Faith No More frontman Mike Patton is the focus of a new CNBC feature, which looks at his rise to fame and the success of his label, Ipecac Recordings, which has been turning a profit for 20 years. Following is an excerpt.

Patton, who is notorious for his prolific output and workaholic nature, kept chugging along after Faith No More dissolved in 1998. Much of the music he continued to make would end up being too esoteric, odd or experimental for traditional record companies. So Patton and his manager, Werckman, launched the indie label, which is named after a chemical that induces vomiting. Indeed, the company’s slogan is “Ipecac Recordings ... making people sick since 1999.”

“To be honest, Mike and I did not set off on starting a label, per se,” says Werckman, 54. “We just wanted an outlet for Mike to put his releases out.” Ipecac’s first release was the self-titled debut from Fantomas, a supergroup featuring Patton and heavy-music veterans guitarist Buzz Osborne of the Melvins, drummer Dave Lombardo of Slayer and Mr. Bungle bassist and co-founder Trevor Dunn.

Patton says he had three or four records at the time for which he couldn’t find a home, and coming up with Ipecac came from “getting turned down by other labels and saying, wait a sec, we might have to start creating our own universe, where this can have a home.”

As the industry becomes increasingly digital, Ipecac still puts a lot of time and care into its physical media releases, including compact discs and vinyl.

“Yeah, it’s old fashioned and maybe we’re dinosaurs in that regard,” Werckman says. Even though the label was founded just as digital music platforms like Napster were altering the business, Ipecac’s fans still want something physical — “like a fetishistic thing,” Patton adds.

Ipecac keeps budgets down when it comes to promotion and production. Patton himself does a lot of recording in his home studio, so that saves a bunch right off the bat. The label might cough up a couple thousand bucks to help a band pay for its recording process, but it doesn’t dish out the kinds of advance payments the big record companies pay artists. Instead, Ipecac pays higher royalty rates and has licensing deals instead of long-term deals.

“At any moment, any of our bands can take their records and leave,” Patton says. But there’s a catch: “Likewise, at any moment, we can stop selling our records.”

Read the complete interview here.

Check out Ipecac Recordings at this location.