Progressive Rock/Experimental Rock
About :
The eighteen or so years that Omar Rodriguez-López and Cedric Bixler Zavala have spent making music together have been a prime example of the theory of musical evolution, a journey of exploration that's seen the duo refuse to stand still, maturing and growing ever bolder in their art. From Omar's first joining their previous group, El Paso's lauded and lamented At The Drive-In, and progressively pushing that band in more experimental directions that ultimately pulled it apart, to Omar's composing of epic scores and Cedric's creation of lyrical novellas to complement them resulting in The Mars Volta's first two albums, theirs has always been a partnership that has prioritized challenge over contentment.
"The only objective, throughout, has been to always move forward," says bandleader Omar, speaking from the recording compound in Mexico from which he currently helms The Mars Volta. "To always make the next album sound different to the one that came before it, to always be evolving."
And so it has been, with the Mars Volta from day one. The band was already rehearsing during the entropic latter phase of At The Drive-In, and well before that Omar and Cedric had maintained the extracurricular dub outlet De Facto with future Mars Volta members Ikey Owens and the late Jeremy Ward (whose life would inspire the narrative of the Volta's 2005 sophomore effort Frances The Mute). In 2002, The Mars Volta's primordial three-song Tremulant EP would materialize on the band's own GSL label. Their earliest shows and recordings captured the frantic, chaotic pell mell of their origins, a riot of ideas veering off in every direction, until they began to settle into something of a cohesive lineup and musical focus to produce a modern progressive masterpiece in the form of De-Loused In The Comatorium. Over the course of ten sprawling stunning compositions that improbably formed a greater whole, this astonishing debut album served as an elegy and dramatization of the life of Julio Venegas, a friend and mentor to the young Omar and Cedric who had succeeded in taking his own life after multiple suicide attempts. For the purpose of the album, Venegas re-imagined as the fictional character Cerpin Taxt, the songs chronicling his potential adventures in the dreamscape of a suicide attempt-induced coma.
Dashing the predictions of post-ATDI detractors, De-Loused... debuted to stellar critical and commercial reaction. The first proper Mars Volta headline shows saw the band perform the album in its entirety, a cathartic and grueling nightly marathon that often ended with band members in tears, as the album improbably went gold. Emboldened by this success, Omar and Cedric solidified their core live group of bassist Juan Alderete de la Pena, keyboardist Isaiah "Ikey" Owens, percussionist Marcel Rodriguez-López (Omar's brother), flute/tenor sax player Adrian Terrazas and drummer Jon Theodore and began work on an even more ambitious sophomore effort. Like De-Loused..., the album would be inspired by the loss and remembrance of a close friend, this time Mars Volta sound manipulator Jeremy Ward, who passed away unexpectedly not long after De-Loused... was released. 2005's Frances The Mute's narrative revolved around an adopted protagonist's search for his biological parents and its ultimately unsatisfying resolution, mirroring the experiences of Ward's tragic life story. The first Mars Volta record to be produced by Omar (De-Loused... had Rick Rubin manning the boards with Omar), Frances The Mute again defied and surpassed all expectations, entered the Billboard 200 at #4, featured contributions from legendary musical figures from David Campbell to Larry Harlow to now regular Volta studio guitarist and erstwhile Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusciante, and spawned an actual hit single in the form of "The Widow." The live shows in support of Frances The Mute--which found Omar and Cedric's former ATDI bandmate Pablo Hinojos reuniting with them--would be the band's most ambitious and intense to date, as they headlined and sold out venues including the Greek Theaters in Berkeley and Los Angeles, while Frances... climbed toward half a million U.S. sales. All in all, a more than fitting tribute to another fallen friend.
For Amputechture in 2006, Omar and Cedric tore up the script yet again, deciding to make their third full length their first without a central unifying theme. Omar likened the surreal single song vignettes and their impressionistic tales of heresy, intolerance, demon worship and the like to vintage episodes of the original Night Gallery and Twilight Zone TV series. While Amputechture proved the most difficult of The Mars Volta discography to date--Omar and Cedric came to regard to the record as their autistic child, the one that related the least to others but that they nurtured the most--standout tracks such as "Viscera Eyes" and "Day Of The Baphomets" remain live favorites to this day.
