Dead Cross was already an exciting band, and that was even before Mike Patton joined them Now with the band’s debut self-titled album coming out on August 4th, the band have not only premiered a new song, “Grave Slave” via Rolling Stone, but chatted about how the album came about. It turns out that drummer Dave Lombardo didn’t want to ask Patton to join the band because he thought the singer would say no.
“My assistant said, ‘Dave, why don’t you just call your friend, Patton?'” he recalls. “I said, ‘No, he’s busy with Faith No More, and he’s doing film work.’ I just didn’t think of it. But after she was persistent three or four times, I asked him if he’d do it over text, and he said, ‘Absolutely. I would love to work on this.’ It blew me away. This guy is one of the top 10 vocalists in the world.”
Patton said he’d reached out to Lombardo asking him to consider putting Dead Cross’ debut out on his label Ipecac, and didn’t hear back until he was asked to sing on it. Viewing it as a straight hardcore record, he recorded the vocals in his basement so it would still sound raw. Lombardo calls it one of the most brutal albums he’s ever done, noting that it’s a 28-minute long album and Reign in Blood is 29 mionutes. The album also includes a cover of Bauhaus’ “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” that weighs in at 2 1/2 minutes. The band say that they’ll be doing some light touring, with two week runs on the East Coast and West Coast in September and August, respectively and an appearance at Riot Fest. Patton has an idea that might become a reality for their live show:
“Live, it’s going to be pretty fucking … pretty goddamn simple,” Patton says. “The one thing that I wanted to do – and I doubt it’ll happen, just because of finances – was to have three backup singers, but all skinheads. Like, in full boots and braces. So instead of, like, three black, female, hot backup singers, it’s three tough skinheads with good falsettos. I thought that would be really, really funny.”
As far as their other projects are concerned, Patton says that in addition to working on scoring a Netflix film called 1922 based on a Stephen King novella, he’s working on an album of orchestral ballads with Jean-Claude Vannier, a Serge Gainsbourg collaborator. And he calls Faith No More “an open-ended book,” so we might see something more from them. Lombardo is in Suicidal Tendencies, but is hopeful Misfits will play some more shows as well.
