Posts written by Kitt

"cryptomnesia is my version of trout mask replica and lick my decals off. i love to cruise around aimlessly in my car while working on melodies especially ones that have to fit so specifically to all that chaos. i am very proud of that record. i hope one day we can play it live. we would have done it had zach not broken his foot. some day maybe. fingers crossed." (CBZ)

Q: I know you have mentioned before how "A Plague Upon Your Hissing" should have never seen the light of day- I also understand that it is up to you all what stays and what goes. What about that song did you ultimately not like? Also the person who released the songs did so, I am assuming, without permission- any repercussions ?

A: it was just boring to me. and i knew it should be scrapt for parts. i knew that the lyrics and vocal delivery did not belong there for conceptual reasoning. it reminded me of some of that jesus lizard/ troubleman records stuff that i wanted to move away from. it was a cool song but i just felt with all due respect to every one involved, that we could do better. there were no repercussions for who ever leaked it, there should be. fines jail time etc. why? because its called intellectual property and only until you yourself start entering the trenches that involves song writing that puts food on your table ..will u ever really understand that. maybe u do? until then the anonymous free loaders of the internet will continue to think that music should be free, it hurts the engineers, the runners, the band(their families) and the independent labels when people leak or rip shit. (CBZ)

"i didn't think to ask for a guitar credit on relationship of command but i did play all of ARCARSENAL. I think i did rolodex propaganda too. its been soo long but i do remember the stuff that i would write was a bit too arthritic as far dissonant chords go for finger placement so jim would tell me to track it and he just figured it out later for live purposes. i wrote most of farenhiet , tickilish from acrobatic , came up with drums for incetardis, wrote catacombs most of it give or take little parts that i didnt, but catacombs was originally written from being inspired by watching golden play when defacto opened for them, it had more of a golden feel, but i wrote the chorus and verses so i guess u could say thats my guitar playing too.

porfirio diaz was one of mine as well, picket fence cartel, devil among the tailors(not a very good song total wanna be brainiac on my part) oh yeah i also wrote lopsided on in casino out all the lead guitar stuff was omar and we all chimed in on arrangement but it was pretty much set in stone because of the lyrics so i did write it. song writing IS melody and lyric.

i hope that answers your questions about my guitar playing, its hard to deviate from the chords i come up with cuz they utilize a lone string ringing in dissonance ( thank you thurston more lee renaldo and guy picciotto! ) or like i said before the chords i make can be like a game of twister and its what gives it that sound, you couldnt possibly get the same emotional impact by coming up with a "correct way " to play the chords and it would sound plain. so in a nut shell that is my playing i just never asked for guitar or singled out writing credit. ah to be young and naive( or as we like to hide behind...) to be idealistically "punk" " (CBZ)

This just in, we will be releasing some albums from Deantoni Parks coming in 2012...

It was a peculiar feeling preparing for my interview with Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, leader of my favourite band The Mars Volta. I had likely read close to a hundred of his interviews since 2001 and I knew the generic answers he had stockpiled for common questions about his music . What he didn't have, however, were generic answers about himself as a person , and it was through ignoring his musicianship and instead questioning him about himself that not only was the intrinsic connection between his life and music revealed, but also just how insightful, humble and erudite he had grown since the birth of The Mars Volta ten years ago.

"My biggest aspiration is to be more open, and that's why I think collaboration is a road to that. Years ago I thought, 'I don't want to collaborate because it means my ideas won't be as pure, it won't be my ideas only'. Through that journey, I realised that really was a false front for the real issue, which is my insecurity, that I'm afraid that if I collaborate with people that they won't like my ideas. How you get rid of that is you create a world where you're at the top and you're the leader and nobody can challenge you. But that really just comes from insecurity and so that's exactly it - my biggest challenge or the thing that I want to do most is I just want to be open and I just want to believe in myself because that's just one of my biggest problems on a personal level. It's why I don't go out very much, it's why I have a hard time meeting people, it's why I'm shy or uptight about how others might perceive my shyness and all that type of stuff and I don't want that anymore in my life. I don't want to keep being this neurotic person that I've been; I don't want to be 60 and still be the way that I am, or have been now at 35 which is reclusive and scared to go out in the public and be around people and feel that everyone's laughing at me. This is all stuff that's left over from your adolescence, stuff that was left over from coming to America and being laughed at for my name and colour of my skin and all that stuff, and so I just wanna throw all that away. I wanna go back to how I was when I was a kid, when I was just myself everywhere and I liked going out around lots of people and liked going to a party or something - that's what I need to get over".



