Trevor Dunn
Goin' Back To Cali
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As anyone who has ever heard a Mr. Bungle song can attest, this is a strange band.
Started fifteen years ago, it wasn't until singer Mike Patton got famous with his other band, Faith No More, that San Francisco's Mr. Bungle got noticed. Patton's commerical success with FNM allowed Bungle to get a record contract with Warner Brothers Records, and in 1991, release its self-titled debut.
With songs about everything from porn to macaroni, the record was too schizophrenic to grab any substantial mainstream attention, but it did attain a sort of cult following around the country. The band's second release, '94's Disco Volante, was met with mixed feelings among fans of Mr. Bungle's first record, but it still represented a band that refused to follow traditional understandings of what a rock album should sound like.
Four years later, Mr. Bungle has finally released its third full-length album, California. Though the band has still managed to cram multiple genres into each track, this record is clearly the most sane, most complete Mr. Bungle effort to date. Speaking from his home, the night before the band's tour began, bassist Trevor Dunn shared his thoughts on the new record, the live show, and the band's supposed decision to start taking things more seriously.
NATN: Are you excited to start the tour??
TD: Dunn: Yeah, definitely. This band hasn't toured for quite awhile so I'm looking forward to it.
NATN: How do you think this tour will compare with your past tours?
TD: Um, I don't know. In a way it's like a combination of our other tours the same way that our new record, in a way, is a combination of the last two. We're playing a couple things off the first record and everything off the new record and a couple things off the last record.
NATN: Do people go crazy when you play stuff off the first record?
TD: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, we really only play one song off that first record.
NATN: Which one?
TD: "Travolta."
NATN: No "Squeeze Me Macaroni?"
TD: Nope. (laughs) That song and "Girls of Porn," they all get like all kinds of requests, but we're definitely all burned out on that stuff.
NATN: Did you guys ever expect the first record to have such a cult following?
TD: Strictly speaking, no.
It was weird when we first went out on the road, you know, our first tour. We were playing like Omaha, Nebraska and people were singing along to "Squeeze Me Macaroni." That was definitely a trip. I mean, it's kind of a flaw that we were on Warner Bros. in the first place and that we were getting that kind of distribution, so yeah, we had no idea that so many people were into it.
NATN: Did Mike Patton being in Faith No More help you guys out a lot?
TD: Yeah, yeah, with the record deal definitely.
NATN: Did FNM breaking up help Mr. Bungle get a new focus?
TD: A little bit, yeah. I mean, Mike definitely thought he was gonna have more free time, which, it turns out he doesn't. Now he started his own label (IPECAC Records), and you know, Fantomas (his other band with Buzz Osborne from the Melvins), and whatever. But, it's another obstacle that we don't have to worry about which is great. We can say "Hey, we want to go out on the road for six months" or whatever and we can all schedule that in.
NATN: So, your press release says you guys are doing the "real band" thing now. What's up with that?
TD: Well, we've always had a hard time acknowledging that we were a band, a real band. We always considered ourselves a toy band for some reason. I don't know, we just don't go about things the way that most, "normal" bands do. You know, putting records out every three years is, of course, one of the main problems that we have.
NATN: What do you consider a "normal" band to be?
TD: A lot of bands go on the road and then get back and go straight into the studio and write music and put out a record and go out on the road again, and that's like a lifestyle that I don't know if any of us could tolerate. It's nice to get off the road and get away from each other. You know, after being in a van for even six weeks, which is how long this tour is, you definitely need your space.
NATN: What else do you guys do when you're not touring or recording?
TD: Everyone is busy, usually most everyone has other musical outlets. I do a lot of playing near the Bay Area and freelance jazz stuff.
NATN: So you've never been forced to get a 9 to 5 job?
TD: No, no.
NATN: What's the song-writing process like?
TD: Usually when we start talking about "Hey, maybe it's time to make a new record," everybody just kind of goes off in their own corners and writes. We start making demo tapes for each other and some of it's songs and some is just little riffs and we start throwing ideas back and forth, or resurrecting old ideas that never got used. And then eventually we start getting together and playing the stuff and that's where the collaborative aspect kicks in because we start, you know, maybe somebody will have something that they don't know what to do with so they'll give it to another band member and say "Here, I don't know." Like, that happened on this new record -- the song "Vanity Fair" -- I kind of wrote the skeleton for that song and I didn't know what to do with it so I just gave the tape to Mike and said "Here, figure something out." And we kept playing it and things changed that way too.
NATN: Is recording something you enjoy doing?
TD: We love recording. It's kind of like being in the candy store, we really get to kind of go off. I mean, we spent almost our entire recording budget on this record. We're in the studio so much and hiring extra musicians, and really tweaking things until they're perfect. We're kind of perfectionists.
NATN: So you're happy with California?
TD: Yeah, definitely.
NATN: What stands out for you on the new record?
TD: It's different from our last two records. It's really melodic. There's a lot of vocals a lot of harmony vocals and melodic songs, which, our last record was kind of not that way at all. More like these weird -- I don't even know what to call 'em. I guess that's the thing that really differentiates it.
NATN: Is this a direction you guys plan to stay with?
TD: Well, I doubt we'll ever stay in one direction. That's all part of our song-writing process. We never really talk about a direction, we just kind of go for it. That's one of the reasons it takes us so long because there's no way we want to write the same kind of thing twice. So it takes us awhile to figure out where to go.
NATN: I read that you guys were having trouble with the live show for this record.
TD: Well, it's definitely been a lot of work. We had to decide, I mean, there's 13 extra musicians on this record so it's pretty much impossible to really duplicate it. There's like violin and accordion and strings, so we ended up sampling a lot of stuff from the record itself, plus there's like 7 people onstage playing. But it's coming together.
NATN: So what should somebody who saw your first tour expect from this one?
TD: It's gonna be, well I don't want to give it away, but we're going with a theme from the record -- the California theme. We're not wearing masks anymore, but there's definitely a stage persona.
KATHARINE KELLY |