It’s perhaps significant, if only in a ‘Gosh, what a bizarre synchronicity!’ kind of way, that polymathically perverse vocalist and musician Mike Patton grew up in a California town called ‘Eureka’. Okay, so that famed exclamation attributed to Archimedes may translate as ‘I am in the state of having found it!’ and refer to the discovery of a method of calculating the volume of an vessel, but because people are generally pretty lazy and superficial and Stephen Hawking has yet to bless us with an equally snappy catchphrase (“Just keep talking” doesn’t cut it) the word has come to be associated with smart stuff, cleverness, ideas, and all that good shit.
Mike Patton, more than most rock-affiliated musicians, is bursting with ideas. What’s more, the guy can’t seem to sit still for a fucking second. In the years following the dissolution in 1997 of beloved cheese ‘n’ ham merchants Faith No More, Patton has co-founded a record label (Ipecac), fronted several more bands (Fantomas, Tomahawk, and now Peeping Tom), performed with major figures in the worlds of rock and avant-garde music (Melvins, Merzbow, John Zorn, Dillinger Escape Plan, Rahzel, Amon Tobin et al) and generally made hard work look like the coolest thing on Earth.
Peeping Tom is Patton’s latest labour of love. Several years in the making, the resulting album sees the singer reigning in his naturally outre instincts and dabbling in some straight-up beat-driven pop music (albeit of a uniquely mean-spirited, obscene stripe) alongside such guests as Bebel Gilberto, Kool Keith and Norah Jones. This isn’t entirely without precedent. Faith No More were always more ‘sick pop group’ than ‘dumbo alt-rock outfit’ and recent releases such as Mr Bungle’s ‘California’ (their 1999 swansong) and ‘Romances’ (a 2004 collaboration with Norwegian composer Kaada) have featured Patton wrapping his elastic pipes around some truly gorgeous melodies. The guy can definitely ‘do’ pop. But what is pop to Mike Patton? And what is Mike Patton to pop?
“It’s been in me and it’s seeped out,” says Mike, sprawling in a hotel room chair. “I even think you can hear it in some of the extreme shit I do. Peeping Tom is me taking that kind of stimulus and running with it, seeing how far I could go within those boundaries. ‘Okay, let’s take some of these things that we’ve been playing with over the years and harness them into roughly three to four minute pieces that don’t stray too far from the path, that don’t have too much information in them, but just enough to be interesting. Verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, get out. That may sound easy or boring, but it’s not for me. It’s a difficult thing. I respect song form and great songwriters, and if I were to put pop in a box, it’s a big fuckin’ box, and that’s why I do a record like this. To play with it. There’s a lot of shit you can do. Even this stuff, as linear as it is in my world, there’s still quite a few levels of things going on. It’s really dense and still pretty provocative, I think. I hope!”
So you consider this album as much an experiment as anything else you’ve done?
“Well, yeah. I see it as on-the-job training, learning by doing. The weak links were mostly in the beat department. I realised it was probably not such a good approach to hire a band this time, but work with some guys who can do this with their eyes shut.”
Did you find that having recorded the album, you got all this pop out of your system, or is it something you’d like to revisit at some point?
“There’s... there’s more. One of the good things about the amount of time that it took and not focusing on it was that I kept writing shit, so now I’ve got a stockpile. I would say three quarters of the next album is done. That’s the good part of it. The bad part is you have to fuckin’ wait, y’know? And there’s a certain amount of ‘Yes, I’m glad I’m fuckin’ done with it!’ But realistically, it’s fuckin’ just starting.”
The night before this interview, Patton played a show (and it really was a show) with the Fantomas-Melvins Big Band at London’s Forum. It was, as my gig companion put it, fantastic to watch a band using their formidable expertise to make music that is essentially very wrong. The Big Band, comprised of Patton on vocals and electronics alongside drummers Dave Lombardo and Dale Crover, guitarists Buzz Osborne and David John Stone and bassist Trevor Dunn, were as well-drilled as James Brown’s Furious Flames, as devastatingly precise as Duke Ellington’s orchestra and as tight as Nelson Riddle’s...um, arsehole. Oh, and yes, they ‘rocked’ too. It was hard to take your eyes off Patton, a whirling, screaming, squealing ball of catalytic energy at the centre of a brilliantly choreographed storm of sound. This was what rock could be, we thought, something to be honed and harnessed, sharpened to a fine point and jabbed into the throats of the pitifully undemanding Artrocker generation, the kind of people who think ‘Avant-garde is French for shit, huh huh huh.’ Fuckin’ idiots.