The period following Amputechture's release and ensuing tour seemed plagued with mishaps and misfortune. Drummer Jon Theodore was let go and the band struggled to retain a stable replacement. Live dates were marred and postponed by inexplicable equipment issues and Cedric's suffering a strange and hobbling injury. An engineer suddenly lost his mental composure and a flood disabled Omar's studio. The band ultimately recognized a correlation between things unraveling and the appearance of the primitive Ouija prototype "talking board" Omar had picked up in Israel and gifted Cedric with upon his return. Nicknamed the Soothsayer, the board had been telling the band members an unfolding story of seduction, infidelity and murder featuring colorful characters that ultimately coalesced into the malevolent Goliath. By the time the Soothsayer's label peeled back to reveal pre-Aramaic writings of ominous origin, Goliath's stories had morphed into pleas that escalated into threats. Omar took matters into his hands and traveled to remote and random location, burying the Soothsayer in an unmarked grave, a place that would never be revealed to any of his band mates and that would hopefully escape his memory as well.
The legacy of the Soothsayer would be The Bedlam In Goliath, The Mars Volta's fourth album, released in early 2008 to a #3 Billboard debut. A virtual musical embodiment of madness incarnate, The Bedlam In Goliath eschewed the gradual build of previous Mars Volta records, diving feet first into frenzy on the opening "Aberinkula," which also marked Volta fans' first recorded impression of new drumming powerhouse Thomas Pridgen. As the album progressed, "Ilyena," "Goliath," "Soothsayer" and even the unsettlingly quiet eye of the storm that was "Tourniquet Man" gave musical substance to the characters and stories conveyed to Omar and Cedric through the Soothsayer. Much like the band's experience with the ancient and insidious talking board, The Bedlam In Goliath is a chilling yet addictive experience--and one that ultimately nabbed the band its first ever Grammy, as the track "Wax Simulacra" took home the Best Hard Rock Performance statuette from the 51st Annual Grammy Awards in February 2009.
For Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, the studio isn't just another tool at his disposal, or even something as simple as an instrument in its own right. The studio is his laboratory, his playground, the place where he can take the raw bones of his songs, his fresh-born ideas, and refine and experiment with them, twisting them into radical new shapes, sending them hurtling in askance directions.
For The Mars Volta's brand new fifth album Octahedron, however, Omar adopted an oblique and entirely new strategy, one he'd never tried before in the group's career. Having cut the basic tracks for this new album, instead of retreating to the studio to tinker endlessly with the songs and recordings, he chose to step away. Instead of feverishly adulterating the tapes with the mosaic of overdubs and FX that have typically aided Omar in realizing his concepts, he chose instead to polish and refine what he had, to hold back on every bell and every whistle. The result is, he says, the first of his albums that he can listen to for pleasure. It is also an album that distils all of the energy, all of the furious invention that characterizes music with a clarity they've never before achieved. In keeping with this spirit, Omar pared the band down to a 6-piece lineup, asking Hinojos and Terrazas to leave, both of whom did so amicably.
"It was really challenging, to hold back," he smiles. "To add many layers, or an instrumental freak-out section here or there, began to feel predictable to me, so I started putting restraints on myself, saying no, you aren't going to add 97 extra parts to this song. I reined it in, and kept it to the core of what those songs were."
Octahedron is an album heady with the emotion and high-drama that has always been The Mars Volta's trademark, their newfound simplicity and focus delivering some of the most immediate and powerful songs in their discography. Lyrically, Cedric employed 'disappearance' as a loose theme, inspired by the culture of kidnapping that has latterly infected the group's current home of Mexico, by the mysterious disappearances that populate the library of urban myth, and the way emotions - even the strongest, purest emotions - can mysteriously, but entirely, ebb away.
