At the time, I wasn't as much of a fan of this guy as I should have been. I still think California is a monster of an album, a kind of Martin Denny/Les Baxterized slice of the surreal West Coast. It's a nice kiss-off to the Chili Peppers, who get dissed majorly in this interview. Years later, after getting into Fantomas, I realized the composer Patton has become is much more than just a parallel-universe Danny Elfman. He's one-of-a-kind, all right. I wonder if Anthony Keidis is still trying to side-swipe him?
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This new album, California -- more sane and less profane?
I don’t know. The only thing I can really say about it is there are more songs on this record than we’ve ever written together in the past. When we started writing for this record it became apparent that we were all writing in the song form more than we ever had, and we said, Hey, it would be fun to do a record of songs.” As opposed to operettas or jazz improvs, or you know. Noise pieces, whatever the hell you want to call ‘em. And so we thought the stuff seemed really strong and we stuck with it. It felt natural. An electro-acoustic noise piece, or whatever, just wouldn’t fit on this record. I don’t know if you’d agree with that or not but every record is its own universe, we don’t think about whether or not it fits into the grand scheme of what Mr. Bungle is or, oh gee, you know, we didn’t represent with the chaos! Or we didn’t do this or we didn’t do that. Basically, that stuff doesn’t matter to us. Each record is its own little world and requires its own little special things and you use special tools to get those things. And that’s pretty much it. Another thing that ties this together is that there’s a shitload of vocals, way more than I’d ever done with Mr. Bungle before. The layering and stuff like that, not just the vocals, all the instruments...like the song “Sweet Charity.” If someone was going to try and remix that song, I’d pray for them. One on track alone is a harmony vocal, then all of a sudden it’s a glockenspiel for two notes, then it turns into a hand drum and then it turns into a guitar part that lasts for 30 seconds. It’s a disaster.
Are you trying to uphold the ideals of Frank Zappa?
I don’t know. I haven’t really got a good answer for the Zappa question yet. I should, because, boy, we get that question a lot. The funny thing is, I mean, I like Frank Zappa, I like some of his records, but he never really blew my head off when I was young or even now. I’ll listen to certain records and they’re really great, but none of us are really huge Zappa fans. I don’t think we’re anywhere near to where that guy got — I mean, that guy worked with everybody and worked in a thousand different genres and he had his own thing going. I don’t really know if what we’re doing is like what he did or what. I don’t really have a good answer for that.
Do you ever feel like a soundtrack composer?
Yeah, that feels natural. I don’t think we’ve ever sat down and said, “Hey, let's try to be composers.” You realize that it’s not just as simple as four rock and roll guys going into a room and jamming out and emerging with a golden egg — it just doesn’t happen like that for us anymore. At least for me, I can’t do it anymore. I prefer to sit down with a cup of coffee on my own and work out a shitload of ideas and then over-layer and over-orchestrate them and that feels right to me. We all did that on this record. There’s something that’s akin to being a soundtrack composer, definitely more than, like, say, No Doubt or something!
That’s almost at odds with playing giant festivals.
It’s funny, because we’ve put this record out and we’ve gone on some tours but we’re going to be playing some festivals in Europe and it’d be nice to get in front of some new people. Which means opening for a bigger band. Gee, who the fuck are we gonna open for? Hmmmm? We talked about doing the Warped Tour over there, playing in front of a bunch of kids. Think about it—Ice T, Suicidal Tendencies, Blink 182, us.... It’s three in the afternoon and kids just want to slam their heads against the wall and fuckin’ drink warm beer! They don’t want to listen to our shit!
Love the ironic/nostalgic Christopher Cross/Pablo Cruise look for the LP cover.
It’s a 70s graphic that we took and manipulated a bit, but it’s not making a specific reference.
Does the title California have a deeper symbolic meaning?
Oh well. Dangerous to over-think that kind of shit, I would say. I think that more than anything that title really sums up sonically what’s going on on the record. It’s very pleasant at times -- and then there’s a lot of little disasters that come up and present themselves, and then blow over and go away like a storm. I would tend to explain it more like that rather than, “Oh, California is this very deceptive place, it’s bright on the outside and a really dark place on the inside.” I mean, let’s let the Chili Peppers do that.
Do you ever read what’s going on, with people talking about you on the internet? Did you know you have your own newsgroup?
I have. I do. It’s a little spooky, to tell you the truth -- I don’t enjoy it. I’ve been on there with my wife who’s said, “Oh, look at this!” We’ve had a laugh for a minute and then it’s like, I’ve got to turn it off. I mean, when it’s about really important things like, “Gee, does Mike wash his hair? What kind of gel does he use?”
Does he really play instruments?
Thirty people discussing the meaning of lyrics. It’s pretty odd. Snooping around and seeing what people are saying about me— I get spooked really easily doing that. It’s kind of like bad voodoo for me, reading that shit.
Um-hmm. Everything that's on the album -- can it all be reproduced onstage?
We use samplers a lot, for the new material we’re using samplers more than we ever have. There’s a lot of instruments. We have four keyboards triggering samples on stage. There’s definitely some Jan & Dean moments. If one cord comes unplugged, certain songs can’t be played. When we write music we don’t think about playing it live, because that’s a no-no. I totally am not into that. So what you do is you make a great records and then figure out how you’re going to play it live. And certain songs you can’t play live, it’s just better to leave them alone. Other ones we did extensive sampling to recreate those sounds, and others we rearrnged for a live context. We had to take out things like 30 vocal overdubs, parts that would be Milli Vanilli we cut out of the songs.
