MIKE PATTON LENDS HIS MONSTER VOCAL TALENT TO LEGEND

Ex Faith no More vocalist Mike Patton talks about lending his voice to characters in the new Will Smith movie ‘I am Legend.’

Ex Faith no More and Mr. Bungle vocalist Mike Patton has lent his vocal talents to the new movie I Am Legend, however he doesn’t exactly star across from Will Smith. Patton, who is currently fronting Peeping Tom, Fantomas and Mondo Cane, is the voice of the creatures in the post-apocalyptic film that hit theaters this past weekend.

Patton talked about getting involved with I Am Legend.

“Apparently the people who were doing the sound for it, the sound effects, needed a more human-like monster voice instead of using a lot of stock sound effects that a lot of other movies use, sound effects and animal noises and things like that, they wanted a human to try and recreate that. They thought it would be a little more organic. I don’t know how, but my friend convinced the producers to bring me on board. I lucked out.”

Mike Patton talked about the challenge of vocal improv for the big screen, and if he’d do it again.

“Sure. I’m up for it. It was really fun, really challenging. I would love to try it again. It was literally four hours straight of screaming my head off to a movie screen – basically improvising with action on a screen. It was bizarre. Yeah, it was cool.”

Patton, who loves the bizarre, was asked if there was a different mindset working on the screen.

“In a sense, maybe not so much. It’s just one specific character. I would say I use the same techniques that I use in some of my more extreme noisy bands, but other than that it was just like making a record. You go into a studio, you have a certain language you want to use, you hit record and you bang it out.”

Patton’s film expertise is just developing. He appeared in 2005’s independent award winning film, ‘Firecracker,’ and a composer for the upcoming indie film, A Perfect Place. He has also done video-game work. He has previously voiced games The Darkness and The Portal, and in 2008 he will appear in Bionic Commando and Left 4 Dead.