No Grass Has Grown Under Mike Patton's Heels Since Faith No More Disbanded

Mike Patton

Mike Patton seems to be forever moving between stage and studio. He never looked back after Faith No More disbanded in 1998 and has lent his endlessly versatile voice to a dozen or so recent albums as a guest, including a death metal roar for Sepultura and all sorts of squeals, grunts and lullabies for John Zorn. Then there's Mr. Bungle, the genre-splintering group he started in high school, and The Director's Cut, from scary noise invention Fantomas, which was one of the great, strange pleasures of last summer, featuring mysterious covers of movie themes like "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Omen."

For the rest of the year, Patton will be crooning and shrieking on tour with Tomahawk, a relatively straight-ahead rock outfit that features Duane Denison from Jesus Lizard, Helmet's John Stanier and ex-Cow Kevin Rutmanis. If that weren't enough to keep him occupied, Patton has founded a label, Ipecac, home to the scattershot hardcore techno of Kid 606, urban honkytonkers the Lucky Stars and the Melvins, among others.

I called him at a San Francisco studio where he was working on Peeping Tom, an electronic pop experiment with the also ubiquitous Dan "The Automator" Nakamura.

I don't think I said that. I've heard a lot of other people say it, who have heard it. I think putting yourself in a position like that is setting yourself up for failure. I've come to grips with the fact that none of my stuff belongs anywhere and I'm really comfortable with it. I'm going to be happy just to make this damn record and get it out of my system. I've been sitting on this egg for over a year now, so I don't care where it ends up.

Is it just the two of you?

Yeah, so far. We're going to farm out work to certain musicians, depending on what the track needs. But it's more of a studio project than a band.

I always figured that very little of your music is actually conceived in the studio, though. I get the impression that you compose a lot of stuff ahead of time. There's not a lot of jamming going on.

Zero. No room for that stuff. Depending on the project, but most of the things that I'm doing at the moment, we work it all out in advance. Studios cost money. And if you're sitting in there saying, "Do I feel creative today?" at $300 an hour, that doesn't make me very creative.

Well, how important is taking the experiments to the stage? You perform a lot. Do you still get a thrill from it?

It depends. I'm out there searching for something, I'm not sure what. You can play all the parts right, the audience can dig it, the climate can be perfect, you could have had a wonderful martini before the show and the show can still suck. There's some kind of magic in it and you never know when it's going to happen and when it isn't.

And sometimes there's an asshole in the front yelling for Faith No More songs.

Sometimes an asshole like that can make the show, you know. Some of the worst of circumstances, the most adverse of situations, where I'm the enemy, I've played some of my best shows and had some of my most memorable onstage experiences.

Fantomas just played with Tool, in arenas. How was it playing in front of 15,000 people who were there to see someone else?

It was hilarious. Once again an adverse, unfriendly environment. And really, really fun. I had a total blast. I think the single most impressive thing was the way [Tool] run things. They run a tight ship. Most bands at that level don't give a damn. They let their managers do everything, they hire hundreds of little ants to work for them and things get done really horribly and you get treated like shit. [Tool] made us feel really welcome. They asked us to do this tour totally out of the blue. We didn't sell X amount of records and we didn't theoretically "deserve" that opening slot, but they really liked us and asked us to do it. It was really cool and I tip my hat to those guys.

Tell me about that last Fantomas album. What is appealing about soundtrack music? For example, did you choose to cover "Experiment in Terror" because you liked the Blake Edwards film or the Henry Mancini music?

The music. I love movies. I watch a lot of movies, and I think because of that I've really gotten into film music. There was really a golden era of that stuff, where guys were writing really interesting stuff. I was searching for a way to pay tribute to that.

Now you have a record label, Ipecac. Did you learn any lessons on how not to run a label through some of your past dealings with major labels?

Absolutely. Between me and my partner and a few of the other key people, there's over 20 years of experience there. Twenty years of bad deals and plenty of examples of how not to do it. At the end of the day, it's real simple, man. You don't need to twist arms or kneecap people to make a living for your business, to pay the rent. Our royalty rates are downright absurd when you compare it to what's going on in the industry. I've had people who are on the label who have said, "There must be some mistake. I haven't sold a million records, why are you sending me all this money?" Well, because we've set it up right. We don't spend insane amounts of money promoting and the stuff really takes care of itself. The contracts are two pages long. It's really simple.

So what else is coming out? I've always loved the Melvins, and I really dig that Kid 606 record.

We should get a new one from him for early next year. There's a project with Ween and a couple of the Boredoms. Justin Broderick and Kevin Martin are putting something together, kind of a crazy, extreme drum-and-bass kind of thing. This guy Atomsmasher?a guy from Jersey?another sort of digital hardcore guy, but he comes from our side of things. He's not a techno guy at all.

Have you ever thought about doing reissues?

Yeah, we're working on reissuing an Anton LeVay record. And we're actually reissuing a Young Gods record.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bungle remains on a major label? That has to be one of the most bizarre pairings.

No, we've finally been cut loose.

Oh, I was going to ask if you have pictures of Warner Bros. executives screwing goats.

I know. Unfortunately, it's not even that. I could have blackmailed them to the end of eternity. It's a tax write-off. We were very easy. We took care of ourselves. We put our records out, they sold a modest amount and they covered their costs. They made money off them, they didn't care. They didn't have to promote it and they didn't. And it's basically a decent catalog piece for them. So we're free now and it's going to take us a while to figure out where we want to go next, business-wise, creatively, everything.

Might it end up on Ipecac?

We'll see. I think it's an obvious choice. In major terms, our budgets were not very big. In Ipecac terms, I could never afford to pay Bungle what we've been making, budget-wise. So we'd have to rethink how we do what we do. Right now, musically, I'm not even near approaching that subject?I've got enough on my plate.

I wanted to ask you about your voice. Do you take any lessons, or do any strengthening exercises to perfect all that scary yelling and grunting?

I just do it. No special techniques. I tell people sometimes to gargle with ice-cold semen. I have yet to hear of anyone trying that. I figure taking a macho approach to it is probably the safest way to continue doing it: saying, hey, it's a muscle, keep flexing it.

So, what about Tomahawk? What can we expect?

It should be fun, man. I don't know what to expect myself.

It's all relative, especially when it comes to what you've done, but isn't [Tomahawk] a little more straightforward "rock"?

I see it that way. The other guys in the band certainly don't. They think I'm insane. "Yeah, sure, it's real straight, Mike. It sounds like the Rolling Stones." I think it's really interesting, straight, aggressive, to the point, tough and really in your face. Duane wrote most of the music. It's his puppy. It stretches and goes lots of different places and it's a pretty dynamic record. It should be fun live.

Are you going to show your penis, like David Yow [ex-Jesus Lizard] did?

I think he showed enough penis for the both of us. But, once again, you never know.

Tomahawk plays Tues.-Weds., Nov. 20-21, at the Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. (betw. Bowery & Chrystie St.), 533-2111.