Patton's views on creating music are somewhat similar to those of Brian Eno, a self-professed "non-musician", with the difference that Patton excelled at his main instrument and mastered at least the rudiments of several others. Although Patton disregards the preponderance of theory in favor of doing, he still attributes part of his development to working with learned musicians: when Mr. Bungle formed in 1984, he was "fascinated" with his friends Trey Spruance and Trevor Dunn, both theory and jazz students at school, because they knew more about music than him, and decided to "follow their lead." Afterward, at Humboldt State University, his bandmates Dunn, Spruance, Danny Heifetz and Clinton McKinnon were all majoring in music while Patton studied English literature. Spruance highlights the great music resources in Humboldt's library, where he spent a lot of time studying, and the band rehearsed at the same place as the college big band, in which the four of them played. Additionally, Patton—along with Heifetz—was tutored on percussion by professor Eugene Novotney.