Mr. Bungle played a handful of shows earlier this year, performing their 1986 demo The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny alongside some unreleased songs and covers. Then Mr. Bungle began teasing studio time without ever specifying what it was they were up to. Now in a lengthy interview with Revolver, guitarist Trey Spruance has revealed that Mr. Bungle is tracking the aforementioned material for a release later this year.
WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO RE-RECORD THE RAGING WRATH OF THE EASTER BUNNY?
TREY SPRUANCE I guess there's a couple reasons. The main one is that we started hanging out again and doing music together — Trevor, Mike and I — about 10 years ago. That was obviously way after the band broke up in 2001 or whenever it was. So we've been meeting up and doing stuff for 10 years. We never felt like there was a pressing need to do a Bungle reunion, but we were hearing about it all the time. We knew people wanted us to do it, but we were kinda looking at each other, like, "Should we?" We felt like if it wasn't coming out of us naturally, what the fuck are we doing? Maybe we should be thinking about our legacy more than doing a reunion just to do it. So we didn't do it.WHAT CHANGED?
Then Trevor had this spontaneous idea when he was on tour with Lombardo — probably in Fantômas — "Wouldn't it be great if we did our early thrash/death metal stuff with Lombardo?" I think it was an informal thought at first, but then it kind of took root when my band Secret Chiefs 3 was opening up for Dead Cross on tour. That put all of us in the same room — me, Trevor, Mike and Lombardo — and Trevor brought it up again. Like, "We're all standing here with Lombardo. Wouldn't it be amazing if we did this?" About a year later, Lombardo called me and suggested we surprise Patton for his birthday by doing a demo of these tunes.
Spruance adds that the new version of the demo has been in the works since mid-2019.
For the new version of the demo, Mr. Bungle is vocalist Mike Patton (Dead Cross, Faith No More), guitarist Trey Spruance (Faxed Head, ex-Faith No More), bassist Trevor Dunn (Fantômas, ex-Melvins), and then likely guitarist Scott Ian (Anthrax) and drummer Dave Lombardo (Suicidal Tendencies, Dead Cross, ex-Slayer).
