The Mars Volta

The Mars Volta are an American musical group founded by Cedric Bixler Zavala and Omar A. Rodriguez-Lopez, generally considered progressive rock with jazz and punk influences and known for wild live shows, extensive jams, cryptic lyrics, various experimentation and use of ambient music to help establish mood. Members of the band At the Drive-In, Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, were in De Facto with audio technician Jeremy Michael Ward. De Facto included Cedric on drums, Omar on bass, and Jeremy with various loop, vocal, sound, and distortion effects - a composite of sounds, hinging squarely on tripped-out, instrumental dub. Though DeFacto started as a local band with a rock feel, they were rooted in the realm of dub reggae pioneers such as Lee "Scratch" Perry and Dr. Alimantado. The group also dabbled in electronica, Latin/salsa, and jazz, giving their distinct sound. The band played local shows around their home town, el paso, texas, and released their first album How Do You Dub? You Fight for Dub. You Plug Dub in. Eventually moving to Long Beach, California in 2000 the band added keyboardist Isaiah 'Ikey' Owens. Ikey brought a distinct tone to DeFacto that provided a new popularity previously not received. In 2001, DeFacto released their second album, Megaton Shotblast on Gold Standard Laboratories, and received instant success. Their fame from At the Drive In helped establish much of their fan base. DeFacto continued experimenting with new sounds after Omar and Cedric decided to end At the Drive-In (the rest of the band went on to form Sparta), Eva Gardner joined the band, becoming what is now The Mars Volta - a new project they envisioned would fulfill their creative desires. The initial lineup for their first public show at Chain Reaction in Anaheim, California was DeFacto plus Eva Gardner and Jon Theodore. Also, during 2001, the band recorded two songs with Alex Newport, becoming their first demo. They recorded three more tracks with Alex Newport, becoming the Tremulant EP, sparsely released in early 2002. On July 30th 2006, drummer Jon Theodore officially left the band for undisclosed reasons. It was announced that his permanent replacement would be Blake Flemming, whom Cedric and Omar recorded their first demos with at the early stages of the band. De-Loused in the Comatorium Following the Tremulant EP, The Mars Volta continued touring and changing band members while preparing for De-Loused in the Comatorium, produced with Rick Rubin.

Whereas Tremulant had no general theme (except the prophetic mentioning of its follow-up album), De-Loused was a unified work of speculative fiction that told the story from the first-person perspective of a drug-induced coma. Though lyrically obtuse, The Mars Volta stated in interviews that the album's protagonist is based on their late friend Julio Venegas, or "Cerpin Taxt", as mentioned in the story, who was in a coma several years prior to his awakening, in which he jumped from the Mesa Street overpass onto Interstate-10 in El Paso during afternoon rush-hour traffic. Venegas's death was also referenced in the Embroglio from their album Acrobatic Tenement. At the time of the recording the band did not have a bass player. Flea (renowned bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) played bass on nine of the ten songs on the LP. De-Loused became both critically and commercially their biggest hit, eventually selling in excess of 500,000 copies despite next-to-no promotion, but featured on several critics' "Best of the Year" lists. The band later released a limited-edition storybook version of the album, available by download from the Gold Standard Laboratories Web site. The book speaks of Cerpin Taxt (sometimes referred to as the album/story's "hero") and his suicide. While on tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in support of their album, The Mars Volta's sound manipulator and contributing lyricist, Jeremy Ward, was found dead of a drug overdose. The band canceled the tour's second leg and the first single from De-Loused was later dedicated to Ward. As the band resumed touring De-Loused, they added Juan Alderete (ex-Racer X) on bass and Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez (brother of Omar) on percussion. Work began on their second album in 2004. Frances the Mute In 2005, the band released their second full-length album Frances the Mute. The album was inspired by late sound technician Jeremy Ward, who found a diary in a car he repossessed while working as a repo-man. Each track of the album is loosely based on characters described within the diary. Frances became an even bigger commercial hit than De-Loused, moving 123,000 copies in its first week and debuting at number four on the Billboard album charts, largely because "The Widow" received a considerable amount of radio air-play. Reviews of Frances were generally positive (with a 74 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 Mute generally 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. Perhaps most incredible about the album is Omar's enormous involvement in its creation. He wrote all the instrumental parts (guitar, keyboard, vocal melodies, and drum lines with help from Theodore) as well as arranging and producing the session himself. He used a method that film directors such as Woody Allen 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's a self-sufficient song. In order to accomplish this, the musicians recorded to the pulse of a metronome. Mid-way through their headlining U.S. tour, former At the Drive-In member Paul Hinojos left the band Sparta to join The Mars Volta. He is now their sound manipulator, a position previously held by the late Ward. Hinojos had also toured with The Mars Volta in 2003 and 2004. The band toured the summer of 2005 with System of a Down in support of the album and curated the All Tomorrow's Parties festival, titled A Nightmare Before Christmas. In addition a full-length live album named Scabdates was released on November 8th, 2005. Amputechture Amputechture was released in Australia on September 9, 2006, on September 8, 2006 in Europe and on September 12, 2006 in the US. Omar Rodríguez-Lopez produced the record and Rich Costey mixed it. The artwork was created by Jeff Jordan. It is a concept album of sorts as the degeneration of religion (or degeneration caused by religion) and its demystifying can be said to be the main theme. Also, the motif of "amputation" (a critical reference to religion, most specifically Catholicism) is present in some songs, particularly in the final track "El Ciervo Vulnerado," carrying a feeling as if the songs have been cut before getting to their endings. However, unlike the previous two albums, there is no underlying narrative. 