Preston Lea Spruance III or "Trey Spruance" (born August 14, 1969) is an American composer, producer, and musician, perhaps best known as the leader of the multi-genre outfit Secret Chiefs 3

Secret Chiefs 3

Secret Chiefs 3 is an instrumental rock group led by guitarist/composer Trey Spruance . Their studio recordings and tours have featured different line-ups, as the group performs a wide range of musical styles including surf rock, Persian, Arab, Indian, death metal, film music, electronic music,...

 and for his work as guitarist and keyboardist with Mr. Bungle

Mr. Bungle

Mr. Bungle was an experimental band from Northern California. The band was formed in 1985 while the members were still in high school and was named after a children's educational film. Mr. Bungle released four demo tapes in the mid to late 1980s before being signed to Warner Bros. Records and...

. Originally a guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

ist and trumpeter, Spruance later began playing vintage electronic organ

Electronic organ

An electronic organ is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally, it was designed to imitate the sound of pipe organs, theatre organs, band sounds, or orchestral sounds....

s, saz

Baglama

thumb|180px|Cura and bağlamaThe bağlama is a stringed musical instrument shared by various cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East, and Central Asia....

, santur

Santur

The santur is a Persian hammered dulcimerIt is a trapezoid-shaped box often made of walnut or different exotic woods. The Persian classical santur has 72 strings. The name santur was first referenced in ancient Persian poetry...

, electric sitar

Electric sitar

An electric sitar is a kind of electric guitar designed to mimic the sound of the traditional Indian instrument, the sitar. Depending on the manufacturer and model, these instruments bear varying degrees of resemblance to the traditional sitar...

, tar

Tar (lute)

The tār is a long-necked, waisted Iranian instrument. It has been adopted by other cultures and Azerbaijan. The word tar itself means "string" in Persian, though it might have the same meaning in languages influenced by Persian or any other branches of Iranian languages like Kurdish...

, pipa

Pipa

The pipa is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments . Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12–26...

, and various other string and percussion instruments.

History

Spruance was a founding member of Mr. Bungle

Mr. Bungle

Mr. Bungle was an experimental band from Northern California. The band was formed in 1985 while the members were still in high school and was named after a children's educational film. Mr. Bungle released four demo tapes in the mid to late 1980s before being signed to Warner Bros. Records and...

, along with Mike Patton

Mike Patton

Michael Allan "Mike" Patton is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and actor, best known as the lead singer of the metal/experimental rock band Faith No More. He has also sung for Mr...

 and Trevor Dunn

Trevor Dunn

Trevor Roy Dunn is an American composer, bass guitarist and double bassist.Dunn came to prominence in the 1990s with the experimental band Mr. Bungle. He has since worked in an array of musical styles, notably with singer and Mr...

. Since Mr. Bungle's dissolution in 2000, Spruance has focused more on his Secret Chiefs 3

Secret Chiefs 3

Secret Chiefs 3 is an instrumental rock group led by guitarist/composer Trey Spruance . Their studio recordings and tours have featured different line-ups, as the group performs a wide range of musical styles including surf rock, Persian, Arab, Indian, death metal, film music, electronic music,...

 projects, expanding the role of the group's seven sub-groups and releasing Book of Horizons

Book of Horizons

-Personnel:* Trey Spruance — guitars , keyboards , percussion , santur, rabab, banjo, saz, sheng, synthesizer, sampler, soundscape, Foley sound effects, electroacoustic treatment, vocals, producer, engineer* Mike...

, the first album of a planned trilogy. He has performed with John Zorn

John Zorn

John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...

 and Eyvind Kang

Eyvind Kang

Eyvindur Kang , only child of Charles Shin-Chul Kang and Kristjana Gunnars, is an American composer, violinist, tuba, and erhu player...