Rodriguez-Lopez was until recently infamous for his dictatorial approach to recording, where he was even once tongue-in-cheekily dubbed by vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala as "little Hitler". However, just as the band is known and appreciated for their commitment to evolution and progression in creativity, Rodriguez-Lopez learned the importance of implementing these ideals to his own recording process along with the significance of unifying his personal and musical philosophies.



"I haven't even done any recording for a while now because of [that change in process], being able to step back and have some breathing room for myself and give myself space to grow and the change - it's my nature to control everything and write all the parts and that was cool, it was cool for ten or eleven years doing The Mars Volta but now definitely I'm more into collaboration…Eight years of At The Drive In and by the time I was done with those eight years I said, 'Forget it. I don't ever want to collaborate again. I just want it all to be my vision because it could've been better, so I did that for ten years. And now I'm like, 'Forget it!'" he laughs. "Being in control of everything is not the answer. Happiness becomes real only when shared with others.



"That's where it got tricky because in my in my expression, life was exactly that. I was doing the opposite of interaction which was just dictating and saying how it was gonna be there and controlling everything. And I had this false notion in my head that you can live your expression or art one way, and you can live your life another way, and it doesn't really work. What ends up happening is that when you do your art or your music in that sort of controlling way, that eventually, no matter how hard you try, it seeps into your normal life as well - your everyday life. You find yourself controlling everything - without noticing it - you're controlling everything in life, your interactions. Going to dinner - it's gotta be here, it's gotta be this way. So it starts to seep into your life because it's really hard to separate the two...now I only want to collaborate; musically it's more in harmony with how I see myself living my life".



This conception was obviously influenced by his experiences, but for an individual so interested in books and film, I wondered what was most important in shaping his worldview - ideas found in art or his own personal experiences and lessons.



"It all comes from intuition and experience. I mean I love books and everything as much as anyone else but when we talk about books for the most part, 99 per cent of the time we're talking about intellectual knowledge, and intellectual knowledge is completely useless unless it penetrates the heart. It's the stuff that you know in your heart, that's when it becomes real knowledge. You can say to yourself whatever. If you're a drug addict you can say, 'Drugs are bad and it's ruining my life' but if it's just an intellectual thing and you're saying it in your mind - you're never going to get off drugs. The day it seeps into your heart, the day that same information, the exact same information goes into your heart and you say, 'God, drugs are bad and it's really hurting my mother, it's really hurting my father', once it quits being an intellectual thing and starts to come from the spirit and the heart and it's emotional - then it's real knowledge and then action proceeds with real knowledge. So yeah, most of my experiences, if not all my experiences come from people, from this life and this knowledge seeping into my heart...also learning through example, when you watch someone be themselves and be giving and be courteous, and be great to their fellow human beings, that stays with you more than any book you could ever read."



Rodriguez-Lopez was last here in August when The Mars Volta debuted new material that was only previously played by Rodriguez-Lopez in his solo shows at SXSW. Whilst his tone is laden with deep affection when talking about the "paradise" of Australia, Rodriguez-Lopez's newfound philosophies prevent him from being able to explicate what fans can expect from his solo show.



"I haven't made a setlist yet. It'll probably be some newer songs, some older songs. It's all just music...At the time that we played those songs, they weren't Mars Volta songs at all. There's no separation, Mars Volta's my baby and I write music so I made these songs, Cedric sang on them, we went on the 'ORL' tour. It went really great and our fans were really excited about and writing that they loved it. And so we said, 'Oh you know what if they liked it so much then let's make those Mars Volta songs'. [the last visit to Australia] was just a point in our lives that Cedric and I both were just a lot more laid back about those types of things and really tried to discover ourselves. Life starts to get more and more intense and before you realise it…I forget that I'm 35…I don't feel 35, I still feel like I'm in my 20s, but when I realise I'm 35 I realise that this next part of my life is happening now…I don't want to be the 60 year old who's still afraid of water and a germaphobe and doesn't like to go out in public, that's not the life I want from myself. When I leave my body, I wanna know that I was at peace with my existence as a human being and so when you look at it that way then things start to loosen up a lot more. That's the thing - before I would've planned for months this tour in Australia. I would've planned every little detail. But now I haven't even picked the setlist yet, what songs we'll play, and when I do I know it's whatever sounds fun to play or if Juan has a certain song in mind he wants to play or Deantoni, I'm open to all those suggestions that I wasn't open to before and it's just a funner way to live.



