Interview by Bec Harbour
What is a music journalist’s worst nightmare?
It’s not having a bad interview – we get those on the odd occasion, the artist is tired, they don’t like the questions or they just aren’t very open. We pivot and make the best of what we can from those.
No, it’s having a really great interview and your recording device fails.
I had a fantastic interview with Trey Spruance from Mr Bungle last week. When I ended the conversation and ended the recording, it was no-where to be found. I was devastated to say the least. I had some very short notes and scrawled down some quotes that I could remember. So here we go…
Mr Bungle started off as a death metal band out of the ashes of separate bands that Trey, Mike Patton and Trevor Dunn were in in high school in Eureka, California. You can definitely tell the metal influences in Mr Bungle. But what are all those other influences and where did they come from?
Trey is sitting in a room surrounded by musical instruments (mostly stringed) and the background looks sunny and warm (this could be lighting). We exchange pleasantries and I ask him about Mr Bungle not remaining a death metal band, although the until recently unreleased demo, The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny, puts them into the thrash metal genre, with of course the added Bungle oddities. And the rerecord of the demo with Anthrax’s Scott Ian and Slayer’s Dave Lombardo pulls them further into the metal genre.
I asked whether maybe they weren’t serious enough to be a death metal band – Trey laughed and said that I was probably right “There are some death metal bands that are very serious”.
What triggered the change in sound and brought in all the sounds and influences that we can hear in the three records released in the 90’s?
“We were different, and were looking at ways to get out…music seemed the way out and we were different to everyone else in town…”
We spoke about influences, I said that the band sounded like Monty Python meets metal and Trey laughed and said “that’s a way of looking at it”. One of the biggest influences on Trey during those 90’s albums was a 50’s or maybe 60’s avant-garde guitarist (who’s name escapes me), who used maybe 140 tracks, back in the day of tape, recorded tracks backward and forward and made some very revolutionary sounds for his time. The sonic map that Mr Bungle follows is not dissimilar.
We moved onto the first recorded album Mr Bungle and I said how it made us laugh with the surface silliness but with the darker undertones in the lyrics of domestic violence and sexual topics that were missed as a teenager who was exploring music sonically at the time and maybe not paying attention to the lyrical content.
“We were writing about what we knew and trying to get out of a place that at the time felt very isolated. The lyrics probably came from that…”
We moved on to the second album, Disco Volante, and the fact that some fans were confused about the record – especially ‘Desert Search for Techno Allah’ – were they attempting a dance record? Trey said “Dance music fans would disagree that it was dance and people seemed to get hung up on the word techno”. I said that is true, because the rest of the album, including that song was the usual merge of genres and experimental sounds. Trey agreed and I asked if Mr Bungle was about putting out the unexpected? “Well yeah…”
1999’s California was the album before hiatus. It is the album I am least familiar with. Trey seems nonchalant about that, and maybe it was time they took their hiatus with other projects becoming more pressing, Mike Patton of course had Faith No More and other projects (Tomahawk, Fantomas and his new label Ipecac Recordings), Trevor Dunn with various musical projects and Trey with Secret Chiefs 3 and various production work. It seemed like Mr Bungle had called it a day.
In 2019 it was announced that Mr Bungle would reform for three shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Brooklyn. The line up of Spruance, Dunn and Patton added Scott Ian and Dave Lombardo to the mix and the band made it clear it was about The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny demo and nothing from any of the three previous Warner albums would be played. Tickets sold strongly and additional shows were added.
I asked Trey about the present-day line up and The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny EP and how the addition of Dave Lombardo and Scott Ian came about. Trey said that Scott Ian had the Bunny demo for years and was keen to contribute, “…if we were putting a band together as teenagers what drummer would I want and what rhythm guitarist? It would be them”.
When The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny EP was being recorded from the demo, did Lombardo and Ian come in and think, now we get to make the album that has all the silliness/experimental stuff and you guys got them to make a more traditional thrash album? Trey laughed at this and shrugged “well maybe…”. We spoke about each album being a moment in time and this line up versus the 90’s line up, “…this line-up is there for a very different purpose to the 90’s line up…”
The Australian tour, Mr Bungle has toured twice, what will the show be like? A best of or will it focus on the Bunny EP?
Trey said “…the current line-up is put together for the Bunny EP, the set will focus on that, with one song from the 90’s albums thrown in…” (did not say which).
We talked about the remoteness of Australia – I lived in Darwin so missed out on Bungle shows. Trey said that he had been to Darwin and in fact has done the drive from Alice Springs to Darwin so knows the distance and remoteness. He is currently residing in Arizona so understands the vast distances and beauty in the remote landscapes and is looking forward to seeing more of that landscape.
Mr. Bungle perform live in March 2024 as they bring their musical homecoming to Australia and New Zealand with the Melvins.
SUNDAY 3 MARCH – TOWN HALL, AUCKLAND
WEDNESDAY 6 MARCH – FESTIVAL HALL, MELBOURNE
THURSDAY 7 MARCH – HINDLEY ST MUSIC HALL, ADELAIDE
SATURDAY 9 MARCH – HORDERN PAVILION, SYDNEY
SUNDAY 10 MARCH – FORTITUDE MUSIC HALL, BRISBANE
TUESDAY 12 MARCH – METRO CITY, PERTH
