I’ll answer you honestly: my wife and I very much enjoy watching the videos where some poor generic horror movie-costumed “clown" tries to scare the wrong person, only to end up end up getting pistol-whipped or beaten up by someone whose not very impressed with their dumb idea of what’s “scary” or “funny”...

Can we talk a little about Mr.Bungle's first album which celebrated 25 years in August. How did the writing process work for the music on this album. Did you each bring songs to the table, or were they written all together?





Both. As always. Collaborative compositions in Mr. Bungle were developed as skeletal chains of riffs we'd call "snakes". The trick was always in the morphing of complimentary riff ideas that came from different worlds into a coherent song. From this first record, Dead Goon is a good example of a song where riffs from everyone in the band were worked together into a song. Dead Goon concluded with a recreation of a collective improv we'd done at some earlier point. That process was a bit unto itself, actually. The truth is that there was almost always a different writing process for each song we did.





In the Halloween spirit, I'll give another example. Travolta, another collaborative composition, started life as a series/chain of riffs I wrote in college called "A Walk Through Necropolis", which had been scored and part-written for the university jazz band, but to me never had a satisfying bridge section. Later on Patton had written a riff that contrasted perfectly if inserted into this piece, and it was 100 times better and more inspired than any of my own hitherto uninspired solutions. With that addition, and the magic glue of the atonal "come-down" section ('Grease is the Word' etc) which came from a collective improv, the "snake" was complete. By myself, in the context of an independent study college composition class, I'd trapped myself in a morbid snafu with some promising but dead riffs -- but looking back, maybe those were always destined to be resurrected in a Mr. Bungle song.





This is the appropriate metaphor, because we always referred to our unfinished sketches as "graveyards" of riffs. At first Patton and I especially compiled these endless mortuaries of ideas on cassette and would hand copies out to everyone in the band. It was almost like a cry for help. Later on Bär caught that bug too. For sure, the collective song writing was always more like a resurrection of 'parts' stitched together, given life by a Frankenstein possession to make it all finally LIVE.





But other songs arrived with fully written chords and lyrics: Trevor's "Slowly Growing Deaf" and "Egg", Patton's "My Ass Is on Fire" and "Squeeze me Macaroni", with instrument voicings and other details being collaboratively worked out. Patton did the lyric writing on songs I wrote the music for, like Carousel, and I think most of Stubb [a dub]. Pretty sure those songs would be unbearable now otherwise.





Differently, Travolta's lyric concept (which was very well redacted by Patton), came about in a very unique way. There was a spontaneous brainstorm by the whole band during a long night drive somewhere. For some reason we were obsessing on the hypothetical inner experience of a person who lacks almost all sensory input (deaf, blind, limbless and with mouth sewn shut). Everything he experiences is tunnelled through a highly developed, almost miraculously compensatory sense of smell. He is thrown onto a trampoline --- by who? a sick torturer laughing at him? loving parents attempting to provide something joyful that "normal" kids do? How would it matter in either case? As you might expect from a bunch of alienated teenage delinquent heshers pondering over such questions, we were in collective hysterics over all of this. The truth, though, looking back is that we very much identified with this tragically monstrous character, who in his extreme sensory isolation was effectively living outside of time and space. I say this now, but 400 miles from anywhere, pre-internet, we were receiving our cultural referents in a way that could be compared to breathing through a tiny straw. And in some way, therefore, we were therefore free from their actual influence, free to imagine them any way we wanted to. We weren't thinking this about ourselves at the time, but the Travolta figure exemplifies the idea that when left only with one's imagination, and some vague other impressions from far off, such a suffocated entity might not feel deprived so much as take advantage of the elasticity of his state. To become something of a shapeshifter. In our adolescent gloom, therefore, "Travolta" would of course take on the identities of various megalomaniacs; Hitler and Trump are mentioned, and there's something prescient there about pathological narcissism mixing with the unbounded entrepreneurial spirit, peppered with a life mission of compensatory revenge.





Anyhow, somehow Patton managed to capture the mass evocation of this unfortunate/fortunate hallucinatory character in his lyric, and the song became "Travolta".