"Before I would've freaked out and made my life and the people around me miserable trying to control that…and now, it's just music. It's not real problems. That's the thing in general in the entertainment industry, everybody takes them so serious and gets worked up about this stuff, but none of it's real. These aren't real problems. Our record's getting pushed back to next year - big deal. Before I would've freaked out about it, now my perspective is different, that's not a real problem. Taking care of my mum, that's a real issue, that's a real concern. Me having a better relationship with my brothers after all these years living in the cave and only caring about what's going on in my world, that's an important thing to worry about. Whether or not my record gets pushed back, it can be frustrating for a couple of minutes and then I remember it's not a real thing. I'm a lucky, blessed individual. I get to travel to Australia because I did some stuff that in my bedroom in my father's house when I was a kid and now as an adult I'm lucky enough that people show up and support what I do and they think what I do is beautiful or striking…taking time out of their lives to drive down to the club and stand and watch it for an hour, and for me that's mindblowing".



Rodriguez-Lopez expresses to me his fondness of creating music, but it's clear that his recording paradigm has changed, and with this shift comes a different level of output from the man who comfortably used to release multiple albums in the space of a couple of months.



"It's something that's very fun to do. It's something that's interesting and magical - the whole process. No matter how planned out you have things, there's always surprises and twists and turns and a lot of synchronicity. To me, music is already magical and especially when you try to capture it someway like the recording process. It's just the closest thing you can teach to magic or the universe being personified in an action. It's just utterly exciting. And also beyond that, you learn something every single step of the way about yourself, not just technically…it stares back at you; it's some form of therapy because of that. You constantly learn about yourself and it's a pretty amazing tool in that sense".



"There's a rough plan [for the future] but it's very laid back again. I want to play shows that make sense. I have another film coming out next year and so we just turned that into the film festivals, so I'd like to go do that and travel with the film and present it at the festivals and see what other collaborative projects come my way. At the end of the year I'll probably put out a couple of records that were sitting on the shelf but from this moment on, next time I step in the studio, it's not gonna be to do my composition, it's gonna be to do compositions with other people and to collaborate. That's my only real plan".

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez started out learning bass guitar at the young age of fourteen, but switched to primarily playing electric guitar as he desired more strings. Fifteen years later, this Puerto Rican native is the composer and guitarist for both progressive avant-garde band the Mars Volta as well as his own band the Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group. Rodriguez-Lopez will be taking his band to Australian shores in December, as well as bringing along Mexican punk band Le Butcherettes for the opening slot.

Hey Omar, thanks for taking some out and speaking with us. How was your Thanksgiving?

Good, thank you. I just spent it with my family.

As you compose all songs for both the Mars Volta and your own band, the Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group, it seems like you’re essentially a full-time musician. Is this the case?

I wouldn’t really consider myself a musician at all. I think that would be a little insulting to actual musicians who have vast knowledge of music theory. It would be like calling myself a chef because I know how to cook. I just see myself being a full time expressionist. I like expressing myself a lot, and music is one of the many vehicles of expressing myself, along with my filming and photography. Music is just what I’m known for in the exterior world and because of that I’m received as a musician though I’ve never thought of myself as one.

That sounds like a pretty humble view of yourself.

Yeah, but it’s just the way it feels. I’ve been lucky enough to be blessed with being able to do this for a living and have the opportunity to play with real musicians and have real musicians play my compositions, so I can easily see the difference between myself and a musician.

You released ten records for your band in 2010 alone. Is that because you and Cedric Bixler-Zavala had decided to slow down the Mars Volta’s album creation rate?

There was no rhyme or reason for it, really. On average I make about fifteen records a year but don’t release all of them. There are some that I keep for myself or give to my friends as gifts. Sometimes people will say something like “oh, why didn’t you release that record? That was a really nice one!” And then I might decide to have another listen to it and think about releasing it. I guess that in the exterior world it seems like fifteen records per year is a lot of music to produce, seeing as most artists release about one album every two years. People may see creating all this music as some sort of intensive labour and I’m always hard at work, but it’s just me playing music.

Seeing as you have such a large discography, is it difficult to choose what pieces to play for a show?

It just depends on what I crave. Whenever I sit down with my band and plan our sets it’s usually us saying things like “Oh, we haven’t played this one in a while” and “Oh we‘ve never played that one; that’d be great to play.” It’s a very intuitive and relaxed process.

What are the differences between playing with the Mars Volta and playing with your own band?

There’s none, really. The main difference is that the Mars Volta is more of a corporation and because there’s a bigger budget, there are a lot less limitations. It’s the same method for both bands when we rehearse and set up before a show. I write the compositions for both bands so they’re both really special to me.

I wanted to ask you about your old band De Facto. You guys re-released De Facto’s debut album Megaton Shotblast. Do you plan on re-releasing any more of the old records?

Absolutely! We plan on re-releasing all the albums and also putting out a documentary of the band made up from a journal and some film I took when De Facto was active.

I have heard that you record a lot of band footage. Naturally, a lot of your fans are going to want to see a lot of your recordings – when do you plan on releasing it all to the public?

