The making of De-loused In The Comatorium, Composizione, registrazione, mixaggio, etc etc

M: What's up with those crazy lyrics? That's some WILD STYLE!
Omar: "Yeah, Cedric and Jeremy would get together and write the lyrics. Jeremy wrote quite a bit of them. We'd all sit around and play with words and phrases going back and forth, that's how the the lyrics came about."
M: How about the music?
Omar: "I write everything, the music."
M: So why do you need Cedric then? He's just the pretty boy up front dancing and shit, basking in the glory....
Omar: (Laughs) "No, It's not like that. Cedric actually plays all instruments."
M: What?
Omar: "Yeah, I'll write a bass line and teach it to him. While he plays that ill try to come up with a guitar arrangement."

What is the songwriting process like within the structure of Mars Volta?
"I write most of the music on the guitar, so my approach is basically spending a lot of time by myself in my room. Everything for this recording [De-loused] was pretty much laid out before any recording began. Certain parts of the album have been left open for expression, so they're always a little different when we play them live. But even the improvising is structured to a certain degree, because you know it's coming." - Omar

What kind of communication went on in deciding the tracks that were gonna end up on the album [De-loused in the Comatorium]? I assume that you had a few in mind, but then there was this concept that everything had to be molded into.

It was very specific once the ideas started coming out about what the record was gonna be about. Most of the songs were written before the concept came together. Once the concept of the story and everything else came together it made everything much more clear. It limited our options, which is really good, because then it was a lot clearer what songs were gonna be on the record and in what order they were gonna be in. It just paved the way once the story came together.

Was there every any question of whether or not to go with this concept? Did you ever rethink it at any point, say, "Uh, maybe this isn't the way to go..."?

No. Not at all. It was a really exciting and adventurous thing to come upon.

And it must've been nice to have a guideline, something to carry you through and keep you centered.

Totally. It was great. It's something we've been wanting to do for a while and now it's finally manifested itself.

What was the process of writing the Mars Volta record [De-loused]? I'm wondering how influenced you were by the underlying story or concept behind the album?

Jon - "I never met Julio but I heard a lot of stories about him. The way we write is that the song comes together instrumentally. Once the song is nearing some sort of arrangement that we're all happy with, then the voice comes in. In the meantime, Cedric is thinking about lyrics and melodies and how and what to sing. I know his relationship with Julio was the basis for most of his lyrics, but when we were working out the songs, from just jamming, Julio wasn't on my mind at all. It just so happened that we were able to tie in the bulk of what we had written with the songs. There's a ballad most of the way through the album (track 9, "Televators") that came together towards the end of the writing sessions, when we were already in the studio. Those things were conceived with him in mind but the majority of the songs – especially the ones with drums on them – didn't have much to do with him specifically. It just so happened that the album was so thematic and traumatic in a way, it almost plays out like a movie. It was a perfect context to fully realize that angle. I'm glad it was possible to memorialize him.

This record is also emotional for us because we made it with our friend Jeremy (Ward), who is no longer with us. Jeremy was our friend and running mate who did all of the vocal effects for the album. He had a table of sound manipulators and effects pedals, and he'd get a dry feed from the voice and route it through all of his signal processors, then send it back to the main board so it would parallel the dry vocal. He effectively ended up taking the space in the band of a second guitar. He passed away suddenly right before the album came out. This has been an emotional final run for us. His presence is still regularly missed.

It took a year and a half to write the record, and that included over a year of practicing for hours upon hours. I'm notorious for not wanting to practice because I'm into the spontaneity of things and into the result that that brings. But being in this band, I learned a different work ethic, which is that you practice all day long. It was like being in the army. I was on-call waiting for rehearsals and we played every day for a year and a half; sometimes six or eight hours a day. The most important thing was getting it off the ground in a way that was beyond coming together to write songs for a new band. It was more like, if we're going to play together then we have to learn everything about each other: how you sleep, what you eat, everything. We have to get to the point where we can feel each other all the way through so that when it comes time to be on a stage in front of so many people that you can barely even make sense of the world around you, I don't even have to look. I can feel the person next to me all the way through and know exactly what he hears and sees and predict accurately what he's going to do.

It was always more than coming together to start a band or make a record. It was like, I met these guys when our bands played together before and I remember how nice they are and how good of a time we had hanging out. I love to play drums and they want to make a new band and there was no doubt in my mind that we could play together. I came out here to see if we could really relate to each other. That's the most important thing. It was a long time in the works and that record is just the first step. We have by no means arrived, we still have tons and tons of work to do and we have plenty of room for improvement. This is only the beginning."