by David Ian Griffith, January, 1996

Insanity is really the only way to describe the music of Mr. Bungle (which is often referred to as Faith No More vocalist Mike Patton's "other band"). Their '91 show was the best show of my life, so naturally I was highly anticipating their return here in the 9-nickel. Smack dab in the middle of their month-long tour, guitarist Trey Spruance was kind enough to give up this interview. Now, without further ado, here is more than you ever wanted to know about Bungle...

In the liner notes of your new record, Disco Volante, it says that the album was recorded at Mill's Women's College.
Yeah, we recorded part of it there. We did some remote recording there, some piano, and most of the live percussion. Our guest percussionist on this tour is a teacher there.

So this guy wasn't with you on the last tour?
No, he just played on this record, he played the tabla and the xylophones. He's an incredible mallet player. I could sit here and brag about him a lot, because he's a world renowned percussionist who specializes in 20th Century music. He composes sonatas, and he's a sought after percussionist, but for some reason...

You guys got him! He's here with Mr. Bungle.
He's on sabbatical to go on tour with Mr. Bungle! (Laughter)

New York saxophonist John Zorn produced your first LP. Do you still work with him?
Yeah, when we were in New York I did a little recording with him that turned out pretty good.

Did he play on MR. BUNGLE at all?
He did a solo on "Love Is A Fist." Most of the music was recorded before he got there; he just helped us mix it.

I wanted to ask you about the work you did on Faith No More's latest LP, because I like them, but I was surprised to hear that you were working with them. What was it like playing in a straightforward rock band?
Well, I've played in straightforward kinds of things before, but never anything where people's livelihoods depended on it. Musically, the hardest thing was just relating to their vision, because the guitar parts are cake-- they're easy. I used to listed to old FNM and I wanted to hear the guitar do certain things and possibly strengthen the band, but they weren't really interested.

When we talked to Faith No More a few months back, I got the impression that they thought the guitar should be more in the background and more textural...
And I'm into that. I think it's a great way to make music, but the record I made with them IS a guitar-driven album, so there was some confusion on their side of it as to what the role of the guitar really was.

I didn't get the impression that you were exactly cutting loose on that album.
Not at all. (Sarcastically) Just doin' my job. Doing what I was hired to do.

So do you feel that that album was a failure?
If it is, it would be in the sequencing. I think that the last song ("Just A Man") on the record was one of the best songs they've ever done, and there were a couple of other songs near the end of the album that were really good. I would say that the weakness of that record was the emphasis on the more mediocre music.

Getting back to Bungle, DISCO VOLANTE reflects a broader scope of influences than did your first album. What sorts of music have influenced you?
Well, within the band, the interests have diversified; Trevor (Bassist) has gotten further into jazz, I've gotten into movie soundtracks from 1955-75-- Italian movie soundtracks especially. Actually, I've been getting into the music of Romania-- It's really amazing. There's a couple of gypsy ensembles there that will blow your mind.

I bet they're on LATCHO DROM (a great compilation of gypsy music)
One of 'em is.

I love that stuff. It's that crazy cartoon music-- it's so happy...
But it's nightmarish, too. That's what's so amazing about Romanian music; it's such a fucked-up situation there, both politically and economically, that happiness is a matter of this manic energy that gets so exalted that it takes on this nightmarish quality. On the other side of the coin, there's this avant-garde music from Romania by a group called the Hyperian Ensemble, which was founded by Iancu Dumitrescue. It's a new phase of 20th Century music that has to do with the recording processes and electro-acoustic sounds. They're not tape-manipulated, they're actual performances, but it's just the most powerful, thundering, frightening fucking music on the face of the planet. It makes anything else seem like ants. It's so unbelievable because of the way it's recorded-- it's all these subtones, this incredible violence, this incredibly cold and doomish feel, but eternally powerful. It's transcendental new age music that explodes your fucking head apart. Then there's Music Konkrette, which is electronic tape recordings of acoustic sounds which are then spliced and put together. The stuff from Finland and Sweden is usually the shit.

Well, what I want to know is how you guys found out about all this stuff in Eureka, California?
University libraries are a pretty goo resource. It's where I learned everything. We were living way up in the woods, and moving to San Francisco, which is a little more of an information center, provided an opportunity to explore things a little more in depth. We had a pretty good introduction there at the University-- it lit a fire under all of our asses.

Do you feel support from Warner Brothers for what you guys are doing?
No, they just write us the standard check. They don't give a shit what we do, which is great.

Was Mr. Bungle signed to Warner before Mike Patton joined up with Faith No More?
Ah, no. It happened as a result of Faith No More's popularity and us being Mike Patton's "other band," but I don't feel particularly weird about that.