'90s Rocker Reveals How He Made Millions — And It Wasn't From Music
'90s Rocker Reveals How He Made Millions — And It Wasn't From Music
Jacqueline Burt CoteTue, January 13, 2026 at 3:00 AM UTC
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(Photo by Ebet Roberts on Getty Images)
Lots of fans assume that their favorite rock stars are millionaires, and oftentimes they are...but one famous '90s rocker didn't make his millions from music at all.
As Faith No More keyboardist and Imperial Teen frontman Roddy Bottum explained during his appearance on the podcast The Hustle: Money & Music last month, he was just a "punk rock kid" in San Francisco when he got a piece of financial advice that changed his life forever.
"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," Bottum recalled. "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."
Bottum, who wrote about his early years in his memoir The Royal We, per Stereogum, said it was his boyfriend, Jim Olson, who taught him how to read the stock market...even though he had "no money" at the time.
"But we did follow the stock market, just sort of in an obnoxious way, and brag about it later, to stir s—t, 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," he continued.
"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.'"
According to Bottum, it was "more money than [he 'd] ever seen," but because he was going on tour and didn't need to pay rent, he was able to take Olson's advice and buy Apple stock with it.
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"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," he said.
Roddy Bottum's Apple investment was like 'winning the lottery'
As Bottum went on to clarify, he doesn't consider his financial success anything to brag about.
"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," he said, calling the successful investment "a payoff, in terms of this boyfriend I had was unbearable...So there you go."
For Bottum, the millions he made have been a "cushion," which he considers a "luxury" as a musician.
"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," he said.
Related: '90s Alt-Rock Icons Announce First 2026 Concert After Resurgence
This story was originally published by Parade on Jan 13, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