Interestingly, Travolta, as a Scientologist, struck fear into the hearts of the Warner Brothers legal department, so after the initial pressing of 20,000 CDs, we were summoned to the legal office and told that the song had to be renamed. Hence, "Quote Unquote".





Did the band record live sessions?





In the studio not so much. Everyone would play at once, yes, but when we were doing that we were really going for drum takes. Sometimes we'd keep a bass scratch take, might've kept a part of a vocal once or twice. This goes for all three albums.





Did you use several different guitars to achieve the many sounds used on the record or was it just a case of using multiple effects?





I had only one amp, a shitty little Peavey "Renown". So both heavy and clean parts were initially tracked on that. When Zorn came in (he came in at the mixing of the record, to our elation), and heard the pathetic heavy guitar tones we'd done ourselves, he rented a Marshall halfstack on the spot and made me re-do all of the heavy guitar parts. That was a great move. I'd never even really seen a proper "heavy" amp in real life at that point, much less plugged in to one. From that day forward, even up to the present, I get more juxtaposition out of an A/B box switching between a dirty and clean amp than you could ever get with even an infinite chain of effects.





In an age before computer technology was used in music production was it difficult to arrange so many layered tracks?





On the first record it was less difficult than on Disco Volante and especially California (which was still effectively pre-digital multitrack, since we were dealing with well over 100 input returns). On the first record we were much more traditional in the studio approach, mainly because we had very little idea what was going on in there. But this was the Bay Area after all, so on every record we were working with "hi-tech" stuff: flying fader automation on a 48-channel SSL 4048E (on California we had to mix in LA because there was only one place that had a 96-channel SSL). And I remember on the first record the final 2-track mix was edited on some proto-Sound Designer format that was capable of working 4 channels in 16bit/44.1khz. It was the first time any of us had seen digital editing, which is pretty early, actually. But yes, as mentioned, throughout Mr. Bungle's career we never had occasion to exploit any kind of multitrack digital recording/editing. Everything was on tape the whole time and only went to digital in preparing the final 2-channel masters.





Was it frustrating to put things on hold while Patton flew off to perform with FNM?





Not at all. We never put things on hold, because there was nothing to put on hold until we'd come up with something and decided it was time. And that happened naturally. When Patton was around we never consciously rushed to get things going. It'd happen more naturally than that. He'd come home and there was always catching up to do. Show n' tell. Mutual inspirations. Eventually we'd start piecing things together... spontaneously freak out on organs and record the good parts. Trade those graveyard cassette tapes of ideas and ponder on each other's riffs for the months we never or rarely saw each other (meaning all of us). Nothing was ever on hold.





I can paint the picture better for you. All the rest of us had very active lives in music in San Francisco in the early 90s. Danny was in a really popular local band called Dieselhed. Trevor, once he moved down from Eureka, had real gigs with real musicians almost every night. I rarely ever saw him. Bär was holding down multiple jobs. For myself, I was immersed in a scene of I guess "post-punk" something-or-other that was pretty vital at the time. Gregg Turkington came out of this scene. Caroliner Rainbow. Thinking Fellers Union Local 6. Three Day Stubble. I made some good friends in that world & once I finally stopped fucking around living in my car, I went pretty full on into honing my recording/production skills. Got happily lost in a billion odd projects, with many very brilliant not-so-known people, many of whom are too shy or too unimpressed with their own creative output to assert themselves very much.





So to me (and the rest of the band I'm sure), Mr. Bungle in the early 90s was like an orbiting satellite that we the band members all had in common. It benefited from each of our separate musical forays.





Are there any songs/moments on the album you are particularly proud of?





I think the end of Dead Goon holds up really well. The scene where the stereo auto-panner has the dying kid (vocals and creaking rope) swinging one way and the whole world (the band/music) swinging the other. I realized awhile back that it's a perspective trick not unlike Wozzeck's death in Berg's Opera, where the sound of rising instruments is in relation to Wozzeck's perspective going down, sinking and drowning. In Dead Goon there's an ecstatic (out of body) sense in that whole section that really worked. Partially, I think, because after a whole album of over-determined indulgences of male musical angst, the arrangement becomes indeterminate and free as eros and thanatos finally collide in an aleatoric suspension. If nothing else, it's got to be the most lucid depiction of autoerotic asphyxiation ever attempted, and what a fitting end to such a "libido charged" record.