Think there’s a lot of jazz snobs getting into Mr. Bungle through John Zorn?
I hope so. To be honest, I don’t hear from a lot of people like that, no. I definitely don’t get a lot of jazz snobs.
I’ve met some women who are into Mr Bungle, but most of your audience seems to be male.
Seems to be. I don’t like to think about who’s out there. It scares me.
Really?
Really (nervous laugh). Sometimes I would just rather look the other way. I think that sometimes the more you know the more it can really influence what you do, and I’d rather not know. I know for years of playing with Faith No More it was really like a teenage dude thing. And I know there’s a significant amount of that in the Mr. Bungle audience, too. I just hope that there’s a lot of different people out there who all like it for their own reasons. That’s the most I can hope for. But I think you’re probably right — I think our audience is mostly sweaty. pimply-faced guys.
Faith No More is no more – are you proud of how much public interest still remains?
I think it’s strange, because we’ve been defunct for nearly two years now, so it’s surprising. It’s funny. But I’m definitely glad it’s over, It was a great thing while it lasted and it really had to end, I think if it had continued it would have gotten really ugly. No fistfights or bloody noses or anything like that, but I think the music would have been substandard, the music would have suffered. So the line must be drawn there.
Does it feel like there’s been overlap? Or is this a clean slate?
Hopefully, that’s the idea. My 20s were spent with Faith No More, that was a fuckin’ decade of my life. So that was not an easy page to turn. Musically, personally, socially whatever. There were a lot of different levels going on there. I really think that having a band like Mr. Bungle, I feel real lucky to be playing with these guys and I’m lucky that I can write anything and that they’ll fuckin’ play it! I can write a fuckin’ crossword puzzle, some Rubik’s cube music, and they can transcribe it, write it down, and play it. That’s a therapeutic, liberating kind of thing. It’s a good thing. Being around people like that helps you turn the age and get over it. That’s what this year has been about for me -- and probably next year too. I’m releasing a bunch of stuff on my label, my label’s been a great new exciting thing for me. The page has definitely turned for me at this point and I’m glad.
Says here you’re playing medium-sized places – most of them sold out.
It’s just like, fuckin’ weird! I mean, we hadn’t made a record in four years or toured in five...it’s like, how the hell is this happening? I ask that question, but I don’t know if I really want to know how it’s happening. I just want to keep doing it. I just don’t know where these fans are coming from, really. But it seems like they’re getting it and that’s important.
Are you worried about what fans are thinking about?
No. That’s definitely the last thing I worry about. That’s the most dangerous thing of all, worrying about what people will think. It’s really nice to be appreciated and have people at your show, but when you start letting that control what you do, you’re in fuckin’ trouble. You’re in deep trouble. It sounds like a crass artistic thing, but we make music for ourselves first, then we record it onto a record and then we hope that it makes sense to other people, but it’s really just what we do naturally, it feels right, and if that can communicate something and people can translate it into whatever their own language is, translate it into their own lives. Hopefully, it’ll make sense to them.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers used to be your rivals… are you satisfied that they’ve become a shallow, bloated self-parody...
(laughs) Not me! (laughs)
And that for the most part, you’ve retained your integrity and are at the top of your particular game, whatever crazy game that is.
I don’t feel happy thinking about them, period (laughs). But we’ve had some recent...well, not really run-ins, but encounters with them, strange encounters. I mean, the Chili Peppers was something that I hadn’t really thought of in years. And I’ll go ahead and tell you this — why not? I haven’t told anybody else yet. We were looking at booking some Mr. Bungle shows in Europe, some big festivals, which is something we’d never done before and we figured it’d be a good thing. We’d get to play in front of a lot of people who wouldn’t otherwise hear us, normally. Our agent was in the process of booking these festivals and it was becoming apparent that we’d landed some pretty good ones — one in France, another one in Holland, some big-name festivals. Turns out...someone’s holding a grudge! (laughs) We were booted off several bills, including also a really big festival in Australia. We were booted off several of these bills, specifically because Anthony Keidis did not want us on the bill. He threatened to pull the Chili Peppers if Mr. Bungle was on the bill. Now...(laughs) Rationalize that one! That’s so fucking pathetic! I mean, this guy’s selling a million records; we are like not even a speck of dust on this guy’s ass! What’s the fucking problem? It’s unbelievable.
So this has cost you money?
Absolutely! When it happened once, we kind of shrugged it off and laughed and said, That’s really sad. Let’s get on with our lives, no big deal. But the one in Australia...they basically reached into our pockets and robbed us. And it’s a pretty pathetic thing.
That would spur me to do some investigation, and really get to the bottom of this feud.
I guess. But there’s nothing I can do about it. All I can really do is laugh. Or talk shit in the press, I suppose, which I guess is what I’m doing right now. It’s a funny thing. It’s a very strange thing. Like I said, whatever problems there are—and there obviously are some—they couldn’t be further from my frame of reference, from my reality.
Well, what do you think it is? Have you met Keidis before?
Uh....yeah. I know what it is. It’s exactly what you said before. It’s basically some kind of old grudge. I think what happened was 10 years ago, Faith No More was really big in Europe and we were enjoying a lot more notoriety than the Chili Peppers were. That pissed off them, or him, or whatever, and they started talking shit about in the press, way, way back then. And we laughed it off — “What’s this guy’s problem?”— and it went away. Then, lo and behold.... There’s still poison in the air! Now you’ve got some dirt.
(Copyright 2010 by Jeffrey Charles Stratton. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.)
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