Are you going to tour the new material?
“Think so. Yeah, yeah.”
There’s no way you’re going to be able to get Doseone, Norah Jones, Kool Keith and Bebel Gilberto to all commit to a tour. How are you going to fill in for the missing guests?
“Hire different guests! Hehehehe! More affordable guests! We’ll see. I think maybe two singers, two vocalists, a trio or quartet of organic players, couple programmer guys, maybe a DJ.”
You should get The Roots (Philadelphia’s live hip-hop supergroup).
“Good idea. In fact we’ve heard from them. They wanted Tomahawk to play with them, which I thought was really strange. Guess they’re fans or something.”
Well, you’ve already worked with (Roots beatboxer) Rahzel.
“Yup, he’s gonna be in there. We’re doing ‘The Conan O’Brien show at the end of May and he’s gonna be in that. Pretty funny...!”
Is that something you’re not looking forward to?
“It should be fun. But it’s a fuckin’ TV show, y’know? And I’m putting a band together really for one song, so... it is what it is.”
Mike appeared on the Conan show in the late 90s, when Faith No More were promoting ‘Album Of The Year’, a big, sad behemoth of an album which flopped on release. I tell Mike it’s my favourite FNM record.
“Oh,” he smiles. “Took the title to heart, huh?”
So, Mike. What’s the Peeping Tom concept? What’s the story behind the name? Sounds kinda kinky...
“Ahhhhh.... it’s a good name! Evocative, a bit ambiguous, a bit creepy. I also wanted to kinda accentuate the lighter side of it because this is a fun record, it’s not a dark, disturbing, perverted record. I don’t know if you’ve seen the final packaging, but it’s pretty juicy. I just saw the final version two days ago and I’m still kinda buzzin’ off it.”
Did you design it?
“Oh, yeah. I really can’t stress how important I think the artwork is, especially with some of the more difficult stuff like Fantomas or Maldoror (Patton’s 1999 collaboration with Merzbow). If you don’t have a seductive cover that actually is a part of the story, it’s that much closer to being meaningless.”
The most recent Fantomas album, 2005’s ‘Suspended Animation’ came packaged as a desktop calendar illustrated by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara. The artist was credited on the cover of the album, above the band’s name, rather than in small print on the reverse.
“That was a great one,” nods Patton. “And y’know, without that, let’s just say that was a cardboard cover... sure, you’d figure it out, but would it be the same experience? No way.”
Do you think this is a problem with a lot of experimental music? That the packaging is almost an afterthought?
“I think it’s the case with music in general,” agrees Mike. “You have a blank sheet, y’know? Use it. But I think, especially with difficult music, it needs to draw the listener in a little bit, make it a little bit less abstract. A visual reference. Sometimes it’s a sensual thing. I’m a bit of a fetishist but I’m hoping other people enjoy that shit as much as I do. I think they do. There are enough nuts out there.”
Then there’s the issue of downloading. Is that a concern?
“Ummm.... no. I was into it before this craze, hehehehehe! Before these damn kids got into this, hehehehe! No, I always thought it was really important. It’s just that now, when I come to my partners with a crazy expensive package, I have a better excuse. I can say, ‘Well, man, do you want them to download it? The cooler we make it, the more it costs, the more desirable it’ll be!’ So it’s kinda funny.”
Of course they can counter that by saying if anyone wants to download ‘Delirium Cordia’ - Fantomas’ 2003 third album, a single 74 minute track - it’s going to take them about two hours.
“Yeah, hahahaha... and imagine THAT without the artwork! Totally. What reference point would you have?”
It’s a difficult album.
“Pfft! It’s a pain in the ass! Let’s be honest.”
Do you listen to your own stuff?
“Not much after it’s done, no.”
Just the initial playback and then on to the next thing?
“Sometimes, y’know, if I get a finished thing I’ll put it in, just to make sure the mastering’s okay, check the titles, but that’s more just kind of mechanical. Sitting down with a glass of wine, y’know, in my underwear, looking into the sunset, listening to my record? Doesn’t really float my boat, hehehe!”
