This interview with Mike Patton has some really funny things in it, but this cracked me up:

“In fact, Patton is so esteemed Down Under that he was actually asked to be the singer for INXS after Michael Hutchence died. Few things make Patton laugh harder than that one, though it sounds suspiciously like one of his stories. “Absolutely it’s true!” he laughs. “I couldn’t make something like that up!”

The band, however, didn’t appreciate Patton’s amusement over the invitation, nor that he was laughing about it in the press. “They got all uppity,” he says. “From that point on, I just tried to make fun of them at every available opportunity, I tried to talk as much shit as I could.”

He even went so far as to badmouth the group on Australian radio, making a tasteless joke in the process. “The DJ kept pressing it and pressing it,” Patton recalls, mimicking an Australian accent: “‘What do you mean you said no? You didn’t even consider it?’ And I said, ‘Would you?’ And he said, ‘Of course, they are one of the most prestigious Australian acts,’ blah blah blah. He’d ask me a few other questions, and then he’d go back to it. ‘So really, about that INXS thing …’ I said, ‘OK, look. I did consider it. I told them that the only way I would do it was if I came on stage and could rig up a noose and hang myself while I was singing.'”

That little joke went out on national radio. During National Suicide Awareness Week. While Michael Hutchence’s parents were listening. Oops.

Patton seems to regret hurting anyone, but isn’t sorry he said it. “I was rough, but hey, you can come out snarling when your back is against the wall,” he says. “And plus they suck!” he adds, laughing. “Fuck them! They are fucking godawful! And not only that, I turned them down and they didn’t want me to talk about that fact? Kiss my ass! Dingo-loving sons of bitches!”