by Theodora, November, 1999

Can you explain the musical progression from your speed-metal demo tapes into today's Mr. Bungle sound of California?
Trevor: That's quite a leap, it only took us about 15 years. 4 demos and 3 albums later, so it wasn't necessarily an abrupt change, I think things evolved quite a bit over the years.

Do you like the sound you have today more than the demo tapes?
Trevor: Not necessarily...uh...well, certainly some of the demo tapes were horrible, but ah, you know as far as the speed metal stuff, we were just enjoying it at the time and we are enjoying what we are doing now.
Trey: We try to go for the same amount of personal excitement, at the time the speed metal was really the thing for us, now this is the thing for us. I don't think we view these things as an evolution, were just doing what comes natural to us.

If you guys are happy, that's all that counts. And your fans love the music now and then, of course,
Trevor: Fortunately.
Trey: Yeah, luckily when we keep ourselves happy, we keep someone else happy. It doesn't always work that way.

What is the band's process of songwriting? What comes first, lyrics, music, theme etc?
Trey: Music comes first. It almost entirely starts with tapes. Each of us has separate ideas, sometimes they will be fully formed, and others will be fragments. That happen to fit together to form something. Like Mike will have written something as long ago as ten years ago, like a little riff. For instance, in "None of them knew they were robots" I lifted this riff that I remembered, because I wanted to do this crazy rockabilly kinda song. And this riff was from 10 years ago, no, it was more than 10 years ago, it was from death metal time fit perfectly, so you know, that can happen too.

How much importance do the lyrics have on a song? Are they used for their sound or for their meaning?
Trey: Depends on who write them.
Trevor: It does depend. A lot of timessometimes the lyrics might just bewe're trying to finish the lyrics last minute in the studio, other times they might have more of an insight into the whole song. It really does depend. A lot of the times, when I write a song, I start with a title, and then go to the music and then go back to the lyrics. So that is one way of dealing with it.

Would you say that is similar to the way that the other people write the songs?
Trevor: I couldn't really say.
Trey: I think we are all different. Mike definitely writes from more of an aural standpoint. He comes up with syllables and nonsensical verses and thenit's pretty weird..it's amazing watching some of his lyrics take shape because they don't sound a whole lot different than those weird sounds he was making.

What role, if any, does literature play in your song writing?
Trevor: Pretty big.
Trey: Again, it matters who is writing the stuff. But the things that all of us are separately exploring of course find their way into the lyric writing. To a greater/lesser extent the different voices, the different compositional voices, also voice things lyrically as well.
Trevor: We also watch a lot of movies.

What would be your favourite movie?
Trevor: My favourite movieohthat's a hard one

Or which one would you say had the most influence?
Trevor: Well, in recent, a couple movies that stand out to me are: "Gummo" and "Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas"

Some songs on your albums create scenarios that can be easily shown in a film clip. Which songs from any album would you consider a good example of this? Do you think that you will ever make these into short videos or film clips?
Trey: If there was ever a question, like if we wanted to do that we would love to do things like that, but we're not film makers. It's the kind of thing were it takes a lot of money, as anybody who has experienced film as the other side of filmmaking knows. We don't get asked to do that kind of stuff. It would be great if we were.

Is the band interested in any film scoring? Etc.
Trey: We would love to if someone would ask.

There was a rumor about a video game soundtrack, is that true?
Trey: There was talk about that, but it never happened. Again, that's another thing it would be great!
Trevor: Those are two genres of music, video game music and film music that are definitely things that we listen to a lot. And a lot of people have told me that a lot of our stuff sounds like soundtrack music and it doesn't surprise me because we listen to a lot of those guys.
Trey: There's tons of material just laying around, waiting to find it's way into these things.