I was wondering about Norah Jones’ part on the new album, her vocal on ‘Sucker’. Did she need much persuading to say ‘motherfucker’?
“She loved it. When I described the concept to her, I just said I wanted her to be a real bloodsucking man-killer. She said, ‘I can do that!’ It was really easy, a painless experience that could have been a total nightmare. She had a lot of people muttering under their breath, or behind her back, or even to her face, ‘What the fuck are you doing with this guy? There’s no money in it!’ She’s made, she’s paid, she doesn’t need me for fuckin’ shit! But she loved the music and wanted to do it. Not only that, she made it happen.”
Mike Patton has one of the most imitated voices in rock music, but almost every vocalist who has attempted to emulate his style is a complete and utter waste of oxygen. The imitators always miss the point, finding themselves unable to adequately simulate Patton’s morbid wit or the diverse range of musical inputs that inform his vocal experiments. I ask Mike, at what point did you first realise you could use your vocal cords for something other than, say, asking for a biscuit? When did you realise you first had a voice?
“Mmmm... I dunno. I’d been singing a long time before I started realising that I could play with it. Before that, I didn’t really think, ‘Gee, I’m a singer!’ I never took it that seriously. I’m really untrained, I just kind of did what I thought the music needed. It was usually something really straight up and boring, you know? Just kind of singing.”
That was with Mr Bungle, right? Your first band.
“Yep. But you know, the way we started, I was just screaming my head off. I guess that’s a funny place to start, but I went into singing from there, oddly enough. Just by goofing around and having the willingness to fall on my face on record and in front of people. If you do that enough times, man, you’ll try anything! Also hooking up with John Zorn, and him encouraging me to play improv gigs. In those contexts, y’know, a melody and lyrics are kinda meaningless. You gotta do other things, and when you’re forced to do that on the spot, at the moment, in front of people, you sink or swim. It’s a total immersion, y’know? It’s like learning a new language. You dive in, say ‘Don’t fuckin’ speak English to me’ and you know what? You figure it out.”
With that in mind, how much of a hassle is it to write lyrics?
“I’ve never felt that I was very good at writing lyrics. Sometimes I’ll have fun and laugh, ‘Oh, that’s pretty good!’ But it’s always a chore for me. It’s always a pot of coffee, the night before a session, and... it seems like the more I do it the worse I get, hahahahaha! I don’t know. The learning curve has not improved.”
He pauses for a second, thinking deeply. “Actually, maybe I just don’t like it? I used to love to write... I don’t know. For this record, I actually had a pretty good experience, because I didn’t rake myself over the coals, I didn’t worry too much, if it sounds good, if it flows, it’s in there. Meaning? Bleuugh! Even some of the titles are just kinda like, ‘Huh?’ Like ‘How U Feelin?’ It just sounds good! Hahaha! Some of the rappers on there, I don’t even know what they’re talking about! I don’t fuckin’ understand Doseone! ‘Gblalalbbalbalablabalababalbalab!’ God only knows what he’s talking about!”
Do you think you stop caring so much about lyrics as you get older? I rarely listen to the words anymore. The vocals just become a sound. You’re obviously more interested in pure sonics.
“Well, that’s definitely the case. And that’s not to say that the lyrics aren’t important but the sound of the lyrics is the most important thing. The way I write lyrics mostly is that I will do a babytalk version of a song, either singing or even yelling or whatever. From that, I figure out what I’m gonna do. I record it, listen to it a few times, ‘Oh, I’m gonna change that,’ and then I find lyrics or words or phrases to match those sounds or cadences. So in a way, the words are really the last thing on my mind. Literally! With Fantomas, I just left it at that stage. I didn’t bother to put words over it because I didn’t feel like it needed any. I left it in the oven, hahahahahaha!”
But it wasn’t burnt.
“No, no, no. It’s good in there.”
You’re known for being a busy guy, Mike. What have you got coming up in the immediate future?
He makes a flabbergasted, jet-engine sound with this lips.
“Buncha crap, yeah. The next month and a half are crazy. I gotta go to Italy for this classical thing with a choir for a week. Evvind Kang, interesting composer. He wrote a piece for choir and two soloists, and I’m one of the soloists. Then New York to play with the X-ecutioners, do something with Zorn, rehearse the Peeping Tom band, two more gigs with Eye from Boredoms and Makigami Koichi. It’s like a vocal summit, hehehe! Then I go to Canada, do a bunch of shit there at a jazz festival, three projects, I think, in three days. Then I go back to New York to do the TV show.
