By Dr. Iam Sancho Mike Patton has been in touch with fans ever since the internet allowed him to be and is one of the pioneers of Rock 2.0 dude. He’s fronted successful bands such as Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, The Dillinger Escape Plan and even squeezed in time to co-found the wildly successful Ipecac Recordings. We sent his biggest fan and esteemed colleague, Dr. Iam Sancho, to see what he’s up to now. Dr. Iam Sancho: What has Mr. Mike Patton been up to recently? Mike Patton: Working on a few records. Finishing up Mondo Cane (Italian pop songs with orchestra) and Crudo (collaboration with Dan the Automator) records and continuing work on the next Peeping Tom. Also been doing voice work on the video game remake of Bionic Commando. Sancho: With so many projects and bands, how do you decide which project to work on next? Patton: It just happens. Something triggers it. A song idea, a theme, a tour. It is pretty random, not that well thought out. It keeps things fresh for me. Sancho. What’s the deal with this whole Crudo thing? What can we expect and when can we expect it? Patton: We are playing a couple shows in May. It is pretty fun hip hop stuff. Not sure when or where a record will come out. Sometime in 2009 I would predict. Sancho: What will the next Patton be? Patton: Doing some Fantômas dates in Europe playing “The Directors Cut” in December. Sancho: How excited for Grand Theft Auto IV are you? I’m totally stoked for it! Patton: Very. Sancho: What is the typical Mike Patton writing process like? Patton: Just hanging in my studio staring at the computer. Sometimes it takes just a teeny weeny bit of heroin to jump start the creative juices. Sancho: Coming from your fame in Faith No More you no doubt have fans who are checking out bands like Fantômas looking for commercial accessibility. How does this make you feel? Patton: I feel happy that people check out Fantômas. I doubt they expect commercial accessibility from ME! To be honest, I really don’t care what people want or expect from me. I have always created music to please myself. Having said that, it would be great if others came on board and millions bought all my records, but if they don’t, I still want to like what I do. The bands that I detest most in the world are the contrived ones that just aim for the top of the charts and water down for the masses. Sancho: You’re a well known gamer. So what is in your PlayStation 3, Xbox360 or Nintendo Wii? Patton: In my PS3 is NBA Live. Gotta get the Lakers the ring! Sancho: On a related note, what is your opinion on the current generation of gaming? Patton: I think it is pretty good, but to be honest, I don’t dig the multiplayer and online aspects that console gaming is heading towards. I do like the fancy graphics, but I am not a computer gamer and not looking to play against anyone other than the system. Been fun working in video games though. Sancho: Tell us about your project Mondo Cane. What was it like being in charge of so many musicians? Will there ever be any official recordings? Patton: It was quite a challenge. It was a huge undertaking that I thoroughly enjoyed. It is all in Italian with Italian players so it helped me sharpen my language skills. I’m trying to wrap up the recording, looks like an early 2009 release on Ipecac Recordings. Sancho: With many of your bands you play the role of conductor. How did you perfect such a skill? Patton: Perfect? I have not perfected any skill. Conducting ain’t easy, but then again neither is pimpin’. Sancho: If you could stop one band from making any more music, who would it be and why? Patton: That’s not very nice, is it? I’m not really interested in stopping anyone from being creative. However, there are plenty of bands that don’t exist in my world, mainly due to their lack of creativity. It is easy to say I’m not a hater, but it is true that spending time hating something gives it attention and wastes potentially productive time. Sancho: What current style of music do you currently detest the most and why? Patton: Hmmm. I guess it’s is still Emo. I mean, c’mon, it is like fashion and the bands all look, sound and act the same. Nothing exciting or dangerous about Emo to my ears. Really bad band names, too. Not the way I roll. Sancho: With the upcoming release of the Fantômas Melvins Big Band DVD, can we expect any other documentary DVDs in the future? Maybe a Mike Patton documentary? Patton: We are certainly not ruling out other DVDs. It seems to be something people dig, but we are only going to do them if we think it is something special. There will not be any documentary that I’m part of. We still like to concentrate on music. But visual art can be cool, too. Sancho: Your label, Ipecac Recordings, has been around nearly 10 years. Would you say your approach to signing bands is more or less one of “Don’t call us, we’ll call you”? Patton: We are always getting turned onto bands. Most of the time one of our bands will tell us about a band that they saw or something. Or a friend turns us on to something. Our bands are our A&R. Sancho: What would you say to a band interested in signing with Ipecac? Patton: I would say thanks for thinking of us. We turn down a bunch of bands each week. Some are very good, but we are a very small company with limited resources and can’t be the home for everyone. Sancho: What would you like to say to the millions of people reading this interview? Patton: I’m excited for GTA IV! Go to www.ipecac.com