Interviste, Octahedron era

The Mars Volta's Cedric Bixler-Zavala
On his favorite tracks from Octahedron

"Teflon"
I've been listening to a rough version of it for a while now, and it had no drums. It was just an electronic piece. I always loved it. It reminded me of some B-side from Girls Against Boys, but our style. I had been writing the lyrics and sort of testing the waters of how much I could say if McCain had won the election. I don't usually write anything about things like that. I think "Teflon" is my favorite because it kind of has that slacker attitude of someone who doesn't vote but at the same time is giving a fuck. I think a lot of people could maybe understand that.

"Halo of Nembutals"
We got to use an old sample from [former Mars Volta member] Jeremy [Michael Ward], who passed away to begin this song. It starts off one of his old MiniDisc noise records that he worked on; he had the sample leftover that he'd done for De-Loused that we never got to use. Omar just had it and it fit with the song he was writing, and it made me really happy because I hadn't heard that sample in ages. It just took me back. It reminded me that he's still here.

"Cotopaxi"
I liked writing "Cotopaxi" because the time signature was really odd. I was really, really pissed off having to work on it. I wrote some lyrics on the spot and had to edit it and take away some connecting adjectives and stuff like that because the time signature was so different that it was just really, really hard to sing to. It was a fun challenge. At the time, I was mad. I was throwing things around and getting pissed off because I'm not used to fucking up. I was mad that I finally got a song that was kicking my ass. It was challenging me and beating me. So I liked writing that one the most.

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