“Then,” he says, finally, “Home.”
Mike Patton, ladies and gentlemen. The hardest working man in showbusiness.
Mike Patton, more than most rock-affiliated musicians, is bursting with ideas. What’s more, the guy can’t seem to sit still for a fucking second. In the years following the dissolution in 1997 of beloved cheese ‘n’ ham merchants Faith No More, Patton has co-founded a record label (Ipecac), fronted several more bands (Fantomas, Tomahawk, and now Peeping Tom), performed with major figures in the worlds of rock and avant-garde music (Melvins, Merzbow, John Zorn, Dillinger Escape Plan, Rahzel, Amon Tobin et al) and generally made hard work look like the coolest thing on Earth.
Peeping Tom is Patton’s latest labour of love. Several years in the making, the resulting album sees the singer reigning in his naturally outre instincts and dabbling in some straight-up beat-driven pop music (albeit of a uniquely mean-spirited, obscene stripe) alongside such guests as Bebel Gilberto, Kool Keith and Norah Jones. This isn’t entirely without precedent. Faith No More were always more ‘sick pop group’ than ‘dumbo alt-rock outfit’ and recent releases such as Mr Bungle’s ‘California’ (their 1999 swansong) and ‘Romances’ (a 2004 collaboration with Norwegian composer Kaada) have featured Patton wrapping his elastic pipes around some truly gorgeous melodies. The guy can definitely ‘do’ pop. But what is pop to Mike Patton? And what is Mike Patton to pop?
“It’s been in me and it’s seeped out,” says Mike, sprawling in a hotel room chair. “I even think you can hear it in some of the extreme shit I do. Peeping Tom is me taking that kind of stimulus and running with it, seeing how far I could go within those boundaries. ‘Okay, let’s take some of these things that we’ve been playing with over the years and harness them into roughly three to four minute pieces that don’t stray too far from the path, that don’t have too much information in them, but just enough to be interesting. Verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, get out. That may sound easy or boring, but it’s not for me. It’s a difficult thing. I respect song form and great songwriters, and if I were to put pop in a box, it’s a big fuckin’ box, and that’s why I do a record like this. To play with it. There’s a lot of shit you can do. Even this stuff, as linear as it is in my world, there’s still quite a few levels of things going on. It’s really dense and still pretty provocative, I think. I hope!”
So you consider this album as much an experiment as anything else you’ve done?
“Well, yeah. I see it as on-the-job training, learning by doing. The weak links were mostly in the beat department. I realised it was probably not such a good approach to hire a band this time, but work with some guys who can do this with their eyes shut.”
Did you find that having recorded the album, you got all this pop out of your system, or is it something you’d like to revisit at some point?
“There’s... there’s more. One of the good things about the amount of time that it took and not focusing on it was that I kept writing shit, so now I’ve got a stockpile. I would say three quarters of the next album is done. That’s the good part of it. The bad part is you have to fuckin’ wait, y’know? And there’s a certain amount of ‘Yes, I’m glad I’m fuckin’ done with it!’ But realistically, it’s fuckin’ just starting.”
The night before this interview, Patton played a show (and it really was a show) with the Fantomas-Melvins Big Band at London’s Forum. It was, as my gig companion put it, fantastic to watch a band using their formidable expertise to make music that is essentially very wrong. The Big Band, comprised of Patton on vocals and electronics alongside drummers Dave Lombardo and Dale Crover, guitarists Buzz Osborne and David John Stone and bassist Trevor Dunn, were as well-drilled as James Brown’s Furious Flames, as devastatingly precise as Duke Ellington’s orchestra and as tight as Nelson Riddle’s...um, arsehole. Oh, and yes, they ‘rocked’ too. It was hard to take your eyes off Patton, a whirling, screaming, squealing ball of catalytic energy at the centre of a brilliantly choreographed storm of sound. This was what rock could be, we thought, something to be honed and harnessed, sharpened to a fine point and jabbed into the throats of the pitifully undemanding Artrocker generation, the kind of people who think ‘Avant-garde is French for shit, huh huh huh.’ Fuckin’ idiots.
Are you going to tour the new material?
“Think so. Yeah, yeah.”