Many bands have cited this album as a major influence on their music (Incubus, Slipknot, Korn). How does make you feel?



Often I feel that the public that took to this album had pre-existing mental problems that the wide distribution of the CD only exacerbated. So when I hear about how this music affected these youngsters it really just makes me sad.





This album turned many fans onto different genres, opening them to new worlds of music. Was it in any way you intention to 'educate' people?



This is always a funny thing. It's hard to identify any discernible 'genres' on that record, other than some metal riffs and some very abortive/dissonant Stravinsky-esque takes on ska and funk. Since the whole thing is such a hybridized mutation, I never really know how to take it when we get credit-for/accused-of genre adept-ship on that record. Certainly some of the confusion is warranted, but what I think happened is that, just like ourselves at the time, most teenager's frames of reference back then were really small. We just took it out beyond those frames a little bit, peppered things up with a little 20th Century existentially-agitated classical-music dissonance. Maybe with mass distribution pushing the effort out into the burbs and rural areas it seemed to pry the box open wider than it actually, objectively did. I can tell you honestly, and I feel like it's not very nice to admit in public, but we had no noble intentions to educate people in any way. You'll remember that at the time, notoriously, the public disposition of Mr. Bungle was a tornado of sociopathic escapism and scatological ultraviolence. Of course as humans we DID have our own voracious appetites for every avenue of musical excellence we could lay ears on. But we also had gotten used to the fact that almost no one but us really actually cared about those things, not really, not the way we did. If that sounds a little arrogant for us to think at the time, it was also very demonstrably true. It’s different now of course. Maybe no one ever asked us to offer philanthropic or pedantic statements about the more learned side of what we did because goodwill towards mankind wasn't so ubiquitously assumed as it is now. I don't know. But no, the thought of “educating” the public would have seemed a bit remote to us, and we didn't feel we were in a position to invite queries!





A further thought looking back, to be real, it really says a lot about the state of things that there were so many people who responded so favorably to the sociopathic and ultraviolent aspect of early Mr. Bungle. We famously had those people in our faces throughout the band’s existence (although the Disco Volante era helped re-orient the fervor somewhat). But I find it super interesting that in that early era, Mr. Bungle's influence struck such an intensely and clearly mentally disturbed chord almost exclusively out among the 'masses' serviced mainly by media like Warner Brothers. Those were times when GG Allin and the Dwarves and that type of thing were still happening, and I went to their shows. I couldn't help but notice that elements of the Mr. Bungle audience, minor rural/suburban phenomenon that it was, with no crossover in any hardcore underground scenes at all, did have a somewhat similar fanboy variation of the Stockholm Syndrome thing happening out there. It was pretty out...









If we can move on to Disco Volante which celebrated its 21st anniversary this month. How do you feel about this record two decades on?

It’s definitely the "coming of age" album. I’m happy with it. Disco Volante sort of sublimated or re-purposed our mania of 91/92 towards things like record production, i.e. getting the sound, whatever it takes — not just being content to have all the parts represented. We weren’t worrying about it sounding like a “band”, as much as worrying later on about how to arrange the music for a live performance as a band. That was a healthy challenge to ourselves as much as to anyone else. But in '95 if you wanted to do anything ambitious you'd really have to smash through the 80's / 90's crust that had been obscuring the whole music world's approach to "the studio"— I think we did it.

I’ll wait for another time to elaborate on your further questions regarding this album. There is so much to say, it’s such a gigantic turning point, and I’ve blabbed way too much as it is!















Ok 'to be continued....'. Recently your composition 'Séraphîta' was performed by the Kronos Quartet in Austria. Can you enlighten us more on this project?

