Pat Mastelotto

Patrick Lee Mastelotto, born on September 10th, 1955 in Chico, California grew up in San Fernando Valley as the ledest of four children. He is an autodidact drummer and was inspired by Todd Rundgren, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix' Experience, The Who, The Beatles, Weather Report, D.C. 5, XTC, C.S.N.&Y., PIL, Inxs, Y.M.O., 10CC, and Yes, P.O.C.O..

As a child living in Northern California Pat's family had to move every few months due to his father's job in construction. He admits the situation created a sort of identity crisis. He regrets during his high school years he didn't have the discipline of formal training, get to read notes well and get all the fundamentals. He learned to play drums by playing along with records.
Around the age of 10 Pat started to drum. At that point his family lived in Oroville, California. He stayed there when his family moved to Los Angeles in 1970 or 1971

Around the age of 16 Pat played in the most popular local band and, while going to school, drove three hours every night to Lake Tahoe to gig and then back to be at school in time. In 1972 he moved to San Francisco with his band, but when the band imploded he moved down to L.A. After a few months starving he went back with his folks. His father had a regular day time job then. He even took drum lessons with Joe Porcaro (Toto), but stayed away after only three lessons, which he regrets His first session gig was with Juice Newton, but when the record came out a year or two later het noticed Jeff Porcaro and Hal Blaine did the drum parts.

In 1976 he met Tony Lukyn (Tranquility), who was the first British artist he ever played with. He taught Pat how to play in big venues. Pat played in countless bands. "Baby Grand" (with Michael Boddicker) and "The Terrible Lizards" almost achieved a record deal.

Later he met producer Mike Chapman who often appealed to him for session work. He played with Holly Penfield, Shandi, Holly Knight and Michael Des Barres, Scandal, Nick Gilder and contributed to Martin Briley's hit "The salt in my tears" (1983). He also formed a band, basically put together by Mike Chapman, consisting of Holly Knight and Michael Des Barres, paired with Prescott (The Knack) and Steve Sykes (also from Shandi). They recorded hits like "Obsession", "Bleeding babies", a great Cole Porter Night & Day, lots of cool tunes. This band was crumbling into 'device' when he met the Misters.

To earn a living Pat held lots of different jobs including managing a restaurant, picking carnations in a hothouse, driving a truck, hiring out his drum gear, selling office supplies or carpet over the phone, running a gas station, working concerts as the lighting crew and lots of construction between rehearsals, club gigs and sessions.

Pat often played at the L.A. "Country Club" where his roadie became the production manager. This was great because he could take off whatever nights he had to gig and then come back the next night to load a truck or whatever.

So the day came he noticed an audition for Richard Page and Steve George. It was Kim Bullard who called him and advised him to go since he knew Pat was the kind of drummer they were looking for. Their former band Pages was in a Hall & Oates-like situation where the songwriters were signed to the label as the main artists. Instead of using siedmen every time - who they couldn't take on the road and which made their sound different at every track - they wanted a real band.

The day of his audition for Richard Page and Steve George he was working a day gig stuffing envelopes from 6 AM 'til noon while listening to a Pages demo on his walkman. He went to the audition at noon break and was supposed to bring a bass played with him. This guy couldn't make it because of some dental work. When Pat came in he simply introduced himself with the words: "I play drums. Hard." The other members liked his playing a lot. Because the bass player didn't show up Richard Page grabbed a bass guitar and they jammed a few songs. Half an hour later Mr. Mister was born. They released three albums. The second one was a millionseller and delivered to #1-hits.

While recording the third album Pat developed a terrible back problem. It was diagnosed as a herniated disk and he developed sciatica down his right leg. This caused he had to see lots of doctors and have surgery. He even stayed in a clinic in Pasadena to recover for a while.

After the commercially disappointing third album guitarist Steve Farris left the band. By the fall of 1988 the remaining Misters went into the studio to start recording a fourth album with the producer of "Welcome to the real world", Paul DeVilliers. They invited Buzz Feiten and other guitar players like Doug McCaskill and Peter McCrea to do the guitar playing.

During the recording in 1989 Pat accepted the offers to play on new albums for Cock Robin and XTC. he even joined both groups for a short tour. This indicated Pat has become a highly respected drummer. He even did overdubs for a dance mix of a Rolling Stones single.

On September 25th 1990 Mr. Mister broke up. Their fourth album has never been released due to problems with the record company.

During the beginning of the nineties Pat did session work mainly for Jude Cole,The Rembrandts, Michael Penn, Ted Hawkins, and producers like like Paul Fox and Tony Berg, as well as a Richard Marx tour and other stuff.

In 1994 another dream came true. He managed to join his all time favorite band King Crimson to form a double drummer concept with Bill Bruford. A friend told him King Crimson members Trey Gunn and Robert Fripp were doing a project with David Sylvian (ex- Japan) and were looking for a drummer. Initially Jerry Marotto would do the job. Pat called the manager who wasn't really into his proposal, but he persisted and arranged a meeting for an audition in England. Apparently Robert Fripp was surprised by Pat's time feel. So Pat joined them on David Sylvian's The First Day-tour. During this tour Robert fripp considered to reform King Crimson. After the tour he called Pat. While he was touring in Europe with Jay Graydon's band (with Steve Porcaro and Joseph Williams from Toto and Bill Champlin from Chicago plus Sherwood Ball and Kenji Sano) he went over to Bill Bruford's place in England. They managed to get along quite well and the new King Crimson was established and released a series of albums: "Vrooom", "Thrak", "Thrakattak" and "B-Boom".

Among other projects, Pat worked with James Newton Howard for the movie "Falling down" with Michael Douglas, doing a drum/percussion moment during a Chinese parade.

In 1996 Pat contributed to Richard Page's first solo album.

Medio 1998 Pat did a few tracks for an Emerson, Lake & Palmer tribute.

From October 23rd till November 2nd Pat toured with ProjeKCt 4 ('KC' stands for King Crimson). Togther with King Crimson members Robert Fripp, Trey Gunn and Tony Levin he did a few gigs in Boulder (CO), Vancouver (BC), Seattle (WA), Portland (OR) and San Francisco (CA).

In October 1998 he was solliciting with his project GuM for a record deal. GuM is a trio: Monkey is a 24 years old girl who plays sax, clarinets, bassoons, guitars, keys and sings. Her 'old man' Gumby plays bass, cello, mandecello and sings too. Pat does the production, knob turning and drumming stuff. The favorite comment Pat heard was "That's strange, I've never heard anything like that before. I need to listen to it again." . In November 1998 Pat was shopping for a label.

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Check out P@'s website at http://patmastelotto.com and his MySpace-page at http://www.myspace.com/patmastelotto

Personal Discography