A Conversation with Mike Patton

This is the original transcript of the interview, only minor editing has been applied for readability. This has been the basis for articles but has never been published in the original form.

Wortraub: Are you a workaholic? You are quite busy at the moment, right?
Mike: No different than any other day in my life. It’s normal. Granted, this is a bit intense right now, but you know, the every day cadence of my life is like this. Two or three things, two or three bands going on at once. Maybe a couple little things here and there. Maybe a little touring. The only thing that is different right now is that I am doing a little bit more interviews.

Wortraub: Why is that? Are the other projects less interesting to the press?
Mike: Maybe a little bit. Also, I feel that since I haven’t done a lot of press for my other projects, recent project. This one may be … well, why not? I think the record deserves it. I think, I don’t need to handicap it in any way. And I should be a little more open, than I normally am. And I see, how my partner at the label is excited about it. My friends are excited about it and it makes me think: all right, I am gonna be a little bit more open and give it a little bit more of a chance. I don’t wanna … I want the record to be heard by as many people as possible and … which is no different than any of my projects, I mean, really. But I do feel that with Fantomas there is only so much you can say. There is only a certain amount of people who are ever gonna enjoy that music and God bless them. They are the greatest. That shit is difficult, it is difficult music. This Peeping Tom thing is a fun record that rolls off your back and doesn’t do any harm to anyone. *laughs* But it still isn’t pop music. Well, to me it is.

Wortraub: Do you do that on purpose? Make it hard to understand?
Mike: No, no, no. When I am creating this stuff, I really can’t be bothered with who is going to listen to it, who might like it, who might not. I have no idea. Even if I cared … first of all I don’t really care, but if I did care. There is still no way to predict it, it is not a science. Who am I to look out the window and say: he is my kind of guy, I can speak to him. I don’t know. If someone does like my shit, I don’t why they like it. I don’t know what they are hearing. Chances are it is definetly not what I am hearing. That is the way it should be. I throw it out there. I let people make their own sense, their own logic out of it. Hopefully everyone can enjoy it.

Wortraub: If you do look out there (Window), what do you do? Do you get along with people in general?
Mike: Ah, I don’t know. I am not really a people guy. No. Not so much. I don’t have a lot of friends. I am not like Mr.Social-party-goer.

Wortraub: With your work ethic there probably isn’t much time, is there?
Mike: There is opportunities. It is just not my … I have never been like that. I have a few very, very close friends and I like to keep it that way.

Wortraub: Coming back to the idea of art and it’s meaning. Does it have to be eclectic?
Mike: Just so happens my shit is, I guess. I don’t even feel like you have to understand it. You either like it or you don’t. The feedback that I have gotten over the years from people, press, who ever is … and it is something that I have generally grown to accept, is that no matter what I do, it is not going to fit anywhere. It is going to be it’s own little freakish mutant. And no matter what it sounds like to me. And that is perfectly ok. That is fantastic. And …. I think I realized that fairly early on and I have known it pretty well for the last fifteen years. Now, as a consequence, with my label and what not, I have kind of given myself a forum, an environment where my shit can make sense. To me! *laughs* It is like having a roof over your head, it is good, comforting feeling. And you, I don’t have to sell it, to some company that doesn’t understand it. I can put it out exactly the way I want it and have my hands on it from start to finish.

Wortraub: Is that why you put out so much?
Mike: Well, no … I mean, I put out so much stuff because it feels good, feels natural. It just comes. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t just sit down and you know make a laundry list or whatever. There is always two or three things going on at once. I will work on one for a while. Maybe I feel like that is pulling me a little to the left, so I should do a little bit like this. It is all about maintaining a balance, but no … the work flow feels normal to me.

