Patton expressed cynicism about the infamous lifestyles of rock stars. He told the "San Francisco Chronicle" in 1995, "It's hard to see as much as you'd like with our schedule on the road, but it's harder to do coke and fuck whores every night. Now that's a full time job." In the 2000 essay "How We Eat Our Young", he mocked the romanticization of popular musicians by comparing their work, including his, to peeping toms and thieves. Patton was also fond of "playwith" people whose "egos [got tied in with" them, for example he constantly made fun of Anthony Kiedis in interviews after the latter accused him of stealing his style, and afterward did the same with new wave band INXS who became upset when Patton laughed off an offer to join them. Another occurrence was his ridicule of the macho persona displayed by metal band Pantera: in 1999, he proclaimed that vocalist Phil Anselmo finally "came out of the closet" and on another show claimed that an attendant stopped for illicitly stage diving deserved it because he wore a Pantera shirt. In the early 2000s, Patton was asked to be part of a new supergroup—later named Velvet Revolver—that would feature original members of Guns N' Roses. Patton, again, laughed at the request, telling a reporter, "I think everyone else knows I was not interested, except them. Which is the funny part." Instead, the singer joined mathcore band the Dillinger Escape Plan for a 2002 EP. "Consequence of Sound" deemed Patton "the epitome of the anti-rock star."