"Preston Lea "Trey" Spruance III (born August 14, 1969) 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.

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 (though it began in 1996), 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: "Xaphan" 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.

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 (2004) by The Tuna Helpers and Faxed Head's Chiropractic (2001).

Spruance is the founder of Mimicry Recordings, 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."

"Jason Schimmel is a composer & guitarist from Los Angeles.

With a command of countless genres and a vast list of credits, composer/guitarist Jason Schimmel is a musical polymath whose talents know no bounds. His seamlessly eclectic style-previously on display in boundary-defying bands Estradasphere and Secret Chiefs 3 - calls on anything from surf rock to big-band jazz to Balkan folk to heavy metal.

Currently heading the jazz-fusion quintet Atomic Ape, Schimmel has worked with a dizzying array of underground icons and virtuosos, including John Zorn, Trey Spruance, Amanda Palmer, J.G. Thirlwell, Neil Hamburger, Eyvind Kang, Wayne Horvitz, Jason Webley, Carla Kihlstedt, Matt Chamberlain, Tim Young, Michael White, and many more. His original compositions have been featured on NBC, ABC, Comedy Central, the Food Network, and Fox, and he has performed at major domestic and foreign festivals such as the North Sea Jazz Festival, the Rothbury Festival, the 10,000 Lakes Festival, the Masada Marathon at Lincoln Center, and the Angel City Jazz Festival.

A freelance composer with film-score and production-music credits, Schimmel also works with world-renowned production houses Elias Arts and Hans Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers. His skills stretch beyond composition as well-with expert engineering abilities, he owns and operates The Bunker, a full-service recording studio in Los Angeles."

"Born in San Diego, CA and raised in Sacramento, Ches Smith came up in a scene of punks and metal musicians who were listening to and experimenting with jazz and free improvisation. He studied philosophy at the University of Oregon before relocating to the San Francisco Bay area in 1995. After a few years of playing with obscure bands and intensive study with drummer / educator Peter Magadini, he enrolled in the graduate program at Mills College in Oakland at the suggestion of percussionist William Winant. There he studied percussion, improvisation, and composition with Winant, Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Curran. One of Winant's first "assignments" for Ches was to sub in his touring gig at the time, Mr. Bungle (here he met bassist / composer Trevor Dunn who would later hire him for the second incarnation of his Trio-Convulsant). During his time at Mills, Ches co-founded two bands: Theory of Ruin (with Fudgetunnel / Nailbomb frontman Alex Newport), and Good for Cows (w/ Nels Cline Singers' Devin Hoff). He currently performs and records with Xiu Xiu, and Secret Chiefs 3. He has also performed with Ben Goldberg, Annie Gosfield, Wadada Leo Smith, John Tchicai, Fred Frith, and Trevor Dunn. In addition to Ceramic Dog, he also leads his two of his own projects, Congs for Brums and These Arches. He currently spends his time between Los Angeles, San Francisco and Brooklyn."