In their respective universes, Mike Patton and Dan "The Automator" Nakamura have in common a method of working that is uncommon in the production of popular music. For Nakamura’s best-known outfits — Handsome Boy Modeling School, Deltron 3030, and, most recently, the surprise-hit Grammy-nominated Gorillaz — he functions not unlike a film director, assembling hand-picked ensemble casts that change from disc to disc. For his part, Patton hasn’t maintained a steady band since Faith No More broke up in the latter ’90s, though his all-star avant-metal band Fantomas keep threatening to take on a life of their own. Instead, he’s been putting together pick-up bands and making guest appearances at an alarming rate, singing everything from avant-garde noise to Euro-electro love ballads, as he does on Nakamura’s latest project, Lovage (the line-up also includes Elysian Fields singer Jennifer Charles, and, on disc, Afrika Bambaataa, Prince Paul, Gorillaz/Blur dude Damon Albarn, and Kid Koala). Lovage come to the Middle East this Wednesday.
"It seems like a really comfortable way of working," Patton explains over the phone from San Francisco. "Most rock bands get one set of characters and roll with them for 15 years. I just can’t quite stomach that. The way I believe I get better and learn more about what I’m doing is by putting myself in different situations. Sometimes they’re uncomfortable ones or unfamiliar ones. Really, what it’s about for me is meeting people and working with new people, and if you’re not doing that, it can be a lonely road. So that’s why all the bands, and that’s why different people all the time, and that’s what’s challenging and exciting about this crazy business."
On the short list of projects Patton is focusing on at the moment: Peeping Tom, in another collaboration with Nakamura that’s rumored to be his most accessible material since Faith No More (though a deal with Reprise just fell through); Fantomas, who will have another disc out by year’s end; a Fantomas-Melvins collaboration; an EP by the avant-metal band Dillinger Escape Plan with Patton on guest vocals; and a collaboration with turntablists the X-ecutioners. And that’s not even including his Ipecac label, which has released everything from straight-up honky-tonk country to, well, Fantomas.
"I never planned this out," he admits. "Over the years, this community of people you’ve worked with — they don’t go anywhere, they stick around. I’d always pooh-poohed the idea of a scene, or a musical community, because I’d never been a part of one and never felt a part of one. But at the same time, it kind of happened in and of itself, and that’s neat. Dan’s got that going, too — a palette of musicians, a community of his own. And that’s what this shit is about, man. We’re making our own rules and kind of creating our own little worlds or universes with these records."
Patton has contributed to John Zorn’s tributes to Burt Bacharach and Serge Gainsbourg, and that lineage serves him well with Lovage, whose work includes some of his best singing since FNM’s cover of Lionel Richie’s "Easy." Perhaps because of his tendency for genre-hopping experimentalism, he’s often written off as an ironist, but he is a singer of impressive range. "Absolutely, the interest couldn’t be more sincere. The kitsch factor I think is very little. In Lovage I think we’re taking it to our own place. There’s obviously some humor involved. But especially on those tributes, that’s straight up me saluting. People tend only to pick up on the superficial elements of that stuff: ‘Oh, boy — listen to how funny those lyrics are!’ But my God, this is serious music going on there."
On the other hand, he’s less impressed by the homage that’s been paid to Faith No More over the past couple years by the latest generation of popular metal bands, from Papa Roach to Korn. "God help them," he groans. "I try not to dwell on it too much, because if I did, I think I’d blow my fucking brains out. Those bands suck, what can I say? I can’t be nice about this shit. It’s too bad."
Lovage, with Mike Patton, Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, and Jennifer Charles, play the Middle East, 480 Mass Ave in Central Square, this Wednesday, January 16. Call (617) 864-EAST.