Wortraub: Well, it is quite a bit. Metal, Jazz, Hip Hop, Ambient …
Mike: It is not that strange. It is not that much. Everyone in their life does a multitude of things. You know, mine just happens to be a little bit one dimensional. I make music, you know. I don’t go on vacations. I don’t do a lot of other things that people do. So, you know. Everyone has the same amount of time allotted to them in the day, it is just a matter of what’s important to you. If something is important to you, you make the time. The time makes itself. And you don’t think about it. Me and recording music is as normal as brushing my teeth or taking a dump. When you gotta go, you gotta go. *laughs* That’s it.

Wortraub: Are you missing something? Vacations?
Mike: Well, you know … there will be plenty of time for vacations. *laughs loudly* I feel like I am in a groove. And, you know … the older I get, I think, I am getting a little bit better about managing my time. Knowing when to pull back and knowing when to go for the throat. I think, it is always a process.

Wortraub: When have you had your last break?
Mike: Well, I don’t know. Even when I am taking a break. For me a break is when I am home, where I have my home studio and I record.

Wortraub: So, no break really.
Mike: It has been a while. That is the safe way of saying I can’t remember. *laughs heartily*

Wortraub: You are friends with John Zorn and his style of composing has influenced your own music. He uses all sorts of inspiration, breaking his creativity into a prism of musical outputs … where is the inspiration coming from?
Mike: Records, books, videos, peers, people I respect … ah, you know. More that than staring into the sunset or riding a subway. Me, I learned my craft – or whatever you wanna call it ñ from listening to records, from … that’s my input, that is the in flow. Or a pot of coffee, late at night. Or a great movie.

Wortraub: What is the last book you read?
Mike: I am reading … *mumbles to himself* what am I reading right now? … a Batailles book! I am in the middle of a Bataille book called Divine Filth. George Batailles, French surrealist. I don’t know why but I have been on a French kick lately. Before that I read „Memoirs of Vidocq“. That was great. I did not know about that guy. He was the original sort of … ah, anti-hero. It is funny, cause I found out about him after the fact. He was like … he was doing what Fantomas was doing. *laughs*

Wortraub: In „How we eat our young“ you stated that musicians are at the same moral level as thieves, pimps or peeping toms. Is the need to be successful, to get recognition so low on a moral level?
Mike: No, I guess what I mean is … for the general public we exist on the fringes of society. Every now and then one of us … and in a weird way, I don’t know why, but I feel a part of a tradition of these guys that just kind of live on the outside … maybe fade away but keep doing their shit, keep working the whole time.

Wortraub: So being a musician is an eccentric existence?
Mike: It’s different man! It’s different. You know, a lot of people can’t relate to the way we live. To the way we prioritize what we do over any and everything. I have been married for fourteen years and believe you me it is fucking rough. It’s tough. And that’s … I am talking about my best friend, someone who understands me, probably … she can tell me more about me than I could, she knows me great. Still, when it comes to down to basic things, to normal things that people wanna do in their lives. Those things are sometimes really secondary to a musician. Or a composer or what the hell you want to call it. To an artist. But comparing it to a thief or peeping tom just sounds better *wickedly laughs*

Wortraub: But it also sounds grotesque …
Mike: Well, that is what I was trying to go for … I guess, what I am trying to also say is … you always hear the romantic shit about artists. Either the glamorous or the romanticized sort of part of the process. I always like to chop that down a little bit, bring it back down to size. Whenever I can. You can never really let someone in but it is nice to give people hints every now and then … it isn’t what you think. *laughs* It is great. I’ll never complain but it is a multi-faceted, multi-faced animal.

Wortraub: You have the feeling that on a day to day basis you don’t function as the rest of us?
Mike: Well, you know … artists … you are a writer, so I believe you can relate. Let me take a wild guess here, you are a music journalist because you like to write and because you happen to like music. But you probably write short stories … there you go. Who makes a big deal about that, you do that and that? And you probably do a ton of other things like who knows, you may have kids … it goes back to, you know … there is no real reason to sensationalize a guy having six bands. That just means, that I don’t do a lot of other shit, that’s all.

