Former Faith No More guitarist Jim Martin joined Metallica on stage at the Fillmore in San Francisco as the band played Tuesday’s Gone as a Cliff Burton tribute during the 30th anniversary concert.
Here he is reminiscing about the late Metallica bassist along with James Hetfield.
And the music
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I really can´t recognize Jim. Sad to see Big Sick Jim is gone…
Yeah, without the glasses, long hair, and facial hair, I think Jim looks 20 years younger than he did in the 80′s. Almost unrecognizable.
And I’m a big fan of his guitar playing, so it’s cool to see him resurface from pumpkin farming obscurity. Kinda sucks he wouldn’t take part in any of the Faith No More reunion shows though.
Yet….won’t take part in any shows yet…..
Kind of an awkward dude behind the mic. Once he gets to talking he is totally recognizable as Jim. And this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-QOujfgf8s
Here’s Tuesday’s Gone – http://youtu.be/L6jJ0HvYIZw.
Sounds great but taped a bit far away so hard to make Jim out.
OH MY F***KING GOD! Are you sure that’s Big Jim? Completely unrecognizable. Man, same voice, but wow… And he does look younger than he did in the ’80s and ’90s. Not to mention he’s in awesome shape; Patton is 43 and he’s definitely gain some pounds since the ’90s… do you think he’ll be called fat Mike Patton when he reaches 50? Ha ha, just kidding Mike. It’s sucks Big Jim refused to be part of the reunion — it’s understandable since the guys never stopped making fun of poor Ol’ Jim. And I have to say it’s sad that big Jim doesn’t look like, well… Big Jim Martin anymore. Hope in the future The Real Thing and Angel Dust could be played in their entirety somewhere in the future with JIM..
P.S. Martin was GREAT guitar player. Just because his focus was mainly on metal and guitar music, doesn’t mean he wasn’t great. He didn’t understood the experimental take, so what? Many guitar gods never take that routes. But it’s funny Faith No More’s best album was Jim’s final album – and he hated it.
nice to see Jim after so long. We miss you Jim!
Jim Martin is still Jim Martin…dumb as a box of rocks and a annoying redneck to boot. He was a great guitar player, but he never grew as a guitar player. He would have been content to make the same record over and over. Jim did not play all the guitar on Angel Dust because he was uninterested or uninteresting. He was also huge liability live. I could speculate as to why but only Jim and the band know why? There was a lot of onstage mockery on the Angel Dust tour. Truthfully Jim started slipping around 1991 I have seen soooooo much footage of the band making fun of him on stage and insinuating that he was too fucked up. He made mistakes left and right in a band where mistakes were not tolerated or made at all.
Nice comment, Sonny Bungle! I totally agree with you.
Jim played Seek And Destroy in the end, as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xc7MB81EHs
Another Tuesday’s Gone video, with a better view of Jim:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-SfCb3hGWo
Why all the hate? Every interview I’ve ever seen, Jim seems like a very real and humble person. When people gave him grief, he pretty much laughed it off. I agree that he didn’t grow as a guitar player, but he worked for this band for a long time until the band moved on…it doesn’t have to be negative thing. I remember reading also that his dad died around the time of Angel Dust and that he was concerned with looking after his family and keeping the painting business going for his siblings. In “The Real Story”, Billy talked about how a Roadie attacked him and Jim ended up breaking his hand and played the rest of the tour with his fingers taped together on his pick hand and NEVER COMPLAINED. He came across as a little bigoted towards Chuck and Roddy for being black, gay respectively, but that’s just speculation. Also, he may not have been into the music, but his playing was tight for every show I ever heard (which is just about every bootleg out there…I remember 1 screw-up on his song “Jim” from Milan in 1990…compare that to how many times Patton has messed up a lyric). I enjoyed seeing Jim again, he’s good at what he does with guitar, he’s aged well, and who gives a shit about hair and sunglasses…if that counts as present, then I guess Jon Hudson just needs a wig and sunglasses and all the haters will say he’s FNM best guitarist. Comparisons are irrelevant, just enjoy the band.
FNM was great while big jim was there. The sad truth is Jim was way beyond fnm and they were unable to understand the work he was doing. There are interviews where big jim describes working with alternate turnings and complex time signatures and complaining the rest of the band were unable to accept or even grasp the concept. All way before this becam the popular trend. I also read where he complained that he had to write all parts including drums keys and base for his compositions because the others were unable to. I’m sorry but the band has a track record of bad mouthing big jim and it is simply unfounded.
Well said Ben. Thats a very different Jim we see there onstage in that clip. In FNM he mostly stood still on stage in one single stance. He looks more relaxed and happy there. I’ll start a band with him! Why isn’t he still making music these days?
Yeah I don’t understand the hate for him (or Chuck for that matter). Complete legend and like it or not, the 89-93 lineup will always be the definitive one (no disrepect to Jon who does a great job).
Re: some of the above comments: Did he actually refuse to be part of the reunion? It was my impression that they didn’t even approach him and always planned to stick with Jon.
I think Bill Said something about that they wanted to do a one-off-thingy with Jim, but that he had ridicolously high demands, so it couldnt happen. And i guess they still dislike eachother aswell.
I stand by what I said. Even the most well intentioned douche bags are still douche bags. He is what he is…
Wasn’t it Jim with Metallica joking about Axel backstage. If I remember correctly, Axel then blamed it on Patton and tried to get FNM off the tour. Long time ago I’m not sure.
Here’s the story regarding Jim’s FNM reunion involvement.
