Kurt’s suicide are heart-rending. The accounts of his darkest days of heroin sickness, near-misses with death, and rehab, accompanied by more suicides of friends, are bleak and harrowing. The events he’s experienced and observed are the reasons S.L.A.M. exists.
I’d always known Roddy Bottum was a brilliant musician; he elevates every song, no matter who else is there. But this book reveals a complex, sensitive, empathic, deep-thinking man, away from the keys. I trust him. His meditations on life and death are poignant and provocative. Thank your deity of choice for “The Royal We.” And thank her also for Roddy Bottum.
–
Jack Mangan