Have any of the band members ever considered doing anything other than music?
Trevor: I think probablyI'm speculating herebut I think that most musicians consider quitting music from time to time just due to the hardships. But, you know you could say that about any vocation or whatever. It hasn't gotten that far enough with me were I could consider doing something else.
Trey: Yeah, those are moments of extreme frustration were you just want to throw yourself though the window, but it's not like you exploring some real alternative.
Trevor: I have certainly thought about "Well, what if I wasn't a performing musician?" There are so many different branches of music that you could go to being strictly a composer or a film composer, producer
Trey: But that's all still music

The members of Mr. Bungle are, without a doubt, extraordinary musicians. What formal music training does each member have, if you know?
Trey: Well, Trevor and I both went to college with music major, so did Bar, our saxophonist. That would be the extent of our formal music training. Most ofI think all of the musical growth of the band is more dependent on the things that we have been exposed to and the listening we have done over the years. And it has been a lot of differentall of us going in separate directions, but marginally keeping each other informed if we stumble upon something that is really amazing. We have been able to cover a lot of ground that way.

Mike Patton told this to the Onion "We were booted off several bills, including a really big festival in Australia, specifically because Anthony Kiedis did not want us on the bill. He threatened to pull the Chili Peppers if Mr. Bungle was on the bill." Could you comment on that?
Trevor: Money talks! To be honest, we really don't know that much about it. He actually booted us off some festivals in Europe. He is holding some kind of grudge that we can only speculate about. I don't know the guy at all. I don't know why Mr. Bungle has any bearing on the Chili Peppers, it's really bizarre.

Do you think it has something to do with Mike Patton also being in Faith No More?
Trevor: I think it has something to do with that, but he's one guy in Mr. Bungle.
Trey: And they have been gone for two years now, so whatever incidents there were when Chili Peppers and Faith No More were perceived on the same plate, that was at least 8 years ago. I really wonder what's motivating it honestly, there's got to be something more to it than that.
Trevor: We dressed up as the Chili Peppers for Halloween last night in Pontiac near Detroit.

Is the pattern we've seen so far with 3 albums in 8 years something that will continue?
Trevor: Hopefully not, but you can never tell. Our writing process and touring process has always been spread out. Hopefully we'll be able to put something out a little quicker this time.
Trey: I've put my foot in my mouth before saying, "Oh, yeah, next time it will come out much sooner" Every time something comes up. This year we're touring more, maybe that will push it back five years.
Trevor: Yeah, usually we've only toured for a month. For the last record, we toured a total of three months over the course of a couple years. And this time we are setting up tours right now that might possible take us through spring and into the summer. Say we finish touring next summer, all of us are going to have to get away from the band for a while, just to get our heads away from the music so we can start thinking about new stuff. It's going to take a year for that to happen.

It was also heard that your release date for California was pushed back because the Red Hot Chili Pepper's Californication album was being released the same day. Is that true?
Trevor: Well, it was what seemed to be a coincidence at first, and then we found out the name of their record. Well, ok, maybe that's just a really weird coincidence. And then the booting of the festivals the tours started happening.
Trey: Well, it was a coincidence. When we got booted off the tour that we were coincidentally on the same bill, and they had to kick us off. And yesterday, by coincidence, had a bunch of tattoos that just happened to look a lot like Anthony Kiedis' and Flea's all over us. It was an incredible coincidence. Then again, they ripped us off, Mike has had that tattoo for at least eight days or somethingor was that eight hours.

Do you have any musicians that have inspired you recently?
Trey: That people would know?

Doesn't matter.
Trevor: Tons I guess. We are constantly listening to different kinds of music all the time. So, I think that there is always something that is influencing us.
Trey: I like this guy Kool Keith, I've liked his stuff for a long time, and now he's come out with a new record. I was happy to see him go solo finally.

Which classical composers are the bands greatest influences?
Trey: Pretty easy to say Stravinsky and Messian would have touched all of us at some point.

Will there be any more collaborations with John Zorn?
Trevor: There could be. We have been working with him in different setting since we met him during our first record. As far as Mr. Bungle collaborating with Zorn, it is possible, but they're aren't any plans.

Has anyone in the band been arrested for anything involving the group or their performances?
Trevor: Well, we just crossed the border into Canada and I told them I had never been arrested, so we'll just leave it at that.