The album opens with the tender ache of "Since We've Been Wrong," Cedric's keening vocal establishing a mood that's deeply blue, powerfully melancholic, a sucker punch that hits every bit as hard as Octahedron's unashamed rockers (the gleaming futuristic funk of "Teflon," the tense chase-music of "Cotopaxi"). Pulling back from the full-tilt experimentation of previous releases, Octahedron invests its energies in Omar's gift for song craft, for swooning guitar runs of high tension and emotive power (closer "Luciforms"' epic riffage), for the nagging hooks and choked melodies that wreath the churning rhythms of "Desperate Graves." "For me, all that's important is if something moves you or not," explains Omar. "I've never tried to be tricky, to be complicated; if it gives me goosebumps, I'll use it. If it's striking, if it hits me as a listener, that's all that matters to me."
Ultimately, the album is another in a series of testaments to Omar and Cedric's unassailable faith in following their muse in whichever direction it takes them; thus far the journey's been the ride of the creative lifetime, and they see no sense it second-guessing it yet, especially not when it delivers so pointedly powerful a record as Octahedron.
"The only reason we even have a fan base is because I've stayed true to my instincts," nods Omar. "We've not tried to repeat previous successes to make them happy, we've stayed true to ourselves, and made the music that we want to make, and that's what they respond to. They can sense this is something really pure." And on Octahedron, perhaps purer than ever.
History :
Formation and beginning
The roots of The Mars Volta are found in the band At the Drive-In. ATDI members Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez formed an experimental, dub reggae-influenced side project called De Facto, which featured Bixler-Zavala on drums, Rodriguez-Lopez on bass, Isaiah "Ikey" Owens on keyboards, and Jeremy Michael Ward on vocals, loops and sound effects.
Due to creative differences and discomfort with mainstream success and drug abuse, Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala quit At the Drive-In in 2001. The remaining members of the band formed Sparta. During 2001 Eva Gardner joined the members of De Facto on bass, and they recorded two songs with drummer Blake Fleming and producer Alex Newport, which became the first demo by The Mars Volta. The lineup for their first public show at Chain Reaction in Anaheim, California was Rodriguez-Lopez, Bixler-Zavala, Owens, Gardner, Ward, and drummer Jon Theodore. This lineup recorded three more tracks with Alex Newport, which became the EP Tremulant, released as a limited edition in early 2002.
Since the demise of At the Drive-In, Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala found themselves once again starting from the ground up, touring and performing in smaller venues. In their early years The Mars Volta were characterized by chaotic live shows and very heavy drug use.
De-Loused in the Comatorium
Following Tremulant, The Mars Volta continued touring with a fluid line-up while preparing to record their debut full-length album De-Loused in the Comatorium, produced with Rick Rubinand released on June 24, 2003. Whereas Tremulant had no general theme (except the prophetic mentioning) De-Loused was a unified work of speculative fiction telling the first-person story of someone in a drug-induced coma, battling the evil side of his mind. Though lyrically obscure, The Mars Volta stated in interviews that the album's protagonist is based on their late friend Julio Venegas, or "Cerpin Taxt", who was in a coma for several years. When he woke up, he jumped from the Mesa Street overpass onto Interstate-10 in El Paso during afternoon rush-hour traffic. Venegas' death was also referenced in the At the Drive-In song "Ebroglio" from their album Acrobatic Tenement.
The Mars Volta had no official bassist during the recording session, but Flea (of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) played bass on nine of the album's ten songs, with Justin Meldal-Johnsenplaying double bass on "Televators." Flea's bandmate John Frusciante also contributed additional guitar, synthesizer and backing vocals to "Cicatriz ESP".
Despite limited promotion, De-Loused earned strong reviews, and appeared on several 'year-end best-of' lists. The album remains The Mars Volta's best-seller, with over 500,000 copies sold. The band later released a limited-edition storybook version of the album, available by download from the Gold Standard Laboratories website. The book speaks of Cerpin Taxt (Julio Venegas) and his suicide.
While on tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in support of the album, founding member Jeremy Michael Ward was found dead of a drug overdose. The band had canceled the tour's second leg, and the first single from De-Loused was later dedicated to Ward. It was this event which finally convinced band leaders Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala to purportedly quit using opioids.