Yeah, they commissioned me as part of their ongoing “50 for the Future” initiative, which showcases 10 composers a year for five years, each composer contributing a piece that not only will Kronos play and record, but also publish as a “learning repertoire” for contemporary and future string quartets to have easy access to, as a kind of songbook. All the composers they work with vary wildly, so part of the idea is to get ensembles used to approaching a broad plethora of techniques and approaches to the quartet. It was certainly an honor to have been approached by them! Since when I work with orchestral instruments I usually work either with great masses of ensemble sound, or with a soloist, I don’t consider myself as much of a string quartet composer. That is a very special kind of ensemble, both in the details reflected in the traditional repertoire, and in the rigors of that kind of ensemble playing, which is just as particular and demanding in contemporary music. It’s really a very very deep world. And Kronos of course is at the forefront of it. At first I was worried about if I’d have artistic clarity… I took it very seriously, listening to my favorite quartets, following scores, worrying about how to choose the best approaches to the instruments for a lot of vague ideas I had. But then, all of a sudden, the real ideas came all at once, and they were really very strong. They seized me. That’s always a good sign. The problem then was how to make those ideas work -- how to translate them into string quartet land. And that really was a challenge. I don’t really know if I succeeded! It’s funny, my strength as a musician is definitely in arranging and orchestration, and I slaved over this piece. Moreover I feel really good about it musically and artistically. But honestly it remains to be seen whether it actually translates as a string quartet. One thing is for sure: Kronos is the group to find out. I learned so much from doing it’s been a priceless experience.



Which would you say gives you the greatest satisfaction composing, performing or producing music?

All three have their charms. But I’m going to put producing above performing, and composing above producing.



What are projects are you currently working on? Can we expect to see you on the road again anytime soon?

All year I’ve been working very hard on a new SC3: Holy Vehm album, and the follow up to "Book of Souls: Folio A", its big brother "Folio B". Also a new John Zorn Masada record, “Beriah”. So it's been lots and lots of work this year!

As far as going on the road, not soon, but eventually in 2017. 2016 has been a time to really hunker down and solidify the next chapter of SC3. Since 2006 up until 2014 we’ve been on the road so much I haven’t really had time to clear my head and concentrate in the seriously deep way I need to in order to create works I’m personally satisfied with. This last year of working intensively on upcoming releases has been such a godsend. For the first time since 2004 I feel like I have something that will withstand the decompositional gales of the passing centuries.

If I may say a word on gigs and releases and such: SC3 has been fiercely DIY since day one in 1995, self-producing, financing everything, records, tours, all of it, from direct fan support through music sales, never veering a millimeter from that path. The reality in this day and age for intensive productions on the scale that I work, since no one really wants to buy music anymore, is that there really is no money to pay for these elaborate, real productions with real musicians anymore. I’ve though about this a lot. There are those few generous friends out there who make such nice offers from time to time, but whose friendship is too important to hazard the back hole of music industry finance with. And there are the kickstarter / go fund me campaigns. We all hate to admit how far standards seem to have to fall, along with our expectations, while we all get suckered, or compelled, into ‘adapting’ to the ‘new’ and at best mediocre realities. Maybe for a time we can embrace them, with “sharing" and other virtuous intentions as motivators. What species of curmudgeon am I to sneer at the well-intended?

SO! What I’m doing right now is putting the finishing touches on a single (2 sides), to be released in early November. Instead of fundraising/begging to finance the two major future SC3 releases, we are going out on a limb and throwing two supremely polished and very proud releases of finest SC3 pedigree out there by the end of the year. There will be no “object” associated with these releases, they will enter the digital ephemera of a SC3 Bandcamp launch. The hope is that on the strength of this music alone, and the hoped-for support of our listeners, we’ll be able to finance production on these two next big ones: Holy Vehm and Folio B. It’s a bit of a long shot, yes… but SC3’s career is riddled with things that should not be.



Trey's favourite Horror movies soundtracks....



The short list:

Quincy Jones, “In Cold Blood” Ennio Morricone, “Bird with the Crystal plumage”, “Cosa avete fatto a Solange?”, “Spasmo” Jerry Goldsmith, “The Omen” and “Damien: the Omen II” Goblin “Suspiria”, “Zombie/Dawn of the Dead”, and “Profundo Rosso”. (SC3 had the honor of touring with them in 2013). John Carpenter, “Halloween” Bernard Hermann, “Psycho" Bruno Nicolai, “Tutti I Colori del Buio”, “La Dama Rossa Uccide Sette Volte”

A lot of people may not know that there’s a sleeper Secret Chiefs 3 album out there in the giallo horror genre called “Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini” (2009). I still totally stand by that record.







Keep up to date with Trey, Secret Chiefs 3 and lots more great music at WEB of MIMICRY



