Advertisement
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)