Trey Spruance


Preston Lea "Trey" Spruance III is an American composer, producer, and musician who co-founded the experimental rock band Mr. Bungle. He is also leader of the multi-genre outfit Secret Chiefs 3. Originally a guitarist and trumpeter, Spruance later began playing vintage electronic organs, saz, santur, electric sitar, tar, pipa, and various other string and percussion instruments.
Spruance's playing and composition style is influenced by many diverse genres of music, such as surf rock, Anatolian folk, death metal, film music, Afghan rebab music, ska, funk, space rock, jazz and Japanoise. Musique concrète and foley work also play a large role in his recordings.

History

Spruance was a founding member of Mr. Bungle, along with Mike Patton and Trevor Dunn. He has focused on his band Secret Chiefs 3 for the last 15 years, and its seven "satellite" groups first introduced on the 2004 album Book of Horizons. Though once secular, Spruance began exploring religious and philosophical themes in Mr. Bungle and Secret Chiefs 3 in the mid-1990s, after joining the Eastern Orthodox Church. Since 2007 Spruance has performed with Secret Chiefs 3 in over 50 countries.
In 2013 he arranged his music for the 61-piece Traditional Russian Orchestra of Krasnoyarsk and performed with them in Kansk, Siberia, alongside other members of Secret Chiefs 3. He has performed regularly with John Zorn and has arranged two releases of works from Zorn's Masada Songbooks for Secret Chiefs 3: "" in 2007, and "Beriah". He contributed guitar and tubular bells to two albums by the drone metal band Asva, with whom he toured the US and Europe. He also recorded with Patton and Faith No More on their 1995 album King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime.
Spruance has also composed scores for two animated films by his friend Tawd B. Dorenfeld, The Anna Cabrini Chronicles and Aylaqruh:hurqalyA.

As a producer

Besides his own bands, Spruance has also worked as a producer for others. In 2001, he produced Chicago rock band Tub ring's first full-length album, Drake Equation. In 2004, he produced the Death After Life for Oakland, CA death metal group Impaled and contributed guitar solos for the songs Resurrectionists, and Medical Waste. Other production duties have included I'll Have What's She's Having by The Tuna Helpers and Faxed Head's Chiropractic.

Record label

Spruance is the founder of Web of Mimicry, which has released albums from a variety of different bands, including Cleric, Fat32, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Brazzaville, Matt Chamberlain, Dengue Fever, and ASVA, amongst others.

Discography

Mr. Bungle
Secret Chiefs 3
Weird Little Boy
  • Weird Little Boy
With Eyvind Kang
  • Theater of Mineral NADEs
Faith No More
  • King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime
Faxed Head'