There’s no way you’re going to be able to get Doseone, Norah Jones, Kool Keith and Bebel Gilberto to all commit to a tour. How are you going to fill in for the missing guests?
“Hire different guests! Hehehehe! More affordable guests! We’ll see. I think maybe two singers, two vocalists, a trio or quartet of organic players, couple programmer guys, maybe a DJ.”
You should get The Roots (Philadelphia’s live hip-hop supergroup).
“Good idea. In fact we’ve heard from them. They wanted Tomahawk to play with them, which I thought was really strange. Guess they’re fans or something.”
Well, you’ve already worked with (Roots beatboxer) Rahzel.
“Yup, he’s gonna be in there. We’re doing ‘The Conan O’Brien show at the end of May and he’s gonna be in that. Pretty funny...!”
Is that something you’re not looking forward to?
“It should be fun. But it’s a fuckin’ TV show, y’know? And I’m putting a band together really for one song, so... it is what it is.”
Mike appeared on the Conan show in the late 90s, when Faith No More were promoting ‘Album Of The Year’, a big, sad behemoth of an album which flopped on release. I tell Mike it’s my favourite FNM record.
“Oh,” he smiles. “Took the title to heart, huh?”
So, Mike. What’s the Peeping Tom concept? What’s the story behind the name? Sounds kinda kinky...
“Ahhhhh.... it’s a good name! Evocative, a bit ambiguous, a bit creepy. I also wanted to kinda accentuate the lighter side of it because this is a fun record, it’s not a dark, disturbing, perverted record. I don’t know if you’ve seen the final packaging, but it’s pretty juicy. I just saw the final version two days ago and I’m still kinda buzzin’ off it.”
Did you design it?
“Oh, yeah. I really can’t stress how important I think the artwork is, especially with some of the more difficult stuff like Fantomas or Maldoror (Patton’s 1999 collaboration with Merzbow). If you don’t have a seductive cover that actually is a part of the story, it’s that much closer to being meaningless.”
The most recent Fantomas album, 2005’s ‘Suspended Animation’ came packaged as a desktop calendar illustrated by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara. The artist was credited on the cover of the album, above the band’s name, rather than in small print on the reverse.
“That was a great one,” nods Patton. “And y’know, without that, let’s just say that was a cardboard cover... sure, you’d figure it out, but would it be the same experience? No way.”
Do you think this is a problem with a lot of experimental music? That the packaging is almost an afterthought?
“I think it’s the case with music in general,” agrees Mike. “You have a blank sheet, y’know? Use it. But I think, especially with difficult music, it needs to draw the listener in a little bit, make it a little bit less abstract. A visual reference. Sometimes it’s a sensual thing. I’m a bit of a fetishist but I’m hoping other people enjoy that shit as much as I do. I think they do. There are enough nuts out there.”
Then there’s the issue of downloading. Is that a concern?
“Ummm.... no. I was into it before this craze, hehehehehe! Before these damn kids got into this, hehehehe! No, I always thought it was really important. It’s just that now, when I come to my partners with a crazy expensive package, I have a better excuse. I can say, ‘Well, man, do you want them to download it? The cooler we make it, the more it costs, the more desirable it’ll be!’ So it’s kinda funny.”
Of course they can counter that by saying if anyone wants to download ‘Delirium Cordia’ - Fantomas’ 2003 third album, a single 74 minute track - it’s going to take them about two hours.
“Yeah, hahahaha... and imagine THAT without the artwork! Totally. What reference point would you have?”
It’s a difficult album.
“Pfft! It’s a pain in the ass! Let’s be honest.”
Do you listen to your own stuff?
“Not much after it’s done, no.”
Just the initial playback and then on to the next thing?
“Sometimes, y’know, if I get a finished thing I’ll put it in, just to make sure the mastering’s okay, check the titles, but that’s more just kind of mechanical. Sitting down with a glass of wine, y’know, in my underwear, looking into the sunset, listening to my record? Doesn’t really float my boat, hehehe!”
I was wondering about Norah Jones’ part on the new album, her vocal on ‘Sucker’. Did she need much persuading to say ‘motherfucker’?
