You can't accuse Mike Patton of resting on his laurels. Not only did the vocalist with the cover-guy looks turn the big 3-0 this year, but his tenure as lead singer in the seminal funk-metal fusion band Faith No More ended last spring, when the San Francisco band pulled the plug after sixteen unpredictable years. |The break-up has often been placed at Patton's feet, attributed to his refusal to commit to another swing on the European Festival circuit. But the singer says that's a bunch of hogwash. |

"It was much more complicated than that. It was like being married to five people," he says. "And being married to one person is complicated enough. You can imagine five different psyches, head games and motivations. It was just time, and that's all there is to it. And as they say, it was good while it lasted."

The break-up doesn't seem to have bothered Patton in the least. In the downtime, he has revamped Mr. Bungle, the band he started with his childhood pals from Eureka, Calif., when he was only fifteen. The group is about to enter a San Francisco studio to record its third album in fifteen years, a record folks in the know say will be a huge departure from the jarring stuff the band is known for.

"Yeah, it's more commercial," concedes the singer. "There are more pop tunes on it, and that's definitely strange for us. But it's challenging and funny." Mr. Bungle will also have the freedom to tour, something that was always curtailed by Patton's commitment to Faith No More. "Once the record comes out, we will tour for the first time. We'll really be able to go out on the road and play like a real band."

No less real is the idiosyncratic supergroup Patton formed this year with the Melvins' Buzz Osbourne on guitar, Mr. Bungle's Trevor Dunn on bass and Slayer's Dave Lombardo on drums. Originally dubbed Diabolik, the band is now called FANToMAS because a psychic friend of former Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin told the skinsman to warn Patton that the name would be bad luck. Although Patton is a devout skeptic, Bordin didn't relent, telling the singer, "When Dionne Warwick talks, we listen." The name change was made, but a recording session fire last month might have Patton reconsidering his decision.

"It will be funny to you, but it wasn't funny to us at the time. The mixing board caught on fire. We smoked the board, that's how great this music is," Patton laughs. "Okay, it actually wasn't the music's fault, it was the rotten studio's fault. It was Brilliant Studios -- do you want me to spell that for you?"

Besides his musical commitments, Patton is also starting a label with manager Greg Werckman, who guides the fortunes not only of Patton, but also of FANToMAS, Mr. Bungle and Jello Biafra. No stranger to the industry, Werckman spent eight years as the general manager of Biafra's Alternative Tentacles label and a year at Mercury Records. According to Werckman, he and Patton are on the verge of signing a distribution deal, despite the fact they haven't even named their company yet. "It will be a very artist-friendly label, the only stipulation is that we will only work with friends," he says.

For his part, Patton is understandably nervous. "I wouldn't be doing it without Greg," he confides. "I've had ideas like this before that have never gone past the dinner table, but he's a guy I'd trust to make it happen."

JAAN UHELSZKI(December 3, 1998)