Faith No More’s Roddy Bottum Explains How an Investment Move in the 90s Made Him Rich

For decades now, Faith No More co-founding member and keyboardist Roddy Bottum has been living his best life. He’s in a loving relationship with fellow musician Joey Holman, he’s released a new memoir The Royal We, and it turns out his investment portfolio remains something to smile about after a smart move back in the early 90s.

During a recent discussion about his aforementioned memoir on the podcast The Hustle: Music & Money, Bottum elaborated on a story within the book where he invested $12,000 of his first big touring paycheck with Faith No More on a little known tech company called Apple. And how that initial investment could be worth somewhere in the realm of $7 million dollars today.

“Us as kids, me and my crew, were about pushing buttons. And one of those things, believe it or not, was watching the stock market — just ’cause it was so uncool and so ridiculous.”

To Bottum and his social circle back then, Wall Street was something that he said was “fascinating” and “provocative.” Spurred on by his first boyfriend, he learned how to read the stock market and see what investors were seeing.

At first, he was only learning about the market but never had any real skin in the game because, well, you need money. But then things changed once Faith No More blew up and he received a $12,000 check from management for his share of excess earnings. With zero living expenses and no need for the money per se, Bottum said his boyfriend urged him to invest it.

“The insane bipolar boyfriend convinced me to just take that $12,000 check and buy Apple stock with it.”

Remember, this was well before the days of iPods and iPhones and insane growth that Apple experienced in the late 90s and early 2000s. At this point, Apple had fired Steve Jobs and was trying to dig itself out of a bad situation. The corporation was struggling, so stock prices were low. Bottum bought at that point and did nothing with it in the years that followed.

Bottum said in his book that he was hesitant to even share this story and further questioned by people close to him about whether he should include it in the memoir. He ultimately decided to do so.

“I’m not bragging about it. Honestly, it was like winning the lottery. It was just the craziest thing.”

With money no longer really being an issue, Bottum said he’s been able to freely focus on his art. Faith No More may be no more (hopefully just for now), but Bottum’s been busy promoting his memoir and making music with Imperial Teen, Crickets, and Man On Man, all of which have new albums in various stages of completion. He doesn’t have to fear how he’s going to take care of himself or the ones he loves, so he said his creativity has been able to flourish, which is something he said has become a major privilege.

“There’s not an urgency to make money, I guess. I have that cushion. That’s a luxury. But I make music every day.”

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