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." Upon completion of the recording, the band embarked on a North American Tour opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers until the beginning of late 2006. On July 28, 2006, drummer Jon Theodore was replaced by Blake Fleming, formerly of Laddio Bolocko, Dazzling Killmen, and the very first Mars Volta demos. In addition, Paul Hinojos expanded his role, contributing both guitar and sound manipulation skills. The Mars Volta's live set at Endfest in Auburn, Washington on August 12 took a turn for the worse when around halfway through their set, the group was pelted with a water bottle filled with urine by members of the crowd after Cedric Bixler-Zavala made comments about of some of the fans who were slam dancing (the band has expressed discontent in the past about audience members who express themselves at a rock concert by moshing). The band then cut their performance short after Rodríguez-Lopez smashed his malfunctioning guitar into an amplifier.[8] As they left, Cedric Bixler-Zavala told the crowd, "I will pay $ 100 to $1,000 to somebody to find the person that's throwing urine up here. I will give you free merchandise and a lifetime supply [of passes] to Mars Volta shows. Find that person and kick his ass for me. Bring me his head and we'll be friends.". A new song entitled "Rapid Fire Tollbooth" was debuted live on September 22, 2006 in Chicago, IL, as reported by fans and attendees of the show who had received set lists from the stage. On September 25, 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, while opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Rutherford, New Jersey, the band played with a drummer Deantoni Parks, and it was later revealed Blake Fleming was removed without explanation. 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 Thomas Pridgen recently became the new drummer for the band. He joined them at the March 12th show in New Zealand, where the band debuted the song known as "Idle Tooth" on the band's setlists, which later appears as "Wax Simulacra" in Bixler-Zavala's on stage lyric booklet. 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 the fourth LP entitled The Bedlam in Goliath. In a recent interview with "Time Off" magazine, Bixler-Zavala stated that the next album would be a concept album: "I don’t want to give the plot away right now, but the new one has to do with this gift that Omar found for me when he went traveling once. The gift came with a story that was attached to it, and we’re trying to re-interpret the story again." Planned for release around the same time as the new album (January 29th, 2008) is a live concert DVD shot by director Jorge Hernandez Aldana of one of their most recent Australian performances. From the opening surge of Aberinkula to the Brobdingnagian blast of Goliath to the frenzy and near escape of Conjugal Burns, The Bedlam in Goliath is the sound of a band transformed. The Volta have never been what any sane person would call restrained, but in the heat of this bedlam, in their teeth-baring cornered animal response to an invisible entropy, they’ve created a truly relentless musical juggernaut. The returning roster (Omar Rodriguez-Lopez on guitar and production, Cedric Bixler-Zavala on vocals and lyrics, Isaiah Ikey Owens on keys, Juan Alderete de la Pena on bass, Adrian Terrazas-Gonzalez on horns, Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez on percussion, Paul Hinojos on guitar and soundboard, Thomas Pridgen on drums, and Red Hot Chili Pepper/regular-Volta-album-contributor John Frusciante rounding out the guitar armada) have crafted a record that manages to contain the echoes of their considerable prior work and merge them with their uncompromising desire to carve out new territory in the musical landscape. Films Rodriguez-Lopez has also composed the score to the upcoming film El Búfalo de la Noche, the new film from Guillermo Arriaga and Jorge Hernandez Aldana. It has been confirmed that The Mars Volta as a whole performed the score[13]. In addition, other future projects have been mentioned by band members. One is a film shot by Rodriguez-Lopez 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. Cedric Bixler stated in an interview: "The Volta is taken from a Federico Fellini book about his films, what he characterizes as a changing of scene, a new scene to him is called Volta. Y'know, changing of time and the changeover. And Mars, we're just fascinated by science-fiction so and it's something that ultimately looked as in anything I write, its meaning is always up to the listener. As the way we write songs and words, if it looks great on paper then to us it's like painting, so if it looks good meaning the second then people usually have a better interpretation than we ever would." Additionally, Omar has stated that Mars is a reference to the Roman god of war. The "The" was added to disambiguate the band from a group of European techno artists that previously took the name "Mars Volta". The music sample that The Mars Volta use to introduce their live shows is the title theme to the film A Fistful of Dollars, composed by Ennio Morricone. The band had also introduced their earlier live shows with the theme from A Clockwork Orange. The group also has a habit of playing the Doctor Who theme at the end of concerts over the PA system.
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