Frances the Mute
As the band resumed touring to support De-Loused, they added Juan Alderete (of Racer X, Distortion Felix) on bass and Marcel Rodríguez-Lopez (Omar's brother) on percussion. Work on their second album began in 2004. That year the band received the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Vanguard Award.
In 2005, the band released Frances the Mute. The story given by the band on the album's concept concerns a diary that had been found in a repossessed car by late sound technician Jeremy Ward, while working as a repo-man. The author of the diary is unknown but appeared to be someone who was adopted and was searching for their birth parents, and who may have suffered from mental illness caused by the death of a loved one. The lyrics for each track on the album are loosely based on characters and life events described in this person's diary.
Frances the Mute started as a bigger commercial hit than De-Loused, moving 123,000 copies in its first week, and debuting at #4 on the Billboard album charts. Reviews of Franceswere generally positive (with a 75 on Metacritic) if somewhat polarized; Rolling Stone called it "a feverish and baroque search for self that conjures up the same majesty and gravity as Led Zeppelin three decades before", while Pitchfork Media called it "a homogeneous shitheap of stream-of-consciousness turgidity." However, even the detractors of Frances the Mutegenerally praised the band's musical abilities. "L'Via L'Viaquez" was later released as a single, stripped down from its original 12-minute length to five minutes. Frances the Mute has sold nearly 465,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan ratings.
Rodriguez-Lopez wrote all the instrumental parts as well as arranging and producing the recording sessions himself. He used a method that Miles Davis used to invoke great performances from bandmates: refusing to let the other members hear each other's parts, or the context of their own part, thereby forcing them to play each part as if it were a self-sufficient song. In order to accomplish this, the musicians recorded to the pulse of a metronome. While in the studio, Rodriguez-Lopez recruited Adrián Terrazas-González to play saxophone, flute, and additional wind instruments for the album. Terrazas-González was added as a permanent member to The Mars Volta while touring in support of Frances the Mute.
Several songs written during the original recording sessions for the album never made the cut. Notably, the self-titled 14-minute epic "Frances The Mute" should have originally formed the opening track to the album, but was abandoned for reasons unknown. Instead the track featured as a b-side on the single release for "The Widow". The band has only played "Frances The Mute" at few concerts, therefore, it has been rarely heard.
Mid-way through their headlining U.S. tour, former At the Drive-In member Paul Hinojos (also known as Pablo) left the band Sparta to join The Mars Volta, claiming, "My time with Sparta has run its course, and simply wasn't fun anymore." Hinojos joined as rhythm guitarist and became the band's sound manipulator, the position previously held by the late Ward. Hinojos had previously toured with The Mars Volta in 2003 and 2004.
On May 20, 2005, instead of playing a traditional set at KROQ's Weenie Roast Festival, the band played a 40-minute improvisation jam that was jokingly named on-the-spot as "Abortion, The Other White Meat" by Rodriguez-Lopez. In keeping with the Mars Volta tradition of testing and developing new work live, parts of "Abortion" later appeared on "Population Councils Wet Dream" from Rodriguez-Lopez's 2009 album Old Money.
During mid-2005, the band toured in support of the album with System of a Down and curated the All Tomorrow's Parties festival. In addition, a full-length live album named Scab Dates was released on November 8, 2005.
Amputechture
Upon finishing the majority of touring for Frances the Mute in fall 2005, Rodriguez-Lopez traveled to Amsterdam and wrote what became Amputechture, which was released on September 8, 2006 in Europe, on September 9, 2006 in Australia and on September 12, 2006 in the U.S. Rodriguez-Lopez spent much of his time in Amsterdam working on and performing various solo projects most notably under the name "Omar Rodriguez Quintet." During this time Rodriguez-Lopez also composed the score to the film El Búfalo de la Noche, which was written and directed by Guillermo Arriaga and Jorge Hernandez Aldana respectively. The Mars Volta as a whole performed the score.
Amputechture was produced by Rodríguez-Lopez and mixed by Rich Costey. Jeff Jordan provided the artwork, making it their first album not to feature the work of Storm Thorgerson. It was once again a concept album, but rather than telling a story, the album was based upon a single idea, with each song looking at it from a different perspective. It became the last album with drummer Jon Theodore, whom Rodriguez-Lopez fired before touring in support of the album. Rodriguez-Lopez said in an interview with an Italian fan site that Theodore was the only member in the band who wasn't happy playing live and brought down the moods of the rest.
