March 1999, Guitar Player (Page 33)

"I try to have the guitar fit into the overall picture, rather than have it 
assert itself as a lead instrument," says Mr. Bungle's Trey Spruance.

Mr. Bungle - The Sound Is The Song
by Adam Levy


It's hard to describe Mr. Bungle's music any other way than "bizarre."  
The band's albums are more collages of sound than collections of songs - 
particularly on their latest album, Disco Volante [Warner Bros.].  Amid 
freakish orchestrations and songs that verge on chaos, there are only a few 
scattered moments of pure pop music.  Strange then, that one of the band's 
key members, guitarist Trey Spruance, should cite pop mastermind Brian 
Wilson as an influence.

"It wasn't until four or five years ago that I realized how great some 
of Wilson's Beach Boys stuff is," offers Spruance.  "You know when you're 
a kid, you love the Beach Boys - then you turn 'cool' and you have to 
hate them.  It took me a while to get over that."

It was Wilson's production aesthetic that won Spruance back.  "For Brian 
Wilson - and I feel this way too - there isn't a difference between 
production and songwriting.  They're one and the same."  Wilson's influence 
peeks through most conspicuosly on "Merry Go Bye Bye" from Disco Volante, 
and in some of the music Spruance has composed for another of his groups, 
Secret Chiefs 3.

"In the late '60s," he continues, "the idea that the studio could be used 
as a compositional tool was almost like an epidemic.  That idea has 
gradually faded, though, and now you hear a lot of things that are just 
production or just a great song.  When you hear a marriage of the two, 
it's such a refreshing experience."

Spruance confesses that he is a studio junkie, spending a lot of time in 
his project studio exploring subtle differences between various 
recording and mixing techniques.  This has led him to record guitar tracks 
in fragments, rarely tracking an entire part in one pass.  "I like the 
way different guitar sounds work together," he explains.  "It doesn't 
sound unnatural to me when, halfway through a part, a whole different 
sound comes in.  To me, it's totally uninteresting if that's what the 
music calls for and you don't do that."

With such a production-minded approach to making music, it can get tricky 
recreating Mr. Bungle's and Secret Chiefs 3's studio material onstage - 
especially when Spruance is responsible for a melange of guitar parts, 
keyboard parts, and samples.  To keep from getting overwhelmed, he designed 
a guitar rig that is as uncomplicated as possible: a blackface Fender 
Twin Reverb for clean parts and a Marshall JMP-1 preamp for dirty parts.  
("I use the speaker-emulator output and go direct - there's less feedback 
and less hassle.  I'm never going to bring a big speaker cabinet on the 
road again.") A Whirlwind A/B box toggles between the two amps, and a 
footswitch turns the Twin's reverb and vibrato on and off.

"That's it," says Spruance, "it's totally bare bones.  In Mr. Bungle and 
Secret Chiefs 3, there are so many different things going on musically 
that switching between two amp sounds creates the illusion that I'm 
using a lot of effects.  I do have a lot of milk to contrasts out of 
the guitar, but mostly it happens in the way I play and the way the music 
is written.  Ultimately, using a lot of pedals ends up not giving you as 
much contrast.  The best way to get contrast is with an A/B box."

Spruance's only guitar is a G&L F-100 - a dual humbucker solidbody he has 
owned since his early teens.  He says it's an ideal instrument for live 
work because its tones are clear enough for clean parts, yet heavy enough 
to rock the Marshall to full-tilt.  The F-100 stays in dropped-D most of 
the time.  "Many Mr. Bungle songs go down to E-flat or D," says Spruance, 
"and in Seceret Chiefs I'm often trying to get a surfy, pseudo-
Danelectro bass tone, so I need to go pretty heavy on the bottom string.  
Usually I use a medium-gauge set and substitute a heavier low E.  The 
heavy sixth string sounds better, and I like the way a pick works on a 
heavier gauge - I don't like the string flopping around."

Mr. Bungle is currently at work on their third record, and the music may 
be a bit of a shock to the band's longtime fans.  "There are a lot of 
song-ish elements on this album that are missing on our previous records," 
says Spruance.  "Those elements on this album will be welcomed by many 
and hated by many others.  Some fans may get mad because we're not 
playing 'experimental' music.  We don't really care.  We've made a pact 
to trust our musical instincts and not worry about people's expectations.  
We could keep putting out 'weird' records and be pretty comfortable, but 
that would get a little thin.  We want the freedom to try new things and 
have fun."

TREY TRACKING
In addition to Mr. Bungle and Secret Chiefs 3, Trey Spruance is involved 
in a variety of other projects.  You can get the whole story - including 
a comprehensive Spruance discography - at: www.humboldt1.com/~mimicry.