Artist

Mike Patton

Eureka, United States · b. 1968

Mike Patton is a musician from Eureka, United States, active since 1968. Their discography on Gatefold includes 9 records. They also recorded with Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Tomahawk, Fantômas, Peeping Tom and Dead Cross.

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Albums tracked

799

In collections

1968

Since

7 projects · 799 records in Gatefold collections

Biography

Mike Patton showed up to the Faith No More audition with a cassette of the Mr. Bungle demo and wrote the lyrics to 'The Real Thing' in about two weeks. He wasn't some funk-metal kid. He was a guy obsessed with the Italian avant-garde and the technical limitations of a four-track recorder. Most people know the nasal sneer and the MTV videos, but the real Patton is the guy who tracked 'Adult Themes for Voice' in hotel rooms during a world tour using nothing but a Shure SM58 and a Tascam four-track. He spent his downtime between stadium gigs screaming into a microphone to see how much the tape could actually handle. He spent most of the nineties trying to dismantle the heartthrob status Warner Bros. tried to sell. He started Ipecac Recordings because he wanted a place where he could release a record of him screaming over an Ornette Coleman tribute and nobody would tell him it lacked a radio single. He’s the only guy who can headline a festival with a reformed alt-metal band and then spend the next night in a small club playing a table full of electronics with John Zorn. It’s not a gimmick. He genuinely thinks a pop hook and a noise blast deserve the same level of focus.

Bio from The Clerk

The Arc of Mike Patton

The pivots — what forced Mike Patton to reinvent.

The Hostile Takeover
When Chuck Mosley got fired, Faith No More grabbed Patton and suddenly had a singer who could actually hit the notes. Producer Matt Wallace pushed him to keep that nasal, bratty tone on 'The Real Thing' to cut through the heavy slap-bass and Big Sickett guitars. It turned them into global stars, but Patton hated the box it put him in. By the time they recorded 'Angel Dust,' he was actively trying to sabotage his own vocal beauty with distorted growls and absurd characters just to see if the fans would stick around.
The Ipecac Infrastructure
After Faith No More folded the first time in '98, Patton stopped playing the major label game and founded Ipecac with Greg Werckman. This move shifted him from a frontman-for-hire into a curator, leading to the birth of Fantômas with Dave Lombardo and Buzz Osborne. They weren't writing songs anymore; they were writing comic book storyboards and horror movie cues. The production got drier, the cuts got sharper, and the music became about the physical execution of impossible arrangements.
The Italian Crooner
Patton moved to Italy, got married, and became obsessed with the 1950s and 60s pop orchestration of guys like Gino Paoli and Ennio Morricone. This culminated in 'Mondo Cane,' where he fronted a forty-piece orchestra to sing traditional Italian pop. There were no masks or distortion pedals to hide behind. It proved he wasn't just a noise merchant; he had the technical vocal chops of a mid-century opera star, and he treated those pop arrangements with more reverence than any of his rock records.

Influences

Ennio Morricone — Patton curated a collection of Morricone's 'Crime Jazz' works for his label and has cited the maestro's non-linear arrangements as the blueprint for Fantômas. You hear it in the sudden, violent shifts between silence and orchestral chaos. He treats the studio like a Foley stage because of Morricone.
Frank Zappa — The DNA of Mr. Bungle is rooted in Zappa’s 'Uncle Meat' era, specifically the total disregard for genre boundaries within a single track. Patton shares that same obsession with rigorous rehearsal and punishing his bandmates with complex, high-speed charts. It's about the technical discipline required to play something that sounds like a joke.
Diamanda Galás — Patton has repeatedly pointed to her as the ultimate vocal authority, specifically her ability to use the voice as a literal weapon. Her influence is all over 'Adult Themes for Voice' and his work with John Zorn. He took her blueprint of the voice-as-instrument and pushed it into the red.
Slayer — Before he was a crooner, he was a thrash kid, and Dave Lombardo’s drumming in Slayer was the foundation for Patton’s sense of rhythm. He eventually recruited Lombardo for Fantômas and Dead Cross. That double-kick precision is what allows Patton to timing his vocal barks with millisecond accuracy.
The Beach Boys — Patton is a vocal harmony obsessive who has cited 'Pet Sounds' as a perfect record for its layering and arrangement. You hear this on the Lovage project and Peeping Tom, where he stacks twenty tracks of his own voice to create those lush, eerie textures. He’s looking for the dark side of Brian Wilson’s pop perfection.