John Frusciante was featured on every track on Amputechture, except for "Asilos Magdalena." Rodríguez-Lopez contributed the solos and riffs where the guitar work needed to be doubled. Bixler-Zavala said in an interview, "...he taught Frusciante all the new songs and Frusciante tracked guitars for us so Omar could sit back and listen to the songs objectively. It's great that he wants to help us and do that."
On July 28, 2006, the drummer's spot was filled by Blake Fleming, formerly of Laddio Bolocko, Dazzling Killmen, and the very first Mars Volta demos. A new song titled "Rapid Fire Tollbooth" was debuted live on September 22, 2006 in Chicago, Illinois, as reported by fans and attendees of the show who had received set lists from the stage. The song originally appears on Rodriguez-Lopez's solo album Se Dice Bisonte, No Bufalo. The song eventually evolved into the track "Goliath" from the band's fourth studio album.
On September 25, 2006, The Mars Volta played a unique set on the opening night of a double-header in Toronto, Ontario. Cedric Bixler-Zavala fell ill and could not perform, so The Mars Volta played with John Frusciante on third guitar. The set consisted of over 47 minutes of instrumental material, including a lengthy cover of the Pink Floyd composition "Interstellar Overdrive." On October 17, 2006, while opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in East Rutherford, New Jersey, the band played with drummer Deantoni Parks. Rodriguez-Lopez fired Fleming because of complications within the band. Parks remained with the band only until the conclusion of the Japanese tour because of his prior commitments with other bands.
On a 2007 episode of The Henry Rollins Show, The Mars Volta performed "Tetragrammaton" and "Day of the Baphomets" in a rare television performance. Afterwards, they did an interview with Rollins about the creation of Amputechture.
The Bedlam in Goliath
In 2007, Thomas Pridgen became the new permanent drummer for the band. Pridgen's first appearance was at the March 12 show in New Zealand, where the band debuted the song "Idle Tooth" which was later renamed "Wax Simulacra" for the forthcoming album. After shows in New Zealand and Australia, The Mars Volta toured a few West Coast venues as the headliner, then entered the studio to record their fourth LP, The Bedlam in Goliath. One of these performances was captured in a forthcoming live concert DVD shot by director Jorge Hernandez Aldana.
Despite finding a permanent drummer and getting the band back on track, the recording and production of the album was reportedly plagued by difficulties related to a bad experience with a Ouija board purchased in a curio shop in Jerusalem. According to Rodriguez-Lopez, their original engineer experienced a nervous breakdown, his studio flooded twice, and both he and mixer Rich Costey claimed that various tracks would disappear at random.
On November 5, 2007, The Mars Volta released a document by Jeremy Robert Johnson titled, "The Mars Volta's Descent into Bedlam: A Rhapsody in Three Parts." The document includes a history of the band and describes the obstacles and inspirations they encountered in the creation of The Bedlam in Goliath. On November 20, 2007 "Wax Simulacra", the first single from the forthcoming album, was released with a cover of "Pulled to Bits" by Siouxsie and the Banshees as the b-side.
The band kicked off their supporting tour with a December 29, 2007 "secret show" at the Echoplex in Los Angeles, California, followed by a special New Year's Eve performance at San Francisco's Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. That night they played their first ever acoustic set, which included six songs and live performance of "Miranda, That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore" The band then departed on a club tour of east coast U.S. throughout January, with an album release show at San Diego's Soma, followed by another month's worth of European dates from mid-February to mid-March.
On January 2, 2008, The Mars Volta released an online game called "Goliath: The Soothsayer", based on a true story that inspired their forthcoming album The Bedlam In Goliath. The album chronicles the band's purported experience with the "Soothsayer", a Ouija board owned by vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala and its transition from a source of fun on tour to a psycho-spiritual force that almost tore the band apart. The game was available for a limited time exclusively via Amazon.com.