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=114601
Of course, that’s Jim’s view of what happened. The band wouldn’t have contacted him if there was no interest so presumably he had some silly demands (e.g. no post-Angel Dust material) and/or acted like a dick.
For those beard and sunglass fans, you’re like somebody who’d like and remember Mike P of his long hair and funk metal stuff… Time flies for everyone, Jim himself turned 50 this year (too bad this blog forgot all about it…). Jim did a lot of stuff after leaving the band, his look also changed like 10 years ago. It must have been very hard for him to play in a band, then to reach success, and instead of staying on the successful (musical) way, serving the fans and making similar albums all the time, realizing that all other bandmates want the opposit: take the experimental way, irritate the fans etc. Too bad he was not this type. And too bad they could not settle this without fighting (and maybe separate peacefully). This communication error seems to live on even today, too bad they don’t have a common friend who’d sit down with all of them at a table and mediate. For Jim, I guess it was also like he felt there’s no FNM without him, and watching what happened puts him in a very difficult personal situation. I still believe that someday they’ll be able to do at least a peace talk, maybe to play a song together (I mean who would have guessed this will happen with Chuck?!)
Just really good to see him around (albeit briefly).
Jim wanted too much money to do the Filmore show. The original plan was for the band to appear for the encore with Chuck & Jim on stage and perform the entire Introduce Yourself album. I heard this direct from Bill so suck it if you don’t believe me.
I like Jim a lot after this. Yeah, his speech wasn’t funny but the guy was recalling relaxing with his friend and it seemed like a nice memory to him. Dosn’t have to be a big epic story. Anyways, the guy was great with the band, and if he ever plays I’ll be there. But all of the musicians in this band have made it what it is today: a still great band.
I normally don’t comment, but downplaying this guy just seems wrong. He seems like a nice guy and his playing was great. Yeah.
Whatever the human qualities and high musicianship of Jim, (that most of us don’t even know – I personnally never talked to any of those guys, so how could I say who is a douche beg and who is not ?), to me, Jim Martin will remain in history as “the guy who could have been playing in one of the most interesting bands of the 90′s but who got kicked off and ended up raising pumpkins”.
Too bad for him.
However, pumpkins are nice too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_LG6MGcsYA
@brownstien: too bad to hear that… still, I hope someday they can do something together… would be fun. Two more things: I think Jim always felt closer to Metallica personally, he’s more part of the wider Metallica family than FNM’s, so I can somehow understand why he appeared here and not there (of course, the two occasions are different, this being sort of a memorial thing). The other thing: musically/technically Jim stuck at some level. Mike P said it correctly as “he couldn’t keep up his weight”. I think that’s what happened to his solo material (Milk and Blood), it has some good ideas, fun even, but he missed the creative additions from other bandmates (drums suck like a lot, and he also fails as a singer). What’s tragic: since FNM is not so gitar based, he could have fill the needs until now, if he could take that direction – sadly he couldn’t.
I still like the guy a lot, he was fun (even with his dumbness – his tour bus introduction [there's even artwork on the wall" is a classic!] ), and I also appreciate a lot that he quit at a point, grows pumpkins and live as a family man.
I met Mike Bordin at a resort in Florida this past April. It was surreal, and I got to talk to him a little bit about the band. I asked about Jim Martin, he said that they had contacted him, and said something like, “he just wouldn’t cooperate.” So it seems they did try to get him to come along and play a show or two with the band, much like Chuck and Trey.
After being fired “by fax” (or supposedly so), one can understand that he showed them his middle finger if they approached him for the reunion.
Metalheads aren’t known for their coolness or for being open-minded, right? (being a metalhead myself, I know what I’m talking about)
To Sonny Bungle: Are you a real fan or just some groupie? Because your comment looks like a groupie one. I partially agree with you about the fact that it sucks that Big Jim refused to take part of the reunion but who the hell are you to judge someone’s part in a band. You’re not even in the band! You don’t know what happened, you just read news and comments like anyone else here. I’m not saying that they were right to fire him but I accept their decisions because I truly love this band and because I think that the line-up we have is good the way it is. And I think that the comment you did about the “gain of weight” of Mike Patton is completely stupid and out of sense! Who cares? I loved seeing Chuck Mosley performing again with the band. It proves that he’s still a member of the band and will still be. As long as Jim Martin refuses to take part of any of FNM’s proposition, he’ll remain the ex-shredder of the band. Full stop! One more thing, if you are a real fan, a true fan, only music should matter and not the kind of nonsense you blabbered so far!!!
It would be awesome if we can see him jamming with FAITH NO MORE again for the 20th anniversary of “Angel Dust” but he always seems particularly detached to the band. My dream would be to see Jim and Jon playing together, like they did with Trey for the KFAD special show in Chile. But back to Jim and Metallica, those guys are friends for so long that it would be really weird if he didn’t show up at this show!! Seeing Puff and Jim was a good surprise, though!
I think it’s normal to talk about the weight of the musicians. I like to know if a musician I like is having a healthy lifestyle or not. The healthier he is, the longer he’ll last.
Jim must have been eating a lot of pumpkins however, since I don’t think he would throw away such a huge amount of food. But who knows, I mean he was fired, so one can understand he’s a bit weird.
Anyway, I hope Bill is definitely into vegetables cause they prevent heart attacks, which could occur to him if he happened to read the bullshit that is in the comments those days (mine included of course).
Hahahahaha that’s a pretty good argument Jimbo!