This is a pretty cool interview I found with Mike Patton. He has been one of my favorite artists for as long as I can remember.
Man of many talents Mike Patton tells Neala Johnson he isnt cut out to be a loser.
What's going on in Patton world?
A buncha crap. A buncha music. Too much travelling. Combine that with some remodelling at my pad, and it make for a fair bit of chaos.
What do you do when you're not doing music?
Music (laughs). Or working on someone else's music. It's pretty much what I do. I love to eat, I go out with friends and get great meals, but all we end up talking about is music, and after the meal end up going somewhere and working on music. So it all comes back to where it started.
So music is your life...
It's a lot. I don't know if it could possibly be everything, but it's quite a bit. The more I have lived with it, the more I've realised that. I don't think I really knew that in the beginning.
We recently had Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor in town. You would have played a few festivals with him over the years.
He's come a long way, huh? You know, we played a festival with him, Fantomas played on some other stage and he was playing the enormo-stage, and we walked over there out of morbid curiosity. I'd seen 'em a couple of times and thought that they were okay, so I wanted to see what he was up to, and oh my goodness! He looked like Bruce Springsteen or something. It's like he went on the Richard Simmons diet. Jesus! What happened? I thought he was a scary goth guy. Now he looks like some jock who'd kick the crap out of me.
That's what happens when rock stars clean up their act, apparently.
Is that it? Wow! Somebody give that boy some drugs.
We never heard stories about "Mike Patton: drug casuality". How did you avoid that whole scene?
I dunno. Probably because I kept making music the entire time. I didn't have a chance to become a bona fide loser. Since I quit Faith No More, since we disbanded or however you wanna put it, I haven't stopped. In a way, I'm busier than I ever was then. It's the pace I feel comfortable at. I don't have a lot of time to reflect. I don't even enjoy it, so I try to keep lots of good things in front of me to do. It at times may look to someone else like it's just busy work, but it makes me feel all right. So I'm not arguin'. I don't know if that's exactly a healthy lifestyle, per se, but it's one approach. It works for me.
A decade ago, Faith No More were pretty much pop stars on the back of Easy and Evidence being huge hits. Did you enjoy that time?
Yeah. It was a decade of my life or a little more, so it was a whole lotta things: it was a lotta relationships, it was like being married to five people, I mean we pretty much did time together, me and those guys. It was a great time. Learned a lot, did a lot, and made some good music in the process. So it was, all in all, quite a ride.
So if you run into any of the Faith No More guys these days, is there still some love in the air?
We're fine with each other. Which proves to me that we pulled the plug at the right time. I mean some people were a little more scarred by it than others, but enough time has passed that everyone's relatively cool with it. I mean you'd better be, it was what, almost eight years ago? I mean, Jesus, God, there's a world out there! It's a band, get over it! And those guys have. If they hadn't, I'd be worried.
How did you figure out how to play the new Fantomas album Suspended Animation live?
Well, these aren't studio creations. They're not little illusions that we cut out and paste together and try to mimic live. There's one way to play them, and you're hearing it on the record, and we play them pretty much exactly like that live. No room for jamming or divine inspiration, no closing your eyes or winking at girls in the crowd. Anything less is wrong.
You must have wondered what people would make of Fantomas' previous album Delirium Cordia - one 70-odd minute track.
I had a few little chuckles about it. I'm glad people gave it a chance, and some people even made it through the one track (laughs). It's flattering. To me, it's a very logical progression. A band like us at some point would have had to make a record like that. I'm glad we got it out of the way, we'll never do another one like it.
When Hit spoke to you in late 2003, you were on the set of your first film, Firecracker. Have you seen the end result yet?
I did, only about two weeks ago. It's a strange little ride, definitely worth seeing. Looks really great, half of it's in black and white, half of it's in colour, and the colour's really vibrant, saturated, it's really crazy-lookin'. Um, um, um, you know, it's just, pity about the acting. Ha ha! And I'm talking about me! Nah, it's okay, I'm all right, I guess. It's just a little strange.
At first glance, your collaboration with Bjork on her album Medulla seemed an odd combination, but the more you think about it, the more perfect it seems.
Yeah, there's a good vibe there for sure. Good connection. We talked about doing other stuff, so we'll see. We have admired each other's work for a while, and had talked about doing something, but there was never really the one, and this vocal record she did happened to be it. She's definitely good people.
Does it take some thinking to figure out how to match vocals with a singer like Bjork?
No. It took as long as it takes to press record and say 'Do it again' (laughs). It was pretty painless. She had a pretty clear idea of what she wanted so that always helps. When you walk in and someone says "So....sing what you feel!" that's not something I'm interested in. She knew her shit. So she was a pleasure to work with.
You have a few film score jobs coming up. How did they happen?
Friends of friends, pretty much. It's something I've always had a fascination for, I'm a big fan of film music, but I don't run in those circles, so never had any opportunity to do that kind of work. I guess you gotta reach a certain age before anyone will take your shit seriously. I'm creeping up on 40 now, so all of a sudden I'm serious (laughs). It's worth a shot.
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