. He also contributed some guitar and tubular bells to the ASVA

Asva

Asva is a village in Laimjala Parish, Saare County, on the eastern part of Saaremaa Island, Estonia....

 recordings Futurists Against the Ocean and What You Don't Know Is Frontier with whom he toured the US and Europe. He, notably, also recorded with Patton in the more mainstream group Faith No More

Faith No More

Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed originally as Faith No Man in 1981 by bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist Wade Worthington, vocalist Michael Morris and drummer Mike Bordin. A year later when Worthington was replaced by keyboardist Roddy Bottum, and Mike...

 on their 1995 album King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime

King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime

King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime is the fifth studio album by Faith No More, released in 1995. It was their first album recorded without longtime guitarist Jim Martin. The album showcased a greater variety than the band's usual heavy metal leanings, with Rolling Stone calling the end result a...

. He arranged the strings and one-woman choir for The Tuna Helpers

The Tuna Helpers

The Tuna Helpers was an all-female American indie gothic psychedelic art folk rock band based in Austin, Texas from 2000–2007, noted for their elaborate puppetry in their stage shows and rich textures including diverse vocals, strings, trombone, and percussion...

' second album, I'll Have What She's Having.

As a producer

Spruance has often worked as a producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

, beginning with Mr. Bungle's albums Disco Volante

Disco Volante

Disco Volante is a 1995 album by the band Mr. Bungle. It is by far the most experimental of all their productions, as it picks up inspirations from a wide variety of musical styles, including death metal, techno, '50s space age pop, musique concrète and Italian avant-garde...

and California

California (Mr. Bungle album)

California is the final studio album by the band Mr. Bungle.Going by credits alone, Mike Patton contributed more to this album than any other member of the band. Additionally, it is also the most Patton had contributed to any Mr. Bungle album in terms of songwriting.It was supposed to be released...

. In 2001, Spruance produced Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

-based rock band Tub Ring

Tub Ring

-Biography:Tub Ring formed in 1992 as a high school punk band.The band really took form with addition of keyboard player Rob Kleiner, who spent his teenage years following around the band Mr. Bungle. With Kleiner added to the band, Tub Ring adopted the similar sounds of Mr. Bungle. Mr...

's first full-length album, Drake Equation

Drake Equation (album)

Drake Equation is a 2001 album by the band Tub Ring. It was produced by Mr. Bungle guitarist Trey Spruance.-Track listing:#"Where's the Robot?" – 1:12#"Bite the Wax Tadpole" – 5:06#"Faster" – 3:44#"Good Food: Happy Family" – 4:03...

. In 2004, he produced the album Death After Life for Oakland, CA death metal group Impaled

Impaled (band)

Impaled is a death metal/goregrind band from Oakland, California.-History:The band's name is an acronym, standing for: Impaled - Immoral Medical Practitioners And Licentious Evil-Doers...

, also contributing guitar solos for their songs "Resurrectionists", and "Medical Waste". Other production duties have included I'll Have What's She's Having (2004) by The Tuna Helpers and Faxed Head's Chiropractic (2001).

Record label

Spruance is the founder and webmaster

Webmaster

A webmaster , also called a web architect, web developer, site author, or website administrator is a person responsible for maintaining one or many websites...

 of Mimicry Records

Mimicry Records

Mimicry Records is an independent record label currently based in San Francisco, California founded by Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle and Secret Chiefs 3.Bands under Mimicry often feature theological and philosophical themes.-Band lineup:*Secret Chiefs 3...

, which has released albums from a variety of different bands, including Estradasphere

Estradasphere

Estradasphere was an experimental band that originated in Santa Cruz, California during the late 1990s. The band, which in its last incarnation was based in Seattle, consisted of 6 multi-instrumentalists from a variety of musical backgrounds trained in disciplines ranging from classical music and...

, The Youngs, Cleric, Danubius, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is an American experimental rock band, formed in 1999 in Oakland, California. The band fuses classical, industrial, and art-rock themes throughout their music...

, Brazzaville, Matt Chamberlain

Matt Chamberlain

Matthew Chamberlain is an American drummer, producer and sound engineer. He is currently based in Los Angeles, California.-Early life:...