Wortraub: How do you feel about the music at the moment? About the creativity in the process? About „American Idol“?
Mike: It’s funny. You can’t get upset about that kind of stuff. There has always been that kind of shit going on. Doesn’t effect me in any way. I don’t live in that world. If it is on, turn the channel. You know, it is the McDonalds of music. It is a factory … a shit factory. But ah … people love shit. *laughs* What are you gonna do?

Wortraub: Where is the industry headed? You are running in the opposite direction with Ipecac, right?
Mike: I don’t know. It’s not that I did not like what every one else is doing but just that I did not feel that my shit really fit anywhere and no one wanted it (!), so that was a very clear picture that was painted to me. Okay, this is not the first time or the last time that I have something that people are either interested or are not going to get, so I got to create a context. That’s why? It wasn’t like: these guys suck, I am going to do the good shit. Not that at all.

Wortraub: How do they tell you, I don’t like that music you do?
Mike: That is what they would say, only they would say it in a very politely way. They would basically just not return your calls. That’s what’s up. They have actually done that. I had a little flirtation with this Peeping Tom thing with a couple of majors, who were marginally interested in it. So I thought, well it would be stupid not to explore it … it would be stupid to explore it but also stupid not to … so why not? And I ended up doing a dance with a couple of guys you know for a good six to eight months. That is another reason why the birth of this thing took some time. You know, my fault. Here I spend so much time creating my own thing and you know, I should have know. You step into that world and you have to kind of expect the worst. I got lucky, cause the worst did not happen. The worst would have been: get a big advance and then have them sit on the record and never put it out. Or they could shelve it.

Wortraub: On your homepage it is stated that you are on the mission to clean out the drek that is in our tummies. This sounds like contempt for the music industry. Is there no good music around at the moment?
Mike: That is some clever … ah, I don’t remember who wrote that. I have no idea who wrote that. It wasn’t me! That’s cute, nothing to take too seriously.

Wortraub: Why did you choose the name „Peeping Tom“? What does music have to do with scopophilia and the „male gaze“?
Mike: Oh, I don’t know. I liked the movie, I like the title. And I have always wanted to use it for a project or something I was doing, where I was investigating. And kind of taking on some new adventures, and learning. And sticking my nose into a world that I wasn’t so familiar with. And in this case, the electronic and hip hop world. I have flirted with it in the past, but not like this. It is kind of learning on the job.

Wortraub: When we translate the terms of „peeping tom“ into an audio instead of a visual aspect, then are you giving the other artists a chance to „gaze“ on your music?
Mike: I did not think about it that way. The other way round. I thought about it more selfishly. I am trying to learn about what they do. I am gazing. I am learning about programming, I am learning about how they construct all these complicated beats. How a tune like that is put together. More so than … I don’t know how much they would be gazing at me.

Wortraub: Are you interested in psychoanalysis? Did you read Lacan? What do you think of the „mirror state“ and the creation of the self through the image? Is this your way of looking at yourself?
Mike: No, I did not read Lacan. But every record I make is a little bit about that. About figuring it out. Keeping that in and out flow. That’s what makes me wanna keep waking up every morning. Like I said, learning on the job that is also figuring out who you are, growing up. Everything in my life, that has been good, has happened to me because of music.

Wortraub: How did you work on this album? Are you sending out a song that is done?
Mike: Pretty much, done and finished, but that still has some weak points. And usually that was either my vocal wasn’t enough, I wanted a real rapper or a real female or in most cases it was the rhythm section that was really weak. I am not a good programmer. I do it all by hand. So I thought, if I could do a real guy to do it, like Amon Tobin, that would finish this. And that’s where I was at with almost all the tunes. I thought, well this is how I got to approach this. But yeah, they were finished songs with lyrics and everything. Sometimes I reworked what they send me back. Sometimes it was great as is. Most cases, yeah, I would mess around with the stuff. You know, maybe something they did was great but it gave you another idea. In Amon’s case it was like that. He added a couple of parts that weren’t there and I thought: wow, that would make a really nice vocal line and I ended up reworking the whole fucking song. So by the end of the entire process, so many hands have touched it, it has gone through so many transformations that it is hard to recognize. Did I do that? Or was that him? I don’t know.

