Mike Patton

“When you come into a pre-existing situation, you gotta have your own thing going. You gotta be really strong about it, and you gotta look at the older material in an aggressive way - 'I'm go...”

“Hearing other peoples' interpretations of your lyrics, to me, is just a total kick in the pants. Half the time, they're better.”

“There has to be an element of danger, or at least an element of intrigue, for a band to be interesting.”

“I'm a little tired of travelling the world, jaded as that may sound.”

“I know that whatever I put out, whether people think it's pop or noise or whatever, it's always going to be some kind of a freak or mutation. It's not going to be anything pure that a lot of...”

“Sometimes a certain project will have a smell... It will have a little stench about it. That is a warning signal. You know it's going to be a nightmare. You know they are not going to like i...”

“The Faith No More stuff isn't about me. It was a band. Maybe that's where a lot of journalists got the wrong idea. You don't just pluck a song off a tree and put vocals on it.”

“I lived in Italy for quite a while and married an Italian woman. While there, I immersed myself in the complete culture: the music, art, literature, film, food, and history. It's easy to fal...”

“The career high would be putting out a Kids of Widney High CD on my label, Ipecac Recordings.”

“Especially with Fantomas, i'm just trying to stretch out what the band can do. Figuring out, really, on the job or on recordings, what I can or can't get away with.”

“I think that first and foremost, a lot of turntable artists end up using really the same sounds over and over, and they really get recycled.”

“I don't actually read that much. I like movies a bit more. That's how I come up with ideas - by seeing things, hearing things, recycling things. Stealing things!”

“I've got a comfortable home for my music where I can put out whatever the hell I want, and I feel like the slate is really clean, and I can get away with anything. It's a nice, free feeling.”

“All time faves would be 'Smash TV,' 'NHL Hockey,' 'Grand Theft Autos,' 'NBA Lives,' 'Sonic.'”

“I remember playing with John Zorn and Ikue Mori in Taiwan in a school classroom. There were, like, 15 people there, maybe, and they were sitting at the classroom desks, and we played under t...”

“I don't like to use toilets - ever.”

“I'm not some young tough guy trying to prove a point anymore.”

“I don't read or write music in the traditional sense, so I have to figure it out on the fly while I'm in the studio.”

“Not all ideas are like a twinkling star in the sky, and you get inspired to make a record the next day.”

“Most solo artists go out on their own and put their name on the record. I prefer to create little alternative universes.”