Mike Patton
Mike Patton (his middle name’s Allan! HAH!) first started making music for public consumption in 1985, at the age of seventeen when he and his California-based friends formed the band Mr. Bungle and set about recording a series of cassette only demos. Contrary to popular opinion, and though they didn’t manage to release their debut album before all else kicked off, Mike was actually in Mr. Bungle a full four years before joining Faith No More at the beginning of January 1989. Though initially just filling in for Chuck Mosely (who had sung for the band since 1982), Patton’s arrival in the Faith No More ranks would prove to be the catalyst for the band’s greatest success, with their debut album The Real Thing coming out within a year of his joining and the single ‘Epic’ rarely off’a MTV.
Though Faith No More made three more albums (Angel Dust, King for a Day… Fool For A Lifetime and Album of the Year) before calling it a day in 1998, Patton never stopped work with Mr. Bungle, and in fact used the success of FNM to catapult his more experimental initial project in to the gaze of major labels. Bungle eventually signed a deal with Warner Brothers in 1991, the label releasing their self titled debut the same year, stone cold masterpiece Disco Volante in 1995 and a third, final Bungle LP entitled California in 1999.
As you might expect from someone who had deals in two bands with two major record labels by the time he was 23, Patton developed a reputation as something of a prolific workaholic. During the mid nineties, as a way of finding the correct path for all this music, Mike began collaborating in earnest, and hasn’t showed any signs of stopping, experimenting with his impressive vocal range in the band Hemophiliac (with John Zorn and Ikue Mori) and popping up on records from Painkiller, Naked City and numerous LPs on Zorn’s Tzadik label (on which he released two solo albums Adult Themes for Voice and Pranzo Oltranzista), as well as Melt Banana, Bjork, Merzbow, Dan the Automator and the Dillinger Escape Plan.
After the reportedly far from amicable and “slow, unnatural” demise of Mr. Bungle, and spurred on by no longer being tied to Faith No More, Patton wasted no time in putting together another outfit, this time creating the experimental heavy metal supergroup Fantomas (named after a French film noir villain) with King Buzzo of The Melvins on guitar, Trevor Dunn from ‘Bungle on bass and Dave Lombardo, once of Slayer, on drums. The only band of Patton’s to still be a real, going concern, Fantomas have based each of their four albums so far around different concepts, the self titled first album (released in 1999) revolving around comic books with each of the 30 short songs given a page number rather than a title, 2001’s The Director’s Cut taking its cues from several well known movie scores, Delirium Cordia’s one track, seventy four minute exploration of themes of un-anaesthetised surgery which came out in ’04 and, most recently, 2005’s ‘Suspended Animation’, a musical tribute to the month of April (featuring one song for every day in the month). Fantomas regularly perform live on the same stage, simultaneously with the Melvins, and have even released a live album of their work as the Fantomas/Melvins Big Band.
For Patton, one of the most fertile wells for people to collaborate with has been the roster of his own record label, Ipecac. Formed in 1999 (initially to house the first Fantomas record), he and co-runner Greg Werckman have ever since operated the label from a cottage in California, only ever signing bands to one album contracts, never pressing more than 20,000 records at a time and handing bands uncommonly large royalty cuts from album sales. Such an approach has let to very healthy relationships with the likes of The Melvins, Isis, Dalek, Kid 606, Mouse on Mars, The Locust and another of Patton’s own bands, Tomahawk.
Now, Tomahawk – keep up – were formed in 2000 when Patton started swapping tapes with former Jesus Lizard guitar player Duane Denison, with a view to a more lasting collaboration. This came to fruition when ex-Helmet and current Battles drummer John Stainer was added to the fold, and alongside sometime Melvins bass player Kevin Rutmanis (for the first two LPs at least), the group known as Tomahawk would record three albums for Ipecac thus far, the self titled debut of 2001, Mit Gas two years later, and this very year, the Anonymous album, a record of reinterpreted Native American music.
Often, Patton collaboration records can have spent years in his musical womb before they see the light of day. The most recent of these is his conscious attempt at a pop record, 2006’s Peeping Tom, a loosely R&B and hip hop themed collection of songs built around collaborations with the likes of Kool Keith, Odd Nosdam and Norah Jones (yep) that took place by swapping files through the post. Patton’s never met many of the people on the record, even going as far as to add – “and I never intend to.”
Did we say that was the most recent? Well it was a lie, as this very week the freshest produce from Patton’s unfathomably busy brain hits the shelves in the form of the Kaada/Patton DVD. A collaboration with Norwegian soundtrack composer John Kaada (also signed to Ipecac), the music revolves around the duo’s shared love of films, yet is a far more subtle and tender affair than Patton’s dealings with the topic on The Director’s Cut.
MIKEPATTON.DE: This German-based but English-written site is should be your first stop for all things Mike. It takes an incredibly thorough approach to each of the sections of the man’s career, and looks borderline sexual too.
MYSPACE.COM/PATTONMIKE: Mike doesn’t blog, doesn’t decorate, but does give you four tracks of what he’s been up to most recently and a wholly unnecessary fifty photos of himself, just, being Mike Patton.
MYSPACE.COM/PEEPINGTOMISPATTON: Though Peeing Tom might be a collaborations record, the address of the project’s MySpace profile leaves you in no doubt as to who the star of the show is. Four tracks, a list of collaborators and some intriguing live footage is yours to behold.
IPECAC.COM: “Making people sick since 1999”, browse a discography so full of talent it’d make most other alternative labels, indeed, vomit over their picture discs.
THE MUSICAL WORLD OF MIKE PATTON: Another fan site, and similarly thorough, this one has lyrics to every Mr Bungle, Faith no More and Tomahawk song available, as well as more information than anywhere else on Mike’s collaborators.
PEEPING TOM – PEEPING TOM: “Like Bowie, Prince and Waits, there’s some worth in observing him fumble for ideas, and cause for celebration, as there is time and time again here, when he realises them…”; said Tom Hannan of Mike Patton’s one and only ‘pop’ record (albeit a twisted one).
DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN – IRONY IS A DEAD SCENE: “All four tracks exude a dark morbidity and instrumental-inclination to suggest that The DEP are quite possibly the most disturbing, albeit forward-thinking, guitar-act in existence in the world at the moment…”; thought Toby L of Mike Patton’s contribution to Dillinger’s between-singers EP.
TOMAHAWK - ANONYMOUS: “Hopefully he realises this is where he belongs”; these the words of fountain of all Patton knowledge Charlie Potter on Mike’s return to pummelling rock and roll music.
TOMAHAWK – LIVE, LONDON, 2003: “There are some strong candidates for the dubious honour of the title ‘Strangest Night Out in London’, but surely, this takes the biscuit…”; commented Tom Hannan on a bill that also featured The Melvins and current Patton collaborator Kaada.