Wortraub: So, how do you choose your partners in crime?
Mike: Fan. Whoever I am just a fan of. Basically. You know, I’d think like Massive Attack liked movie stuff, so I thought this … they could add to this one. You know. I know Amon and I know he loves R’N’B so I was going to give him a sweet kind of soul type of tune. Because I just know he would not freak over that one. Other ones were kind of guessing. I think, with Norah Jones I had no idea she would slaughter the tune the way she did. I mean, I was hoping. But she even exceeded my expectations, same thing with Kool Keith. I heard he was going to be a nightmare to work with. I was stubborn enough to see it through to the end. And he was amazing. Total pro. Delivered within two days. Exactly what I wanted and more.

Wortraub: Any other candidates which you did not get to work with?
Mike: Yeah, saving them for the second record. *laughs*

Wortraub: So you are going to do more?
Mike: Yeah, there is enough really to do three right now. Oh, I would say tow and a half, two and three-quarters.

Wortraub: „Peeping Tom“ has this creepy aspect of abuse … is there an aggressive, destructive aspect in your work? With Tomahawk or with Fantomas there seems to be …
Mike: Wow, lay me down on the couch. *laughs slightly irritated* Yeah, well I know. I don’t think about that stuff. To me, I could have gone a lot of ways with the name Peeping Tom. I could have done a chamber piece, a really dark, sick one. But I didn’t. I chose it for a really bright colored, light and fun pop record. So, if anything I am looking at the lighter side of voyeurism. Sure, there is dark elements but compared to the other things I do. This is not one of those records. The movie is one thing. The record is the record. Listen to it. And then think about it.

Wortraub: What is the message you want to convey with „Peeping Tom“? Is there a red thread?
Mike: Not really. Other than the technical, dry, boring stuff. Which is: I tried to exploit the song form. Verses, choruses, bridge. That’s it. Three minutes. In and out. I don’t always stick to it but that’s kind of the format, the parameters that I wanted to set. Every project, once the idea formulates, you find your path. The parameters make it what it is. Unless you can contextualize each project, everything is going to end up sounding the same.

Wortraub: Is this a musical sketch book then?
Mike: Everything I do is that way. The last Fantomas record, I ended up … once again: once I got in the right river and realized where I wanted to go with it. It was like: okay, this is going to be a light fun children’s cartoon record and that’s it. I don’t want to make this … the one before was a song nightmare record. Again, unless I feel … unless I can put parameters up and more or less stay with them, I feel my music will be unfocused and a big mess.

Wortraub: How would you describe the music yourself?
Mike: It is dense, still pretty challenging, layered, interesting pop music. Using some of the things that I have been fascinated with in that world. I think, I have always listened to pop stuff. It seeps out, sneaks out of me in lots of strange ways, you can hear it in almost everything I do. But this was kind of a vacation. I wanna stick to that. I wanna make a record of whipped cream, no cake.

Wortraub: Will there be a tour? How will bring this on stage?
Mike: It will probably be a six or seven piece band. And I’ll get probably a couple of the more multi-tasking guest like maybe the Anticon guys to be the kind of core of the group. The Dub Trio guys are actually talented too, so maybe I’ll recruit them. I imagine a six to eight piece band, couple of singers. Won’t be that hard. It will be really fun to bring it live. A chance to … you would even have to rewrite some stuff. It’s fun.

Wortraub: What will be the next big Mike Patton thing? What is left to do? Opera?
Mike: Ha ha, couple of weeks … I am going to Italy, to do something with a choir. Gotcha!!! I’m kidding. I’m working on a couple of film scores. Something I have always wanted to try. Different things. Something is kind of light, genre-based stuff. Dixieland kind of. One of them is short film and the music is kind of weird. The other one is a feature length with an ambient music. One film is black comedy, a Jarmusch kind of thing, the other is a … the other one is weird. Like an S/M cannibal movie. *laughs dirty*