The Mars Volta is a Grammy Award winning American progressive rock group formed by guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and vocalist Cedric Bixler Zavala. They are known for their energetic and improvisational live shows, as well as their concept-based studio albums. In 2009, the band won a Grammy in the “Best Hard Rock Performance” category for the song “Wax Simulacra.” They were named rock music’s “Best Prog-Rock Band” of 2008 by Rolling Stone magazine. The early years of the The Mars Volta are characterized by chaotic live shows and heavy drug usage.

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 Rubin. De-Loused in the Comatorium 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 aka “Cerpin Taxt” who in reality was in a coma for several years. When he woke up, he jumped from the Mesa Street overpass onto Interstate 10 in El Paso, Texas during afternoon rush-hour traffic. The Mars Volta had no official bassist during the recording session, but Flea Of The Red Hot Chili Peppers fame played bass on nine of the album’s ten songs, with Justin Meldal-Johnsen playing double bass on “Televators.”


De-Loused in the Comatorium earned strong reviews. 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 and his suicide. While on tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in support of the album, The Mars Volta’s former 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 in the Comatorium was later dedicated to Ward. It was this event which finally convinced band leaders Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala to purportedly quit using opioids.

In 2005, the band released 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 the Mute started as a bigger commercial hit than De-Loused, reviews of Frances the Mute were generally positive. 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.


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.

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.


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.”

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, the original engineer experienced a nervous breakdown and refused to hand over the work in progress, forcing Rodriguez-Lopez to round up people to help him retrieve the materials. Also, Rodriguez-Lopez’s studio flooded twice, and both he and mixer Rich Costey claimed that various tracks would disappear at random.


On January 17, 2008, the band made their U.S. network television debut, performing “Wax Simulacra” on The Late Show with David Letterman. 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 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.

On April 14, 2009, The Mars Volta announced their fifth studio album, entitled Octahedron. It will be released June 23 in the US and June 22 in the rest of the world. Saxophonist Adrián Terrazas-González and guitarist/sound manipulator Paul Hinojos are not listed as contributors. The first single in North America will be “Since We’ve Been Wrong” while in Europe it will be “Cotopaxi”. 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.


4 Comments:

  1. Moonbeam

    Cygnus... Vismund Cygnus: Umbilical Syllables

    Fell inlove with the sound these freaks make. It's awesome

     
  2. Omar Rodríguez López

    Hey Miranda! That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore.

    Remember us jamming to the Voltans in 2007 while on our way to campus. That was awsome, I actually miss those days. We were such retards though haha!

    Im going to sing these lyrics to my children as a Lullaby before they drift into a leka deep coma lol:) Sick I know but is it funny? I think so...

    His got fasting black lungs
    Made of clove splintered shardes
    They the kind that will talk
    Through a weezing of coughs

    And I hear him every night
    In every pore
    And every time he just makes me warm

    Freeze without an answer
    Free from all the shame
    Must I hide?
    Cause Ill never
    Never sleep alone

     
  3. Moonbeam

    I so remember. WoW we bunked like 3/4 of the year man plus we were pumping The Voltans and Nine Inch Nails and other indie rock and for me lOl. Perfect history what can I say? The retardation however was a huge part of the fun formula don't you think?

     
  4. Anonymous

    maybe i will always haunt you;)

     

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