Teach Me Violence


By A. Keane Stern,1991


You may have heard about this new band called Mr. Bungle. Actually, they're not a new band. Mr. Bungle has been around for about six years now. I had heard a lot about them and was eagerly anticipating the release of their debut album on Warner Bros. I bought it the day it came out at Tower Records. So anxious was I to hear it that I even paid the absurd list price of $13.99. I wrote a review of the album, read that if you want specifics, but needless to say, the album is one of the greatest recorded works of Western Civilization. This was an album I had been waiting for my entire life. Something that shredded all your ideas of what music should be like. A middle-finger of epic proportions to the entire major label system. This is what alternative music was supposed to be like. None of this "jangly college rock" crap like the Pixies. Mr. Bungle render groups like that useless. Here's an analogy: Let's say that you're 9 years old and you're looking for your dad's Playboy collection. You know where he keeps them, on the top shelf of his closet, but how do you get up there? You start piling crap up, books, boxes, electrical devices, pets, anything that will get you to the top where the air-brushed goddesses await, divested of all clothing. You start climbing up these stopgap stairs. Right when you're about to reach the top, your older brother rushes in with a small step-ladder. He quickly scampers up the ladder, grabs the Playboy collection and runs out of the room, off to do what young men are known to do with such publications. Here's my point: Mr. Bungle represents that step-ladder your older brother brought in. All that junk you piled up represents The Black Crowes, Anthrax, the Violent Femmes, Paula Abdul or any other useless music. Right then, your makeshift ladder collapses right on your fat little nine year old face. The step-ladder that your brother used is still standing. Next time you'll try that step-ladder. Next time you'll try Mr. Bungle.

Of course, I was excited to see Mr. Bungle at NYU on Halloween. I wondered what types of people they would be. Child molesters or Harvard scholars? Both, perhaps? Were there any band members or was the whole album put together by one mind? I had listened to the album several times, and the possibility that living humans were behind it was somewhat disappointing. So eager was I, that I didn't even wait for the show, I went early to Loeb Student Center for the soundcheck. When I got there, someone pointed out Mr. Bungle's lead singer to me. His name is Vlad Drac. He's got a side project back in San Francisco called Faith No More. They're not as good as Mr. Bungle, but that's kinda like saying a certain book isn't as good as the Bible. Still, I have a feeling that this FNM may be extremely popular someday. I start talking to Vlad. We hit it off right away. We know some of the same people and share an appreciation for Godflesh, which is being blasted over the PA system. He agrees to do an interview with me as soon as the soundcheck is finished. 30 minutes later, I'm sitting in a Loeb conference room with the six members of Mr. Bungle, their manager, crew, and some girl who was apparently in love with Vlad Drac. I have a few questions prepared but most I make up on the spot. The whole interview is a blur. I don't remember much.

Listening to the tape of my encounter with Mr. Bungle jogged my memory of the traumatic events that occurred. The first thing I hear is them planning how their set is going to go. It sounds like a football team going over half-time strategy. One of them sets a cup full of ice over the door, rigged to fall on whoever is next to enter the room. I start my interview and Vlad Drac leaves the room. The tape then starts to sound like something from the album, there's screaming, shouting, burping, cursing, bits of muffled conversation, unexplainable noises. I ask how the band got on Warner Bros and they're not really sure. "By force," says one. Each band member tells me their name. Dunn on bass, Scummy on guitar, McKinnon and Theobald Brooks Lengyel on horns and Heifetz on drums. Heifetz tells me he's not going to say anything because he's studying for a big quiz, but "I might come up with something later." I discover that MTV is going to be at tonight's show to make sure Mr. Bungle is "kidding." "We made a video and they think it's got hidden mass murderer messages in it," Scummy explains. "Does it?" I ask. "They're not too hidden," he replies. I ask what song they made a video for. Scummy tells me the video is for "Travolta" and then has an argument with Heifetz over the song's true title. I ask how the band got thrash jazz assassin John Zorn to produce the album. "Basically we kicked his ass in," informs Theobald Brooks Lengyel. Scummy, apparently the only one interested in the interview, says "He's such a bum that we felt really sorry for him." Dunn tells me, "The guy writes so much music that is just inaccessible, you can't listen to it. He's basically a 20th century failure, we're trying to help him out."