“She loved it. When I described the concept to her, I just said I wanted her to be a real bloodsucking man-killer. She said, ‘I can do that!’ It was really easy, a painless experience that could have been a total nightmare. She had a lot of people muttering under their breath, or behind her back, or even to her face, ‘What the fuck are you doing with this guy? There’s no money in it!’ She’s made, she’s paid, she doesn’t need me for fuckin’ shit! But she loved the music and wanted to do it. Not only that, she made it happen.”
Mike Patton has one of the most imitated voices in rock music, but almost every vocalist who has attempted to emulate his style is a complete and utter waste of oxygen. The imitators always miss the point, finding themselves unable to adequately simulate Patton’s morbid wit or the diverse range of musical inputs that inform his vocal experiments. I ask Mike, at what point did you first realise you could use your vocal cords for something other than, say, asking for a biscuit? When did you realise you first had a voice?
“Mmmm... I dunno. I’d been singing a long time before I started realising that I could play with it. Before that, I didn’t really think, ‘Gee, I’m a singer!’ I never took it that seriously. I’m really untrained, I just kind of did what I thought the music needed. It was usually something really straight up and boring, you know? Just kind of singing.”
That was with Mr Bungle, right? Your first band.
“Yep. But you know, the way we started, I was just screaming my head off. I guess that’s a funny place to start, but I went into singing from there, oddly enough. Just by goofing around and having the willingness to fall on my face on record and in front of people. If you do that enough times, man, you’ll try anything! Also hooking up with John Zorn, and him encouraging me to play improv gigs. In those contexts, y’know, a melody and lyrics are kinda meaningless. You gotta do other things, and when you’re forced to do that on the spot, at the moment, in front of people, you sink or swim. It’s a total immersion, y’know? It’s like learning a new language. You dive in, say ‘Don’t fuckin’ speak English to me’ and you know what? You figure it out.”
With that in mind, how much of a hassle is it to write lyrics?
“I’ve never felt that I was very good at writing lyrics. Sometimes I’ll have fun and laugh, ‘Oh, that’s pretty good!’ But it’s always a chore for me. It’s always a pot of coffee, the night before a session, and... it seems like the more I do it the worse I get, hahahahaha! I don’t know. The learning curve has not improved.”
He pauses for a second, thinking deeply. “Actually, maybe I just don’t like it? I used to love to write... I don’t know. For this record, I actually had a pretty good experience, because I didn’t rake myself over the coals, I didn’t worry too much, if it sounds good, if it flows, it’s in there. Meaning? Bleuugh! Even some of the titles are just kinda like, ‘Huh?’ Like ‘How U Feelin?’ It just sounds good! Hahaha! Some of the rappers on there, I don’t even know what they’re talking about! I don’t fuckin’ understand Doseone! ‘Gblalalbbalbalablabalababalbalab!’ God only knows what he’s talking about!”
Do you think you stop caring so much about lyrics as you get older? I rarely listen to the words anymore. The vocals just become a sound. You’re obviously more interested in pure sonics.
“Well, that’s definitely the case. And that’s not to say that the lyrics aren’t important but the sound of the lyrics is the most important thing. The way I write lyrics mostly is that I will do a babytalk version of a song, either singing or even yelling or whatever. From that, I figure out what I’m gonna do. I record it, listen to it a few times, ‘Oh, I’m gonna change that,’ and then I find lyrics or words or phrases to match those sounds or cadences. So in a way, the words are really the last thing on my mind. Literally! With Fantomas, I just left it at that stage. I didn’t bother to put words over it because I didn’t feel like it needed any. I left it in the oven, hahahahahaha!”
But it wasn’t burnt.
“No, no, no. It’s good in there.”
You’re known for being a busy guy, Mike. What have you got coming up in the immediate future?
He makes a flabbergasted, jet-engine sound with this lips.
“Buncha crap, yeah. The next month and a half are crazy. I gotta go to Italy for this classical thing with a choir for a week. Evvind Kang, interesting composer. He wrote a piece for choir and two soloists, and I’m one of the soloists. Then New York to play with the X-ecutioners, do something with Zorn, rehearse the Peeping Tom band, two more gigs with Eye from Boredoms and Makigami Koichi. It’s like a vocal summit, hehehe! Then I go to Canada, do a bunch of shit there at a jazz festival, three projects, I think, in three days. Then I go back to New York to do the TV show.
“Then,” he says, finally, “Home.”
Mike Patton, ladies and gentlemen. The hardest working man in showbusiness.