, Dengue Fever

Dengue Fever (band)

Dengue Fever is a six-member band from Los Angeles who combine Cambodian pop music and lyrics with psychedelic rock.-History:The band was formed in 2001 by Ethan Holtzman and his brother Zac after Ethan was inspired by a trip to Cambodia...

, The Tuna Helpers

The Tuna Helpers

The Tuna Helpers was an all-female American indie gothic psychedelic art folk rock band based in Austin, Texas from 2000–2007, noted for their elaborate puppetry in their stage shows and rich textures including diverse vocals, strings, trombone, and percussion...

, and Sir Millard Mulch

Sir Millard Mulch

Sir Millard Mulch, real name Carl King , is a musician who has worked with Virgil Donati and Devin Townsend...

, amongst other projects.

Playing style

Known for his technical proficiency as a guitar player, Spruance's playing style as a guitarist is influenced by many diverse genres of music, such as surf rock, death metal

Death metal

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....

, film music, world music

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

, funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

, space rock

Space rock

Space rock is a subgenre of rock music; the term originally referred to a group of early, mostly British, 1970s progressive and psychedelic rock bands such as Hawkwind and Pink Floyd, characterised by slow, lengthy instrumental passages dominated by electric organs, synthesizers, experimental...

, country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

, progressive rock

Progressive rock

Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

 and free jazz

Free jazz

Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...

.

Sampling

Sampling (music)

In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...

 and foley work also play a large role in his recordings.

In movies

The first movie score he performed was for The Anna Cabrini Chronicles (written and Directed by Tawd b. Dorenfeld), which was released in 2005. The music is similar to his work with Secret Chiefs 3 and was produced by Elk 56 and Dorenfeld.

Composition style

Spruance's diverse compositional style has been influenced by Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...

, Nino Rota

Nino Rota

Nino Rota was an Italian composer and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti...

, Ennio Morricone

Ennio Morricone

Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces...

, Bernard Herrmann

Bernard Herrmann

Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...

, R. D. Burman, Ananda Shankar

Ananda Shankar

Ananda Shankar was a Bengali musician best known for fusing Western and Eastern musical styles. He was married to Tanusree Shankar.-Early life:...

, Pythagoras of Samos

Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...

, Devo

Devo

Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...

, Fear of God, Mercyful Fate

Mercyful Fate

Mercyful Fate was a Danish heavy metal band from Copenhagen. Initially active from 1981 to 1985, they reunited in 1992. The band went on hiatus again in 2000, when frontman King Diamond decided to continue his solo career...

, and many others.

Discography

Faith No More

• King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime
  King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime
  King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime is the fifth studio album by Faith No More, released in 1995. It was their first album recorded without longtime guitarist Jim Martin. The album showcased a greater variety than the band's usual heavy metal leanings, with Rolling Stone calling the end result a...
  
  (1995)

Faxed Head

• Uncomfortable But Free (1995)
• Exhumed at Birth (1997)
• Chiropractic (2001)

Mr. Bungle

• The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny (1986)
• Bowel of Chiley (1987)
• Goddammit I Love America! (1988)
• OU818 (1989)
• Mr. Bungle
  Mr. Bungle (album)
  Mr. Bungle is the 1991 self-titled album by Mr. Bungle. The album contains many genre shifts which are typical of the band, and helped increase the band's popularity, gaining them a reasonable following and fanbase...
  
  (1991)
• Disco Volante
  Disco Volante
  Disco Volante is a 1995 album by the band Mr. Bungle. It is by far the most experimental of all their productions, as it picks up inspirations from a wide variety of musical styles, including death metal, techno, '50s space age pop, musique concrète and Italian avant-garde...
  
  (1995)
• California
  California (Mr. Bungle album)
  California is the final studio album by the band Mr. Bungle.Going by credits alone, Mike Patton contributed more to this album than any other member of the band. Additionally, it is also the most Patton had contributed to any Mr. Bungle album in terms of songwriting.It was supposed to be released...
  