How exactly did Mr. Bungle develop their novel style of music? "We picked it up from being a death metal band and being addicted to video games," explains Scummy. Dunn jumps in by saying, "And listening to Mercyful Fate. Pass that pizza you fucker!" to a fellow band member. Is the music entirely planned out in advance? "100%, there's almost no improvisation on it," says Scummy. "Except for half of it," adds Dunn. I ask Scummy about serial killer/clown John Wayne Gacy -- would he like the Mr. Bungle album? "We don't have too many homosexual references... we have the whole clown thing, maybe if we gained some weight or something." Mr. Bungle's fondness for masturbation has been well-documented. Is it the throbbing force behind Mr. Bungle? I wanted to hear it from the band themselves. "It's probably as important as it is to everyone else in the world," Scummy tells me. "No one's willing to admit it like we are. We're a lot more open than anyone else in the world," adds Dunn. Horn player Mc Kinnon finally says something, his sole comment of the interview. "Now that it's out in the open, we're trying to hide it again." Scummy details what Mr. Bungle plans to move on to: "We're graduating to shit on the face, kiddie porn, stuff like that. Pretty soon we'll have our master's degree, move on to snuff films and get our doctorate."

Me: "What are you trying to accomplish by using bowel movement samples at the end of 'Slowly Growing Deaf'?"
Heifetz: "To build the biggest roller coaster ever."

I am of course curious about the live show. What about the mayhem and samples that's on the album between songs? Is that going to be reproduced live? "We figure most bands don't reproduce the silence between their songs on their albums live," says Dunn. "If we put space in between songs, we'd be reproducing other people's ideas. Silence is a cover song," elucidates Scummy. I have to know who Mr. Bungle is. Who is a Mr. Bungle? Theobald Brooks Lengyel asks me for a coke. Scummy tells me that Mr. Bungle is, "...any kind of asshole, murderer, dickhead, loser, geek, whatever." Dunn goes deeper into Bungology for my benefit. "Anybody who's teased to the point of hanging themselves is Mr. Bungle." Scummy adds that the ultimate Mr. Bungle would be anyone who hung themselves with their mother's underwear in order to achieve higher orgasm.

In ten years, can the band see themselves as big as the Grateful Dead, with Bungle-heads all over the world? "I'll probably end up cutting one of these assholes' fucking throats before then," says Scummy. Just then, an NYU student walks into the room and the cup of ice that was set up earlier falls on him. He takes it in good stride, which probably disappoints the band. Singer Vlad Drac walks back into the room and has this to say: "I just got stuck in the fire stairway. I walked in and thought it was a regular stairway. Every door was locked. So I ripped out the alarm wires so I wouldn't set it off." He tells me that the major influence on the band is a TV preacher named Robert Tilton. "You know how there was a reason why Bill Graham died? He's our reason." A few band members did impressions of this Robert Tilton. It was pretty funny, too bad you weren't there to see it. Vlad Drac starts talking about the MTV controversy and suddenly I realize that he's really the most normal member of the group. He's like the smart kid in high school who's pressured to help the stupid kids cheat on the test. Then after the test, the stupid kids tell the teacher that the smart kid cheated. The balding drummer Heifetz starts to perform a haircut on himself. What's the impetus for their conduct during this interview? "Every straight interview we've given made us look like complete morons," explains Vlad Drac.

I got to see Mr. Bungle twice during the CMJ Music Marathon. The first time was on Halloween at Loeb Student Center. "Every day is Halloween for Mr. Bungle, except Halloween," Dunn told me. Vlad Drac jumps off the PA stack, gets back onstage and then tackles the guitarist. Two days later, I saw Mr. Bungle at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey. This time, Vlad starts to eat some guy's braided hair in the middle of a song. In both shows, Mr. Bungle did cover songs by Mr. Rogers and the Dead Kennedys as well as other stuff. It was real special. Really.


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