On January 17, 2008, the band made their U.S. network television debut, performing "Wax Simulacra" on The Late Show with David Letterman (Rodriguez-Lopez, Bixler-Zavala and Hinojos had appeared on the show with At the Drive-In in 2000). On January 22, they made a surprise appearance at Toronto, Canada's MTV Live studios, where they performed "Wax Simulacra" and an extended version of "Goliath." In late January, the new album debuted at a career-best #3 on the Billboard 200.
The song "Wax Simulacra" won the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance. It was the band's first nomination and win. The band members thanked their families and Bixler urged people not to forget the memories of the recently departed Lux Interior and Ron Asheton.
Octahedron
Rodriguez-Lopez had discussed the band's next album as early as January 2008, the month that The Bedlam in Goliath was released, claiming "I consider it to be our acoustic album." Cedric Bixler-Zavala had expressed an urge for the album to not be released on a major label. In February 2009, Rodriguez-Lopez claimed "the next two Mars Volta records are already recorded and waiting for a release date."
On April 14, 2009, The Mars Volta announced their fifth studio album, entitled Octahedron. It was released June 23 in the United States and June 22 in the rest of the world. According to Vintage Vinyl Records St. Louis MO the LP will not be released until July 21 with 500 limited edition LP's. In a spirit of distillation of the band's sound, Rodriguez-Lopez asked saxophonist Adrián Terrazas-González and guitarist/sound manipulator Paul Hinojos to leave. Regarding their departure, percussionist Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez noted that: "it's like we got a whole new band. It's two less members — we got to play differently."
The first single released in North America was "Since We've Been Wrong". The first European single was "Cotopaxi".
No official news has been released on the band's next album. According to various interviews with Rodriguez-Lopez, he has decided to put the supposed follow up album to Octahedron on hold. The reason for this is that he thought the album he recorded to be the band's sixth album sounds "boring" to him now. He claims to have started working on a completely new album as the follow up. No mention has been made of what the album will sound like, or any titles for songs or the album itself. In addition, other future projects have been mentioned by band members. Rodriguez-Lopez is also working on a film documenting the entire history of the band including studio and backstage footage taken over the years. Another is a new live album similar to Scabdates featuring songs from Frances the Mute and Amputechture.
An excerpt from The Mars Volta's performance at the All Tomorrow's Parties, UK 2005 A Nightmare Before Christmas festival was featured in the All Tomorrow's Parties film, which was released in cinemas during October 2009.
Towards the end of the Octahedron tour, Thomas Pridgen left the band. No official statement has been given by the band on the issue. Weeks later, it appeared on Pridgen's Facebook page that he was "no longer in TMV." On November 29, 2009, the band performed a show in Oslo, Norway with drummer Dave Elitch. The band is scheduled to play throughout Europe and Australia until the end of January, 2010.
In an article posted online, it was reported that the band would introduce new material during a live show on Friday, January 15, 2010. Whether this will be full songs or sections of new songs spread throughout the concert remains in question. The band has previously introduced new songs in-between existing songs, often fooling the audience into thinking the band is improvising. Omar also stated in the article that presently unreleased albums have been recorded in-between released albums. He specified: "In between every record there's an unreleased one....once I did De-Loused in the Comatorium I recorded one record and that didn't feel right. After Frances the Mute I recorded one-and-a-half." Whether these albums will be released as they are now, in fractions, or at all remains in question as well. The most recent status of the next album was also stated in this interview: “Now I’ve recorded another one and I’m handing that one over to (vocalist) Cedric (Bixler-Zavala) to start writing his lyrics and we’ll see how far this one gets.”
Members :
Omar Rodriguez Lopez : Guitar (2001 - Present )
Cedric Bixler Zavala : Vocals (2001 - Present)
Isaiah Ikey Owens : Keyboards (2001 - Present)
Juan Alderete : Bass (2003 - Present)
Marcel Rodriguez Lopez : Percussions, Sythesizers (2003 - Present)
David Elitch : Drums (2009 - Present)
Former Members :
John Frusciante :
record most guitar tracks while Omar engineers and produces. (2002–present in studio, occasionally part of a live setting)
