Mike Patton

Mike Patton (born Michael Allan Patton, January 27, 1968) is an American musician. He is best-known as the lead singer of Faith No More from 1988 to 1998, but has also handled lead vocals for Mr. Bungle, Tomahawk and Fant?mas. He often produces side projects in collaboration with other musicians, such as John Zorn, Dan the Automator, The Melvins, Dillinger Escape Plan, Melt-Banana, Sepultura, and Merzbow, Lovage, Maldoror, Weird Little Boy, Rahzel, and Kaada. Along with Greg Werckman, he co-founded and runs Ipecac Recordings. He performed live with Amon Tobin, a.o. at the 2005 Dour Festival.

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Patton possesses a wide range of vocal textures and styles, ranging from falsettos, Sinatra-esque tenors, and even death metal style grunts.

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Growing up in Eureka, California, Patton and friends formed Mr. Bungle circa 1985. They recorded a few demos and earned a small local following. Patton joined Faith No More in January of 1989 and filled the vocal void left by the unreliable and recently fired Chuck Mosley (Cement). Faith No More's The Real Thing was released later the same year. The album reached the top ten on the charts thanks largely to MTV's heavy rotation of the video for the song "Epic."

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In the United States, Faith No More would never again match the commercial success of The Real Thing, even though the albums after the realthing were just as good, or possibly better. After a series of interesting but poorly promoted albums (Angel Dust; King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime; and Album of the Year), Faith No More officially disbanded in 1998.

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During the long demise of Faith No More, Patton had resumed collaborating with Mr. Bungle. His success in mainstream rock and metal ultimately helped secure Mr. Bungle a record deal with Warner Bros. The band released a self-titled album (produced by John Zorn) in 1991, and the highly surreal Disco Volante in 1995. Their final album was titled California, and was widely regarded an essential record by such mainstream publications as Maxim and Rolling Stone.

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Patton's other projects have included two "experimental" solo albums on John Zorn's Tzadik label (Adult Themes for Voice in 1996 and Pranzo Oltranzista in 1997). He's appeared many times on other Tzadik releases with Zorn and others.

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Recently, Patton has worked with Bj?rk and the beat boxer Rahzel. He is often featured on new releases, and is regarded as extremely hard working.

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In 2005, Patton signed on to compose the soundtrack for the upcoming independent movie Pinion, marking his debut scoring an American feature-length film. His other film work includes portraying two major characters in the Steve Balderson film Firecracker.

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He will also compose and perfom music for the upcoming Rockstar videogame Bully

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January 27: January 27 is the 27th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 338 days remaining (339 in leap years)....

1968: 1968 was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar)....

American: :This page disambiguates the many uses of American. For an article about those various uses, please see Use of the word American....

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