| Theodora
Agiotis from CSCA Radio interviewed Trey Spruance [Guitar] and Trevor
Dunn [Bass] of Mr. Bungle on November 1, 1999 Toronto (ON), The Guvernment.
[Interview transcript used with permission. Minor editorial alterations
by Justin Sanvicens].
Theodora Agiotis: Can you explain
the musical progression from your speed-metal demo tapes into today's
Mr. Bungle sound of "California"?
Trevor Dunn: That's quite a leap, it only took us about fifteen years,
four demos and three albums later, so it wasn't necessarily an abrupt
change, I think things evolved quite a bit over the years.
Theodora Agiotis: Do you like the
sound you have today more than the demo tapes?
Trevor Dunn: 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 Spruance: 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.
Theodora Agiotis: If you guys are
happy, that's all that counts. And your fans love the music now and
then.
Trevor Dunn: Fortunately.
Trey Spruance: Yeah, luckily when we keep ourselves happy, we keep someone
else happy. It doesn't always work that way.
Theodora Agiotis: What is the band's
process of songwriting? What comes first, lyrics, music, or theme?
Trey Spruance: 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 ten years
ago, no, it was more than ten years ago, it was from death metal time
fit perfectly, so you know, that can happen too.
Theodora Agiotis: How much importance
do the lyrics have on a song? Are they used for their sound or for their
meaning?
Trey Spruance: Depends on who write them.
Trevor Dunn: It does depend. A lot of times, sometimes the lyrics might
just be we'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.
Theodora Agiotis: Would you say
that is similar to the way that the other people write the songs?
Trevor Dunn: I couldn't really say.
Trey Spruance: I think we are all different. Mike definitely writes
from more of an aural standpoint. He comes up with syllables and nonsensical
verses and then it'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.
Theodora Agiotis: What role, if
any, does literature play in your song writing?
Trevor Dunn: Pretty big.
Trey Spruance: 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 or lesser extent the different voices,
the different compositional voices, also voice things lyrically as well.
Trevor Dunn: We also watch a lot of movies.
Theodora Agiotis: What would be
your favourite movie?
Trevor Dunn: My favourite movie, oh that's a hard one!
Theodora Agiotis: 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 Las Vegas".
Theodora Agiotis: 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 Spruance: 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.
Theodora Agiotis: Is the band interested
in any film scoring?
Trey Spruance: We would love to if someone would ask.
Theodora Agiotis: There was a rumor
about a video game soundtrack, is that true?
Trey Spruance: There was talk about that, but it never happened. Again,
that's another thing that would be great!
Trevor Dunn: 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 Spruance: There's tons of material just laying around, waiting
to find it's way into these things.
Theodora Agiotis: Have any of the
band members ever considered doing anything other than music?
Trevor Dunn: I think probably I'm speculating here but 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 where I could consider
doing something else.
Trey Spruance: Yeah, those are moments of extreme frustration were you
just want to throw yourself though the window, but it's not like you're
exploring some real alternative.
Trevor Dunn: 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
or producer.
Trey Spruance: But that's all still music.
Theodora Agiotis: The members of
Mr. Bungle are, without a doubt, extraordinary musicians. What formal
music training does each member have, if you know?
Trey Spruance: 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 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 different all
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.
Theodora Agiotis: 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 Dunn: 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.
Theodora Agiotis: Do you think it
has something to do with Mike Patton also being in Faith No More?
Trevor Dunn: I think it has something to do with that, but he's one
guy in Mr. Bungle.
Trey Spruance: 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 eight years ago. I really wonder
what's motivating it honestly, there's got to be something more to it
than that.
Trevor Dunn: We dressed up as the Chili Peppers for Halloween last night
in Pontiac near Detroit.
Theodora Agiotis: Is the pattern
we've seen so far with three albums in eight years something that will
continue?
Trevor Dunn: 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 Spruance: 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 Dunn: 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.
Theodora Agiotis: 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 Dunn: 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 Spruance: 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 something or was that
eight hours.
Theodora Agiotis: Do you have any
musicians that have inspired you recently?
Trey Spruance: That people would know?
Theodora Agiotis: Doesn't matter.
Trevor Dunn: 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 Spruance: 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.
Theodora Agiotis: Which classical
composers are the bands greatest influences?
Trey Spruance: Pretty easy to say Stravinsky and Messiaen would have
touched all of us at some point.
Theodora Agiotis: Will there be
any more collaborations with John Zorn?
Trevor Dunn: There could be. We have been working with him in different
settings 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.
Theodora Agiotis: Has anyone in
the band been arrested for anything involving the group or their performances?
Trevor Dunn: 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.
Theodora Agiotis: How about you
Trey?
Trey Spruance: Well the answer is yes. I used to have a car that said
Mr. Bungle on it in our hometown of Eureka. I used to get pulled over
constantly, and one particularly bad time, I was on my way to a gig
where Trevor was playing in a jazz combo or something. I was in front
of our High School in Arcata and I noticed in my rear view mirror about
four or five cops pilling up behind me in four separate cars. They pulled
me over right in front of the High School right when it was getting
out. They made me late! They had their guns drawn. They were pointing
their guns at me! And they made me lay down on the sidewalk with their
foot in my back, with a gun still out. Then they told me "These
license plates are stolen". Someone had stolen my license plates,
but I had gotten them back through the DMV, but they were pretending
like it didn't come up on their computer. Just wanted to harass me or
something. Things like that used to happen all the time. |