  (1999)

Secret Chiefs 3

• First Grand Constitution and Bylaws
  First Grand Constitution and Bylaws
  First Grand Constitution and Bylaws is the first studio album by Secret Chiefs 3. It was released in 1996.-Track listing:#"Ana'l Haqq"- :22#"Adept Chamber of the Magian Tavern – Altar to the Master Chief"- 1:11#"Inn of 3 Doors"- 1:22...
  
  (1996)
• Second Grand Constitution and Bylaws: Hurqalya (1998)
• Eyes of Flesh, Eyes of Flame
  Eyes of Flesh, Eyes of Flame
  Eyes of Flesh, Eyes of Flame is a live album by Secret Chiefs 3, recorded August 18, 1998 and rereleased in 2007. Recorded live at their performance at Slims in San Francisco on August 18, 1998, this CD features the 1998 touring incarnation of Secret Chiefs 3, Trey Spruance, Danny Heifetz, Eyvind...
  
  (1999)
• Book M
  Book M
  Book M is the third studio album by Secret Chiefs 3, released in 2001. The album is centered around the theme of the Holy Grail, and the artwork consists of several layers of ciphers and alchemical symbols.- Track listing :...
  
  (2001)
• Book of Horizons
  Book of Horizons
  -Personnel:* Trey Spruance — guitars , keyboards , percussion , santur, rabab, banjo, saz, sheng, synthesizer, sampler, soundscape, Foley sound effects, electroacoustic treatment, vocals, producer, engineer* Mike...
  
  (2004)
• Path of Most Resistance
  Path of Most Resistance
  Path of Most Resistance is a compilation album of music by Secret Chiefs 3, released in 2007 by Mimicry Records. The album features original compositions from Trey Spruance as well as covers of compositions by Ernest Gold, Ananda Shankar, RD Burman, Tommie Connor, Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks....
  
  (retrospective and rarities album) (2007)
• Xaphan: Book of Angels Volume 9
  Xaphan: Book of Angels Volume 9
  -External links:*[ Xaphan: Book of Angels Volume 9] at Allmusic...
  
  (2008)
• Traditionalists: Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini (2009)

Weird Little Boy

• Weird Little Boy
  Weird Little Boy
  Weird Little Boy is a one-off album by a band of the same name consisting of John Zorn , Trey Spruance , William Winant , Mike Patton and Chris Cochrane...
  
  (1998)

Band membership

• Secret Chiefs 3
  Secret Chiefs 3
  Secret Chiefs 3 is an instrumental rock group led by guitarist/composer Trey Spruance . Their studio recordings and tours have featured different line-ups, as the group performs a wide range of musical styles including surf rock, Persian, Arab, Indian, death metal, film music, electronic music,...
  
  
• Mr. Bungle
  Mr. Bungle
  Mr. Bungle was an experimental band from Northern California. The band was formed in 1985 while the members were still in high school and was named after a children's educational film. Mr. Bungle released four demo tapes in the mid to late 1980s before being signed to Warner Bros. Records and...
  
  
• Faxed Head
  Faxed Head
  Faxed Head is a death metal side project headed by Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle fame. The band's bios and lyrics describe them as 'teenage survivors of a suicide pact gone horribly awry,' and place them in small-town Coalinga, California. Band members' identities are generally kept secret and the...
  
   (as "Neck Head")
• Noddingturd Fan (also NT Fan)
• ASVA
• The Three Doctors Band
• Weird Little Boy
  Weird Little Boy
  Weird Little Boy is a one-off album by a band of the same name consisting of John Zorn , Trey Spruance , William Winant , Mike Patton and Chris Cochrane...
  
   (a one-off studio project)
• Plainfield
• The Bon Larvis Band
• Faith No More
  Faith No More
  Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed originally as Faith No Man in 1981 by bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist Wade Worthington, vocalist Michael Morris and drummer Mike Bordin. A year later when Worthington was replaced by keyboardist Roddy Bottum, and Mike...
  
  

External links

• The Trey Spruance Gallery - a comprehensive list of Spruance's live and recorded projects
• Web of Mimicry
• Mimicry Records - Spruance's record label
• Official Site of Secret Chiefs 3 - official website containing member line-up and photos.