Hopefully around some time next year. I’ll probably start to go through my footage when it feels most natural to work on it. Unlike a lot of artists, I don’t really have an agenda so what I do from day to day depends generally on how I feel.

You’re bringing Mexican punk band Le Butcherettes as an opening act on your Australian tour while also filling in for their bassist. Are they excited on going on their first overseas tour?

Oh, are you kidding? They can’t believe it! You can never believe your first overseas tour. When you’re first in a band and you tour interstate for a while it’s fun, but when you first get invited to go overseas then there’s nothing quite like it. It’s really good that Le Butcherettes are so enthusiastic about this tour because it’s really good to be around energy. It’s really all they’ve been talking about.

- Tom Gaffney

Valley King Records next release will be the second single for Anywhere! This record will feature a slightly different line-up as Christian Eric Beaulieu (Triclops!, Liquid Indian) will be on guitars, percussion, stylophone, and melodica; Cedric Bixler Zavala (The Mars Volta, At The Drive In) is handling vocals, drums, and percussion; Mike Watt (The Minutemen, fIREHOSE) is on bass; and Toshi Kasai (Big Business) is on keys and toy piano. This release, as with all Valley King Records releases, will have silkscreened packaging with art by Alan Forbes (who is widely known for his album cover art for The Black Crowes, AFI, and many others!). This will be a limited pressing of 500 copies. The last Anywhere single sold out VERY quickly, so get this one while you can!

Christian Eric Beaulieu - guitars, percussion, stylophone, melodica
Cedric Bixler Zavala - vocals, drums, percussion
Mike Watt - bass
Toshi Kasai - keys, toy piano

Format: 7"
Edition: 500 on black vinyl
Artwork: Alan Forbes
Other info: signed / numbered by Alan Forbes; exclusive vinyl sticker

If you pre-ordered their first single, Pyramid Mirrors, we will try our best to send out matching numbers!

We will start taking pre-orders for the Anywhere "Infrared Moses" 7" on Thursday, January 5th, 2012 at 9:00 am PSD.

I can't really go into Scientology details anymore on this page. I would love to but a lot of people on this page just can't have that kind of info about it because they are too stubborn to accept the reality of what it is. There is not enough tolerance in the average Volta fan base and if u disagree then I'm not speaking to you or about you. Let's just say your truth is your truth and mine is mine. I accept you and if u don't accept my beliefs well... Just don't lose any sleep over it

"You never know who will walk through these doors. Rockin out with The Mars Volta!"

Friday 9th: Canberra @ ANU Bar
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au
w/ Spartak

Saturday 10th: Sydney @ Manning Bar
Tickets available from www.oztix.com.au
w/ Coerce

Sunday 11th: Brisbane @ The ZOO
Tickets available from www.oztix.com.au
w/ Coerce

Monday 12th: Melbourne @ Northcote Social Club
PLEASE NOTE: This is Le Butcherettes only
Tickets available from the Corner box office www.cornerhotel.com
w/ The Mercy Kills + Plaster Her Ov Paris

Tuesday 13th: Melbourne @ The East Brunswick Club
Tickets available from the Corner box office www.cornerhotel.com
w/ Bad Orchestra + Dead River

Wednesday 14th: Melbourne @ The East Brunswick Club
Tickets available from the Corner box office www.cornerhotel.com
w/ River of Snakes + special guests

Thursday 15th: Adelaide @ Fowlers
Tickets available from www.moshtix.com.au
w/ + Thunderclaw

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - A separate reality

Caleb Goman talks music, magic and alternate realities with Omar Rodriguez-Lopez.

Don't let 20 minute songs scare you — Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is as down to earth as they come. No stranger to Australia, the man has gone from punk rock pioneer in At The Drive-In to prolific experimental rock virtuoso with The Mars Volta and his solo project The Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group. He's also an accomplished director, artist and producer. Not bad for a self-proclaimed "rowdy Spic from the equator".

Caleb Goman (CG): You've toured Australia a bunch of times with At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta, but this is the first time you'll be here doing solo shows with the Omar Rodrguez-Lopez Group. Can you give us a hint of what to expect?

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (ORL): Oh you know, just more music. Just more music. I never know what to say when people ask what to expect. If you've seen us over the years, you know we never have any big, spectacular shows; it's just people on stage playing songs and music you know.

CG: I'd say some of the Mars Volta shows I've seen were pretty big and spectacular.

ORL: Oh you know, it's not like we have pyrotechnics or costume changes. It's nothing special, just old fashioned guys on stage playing music which is fun for us, and we hope that it's fun for other people as well.

CG: How many members in the group this time?

ORL: We try to and make it different and change it up each tour. It's a three-piece at the moment, that's just where I am right now. I've played with everything from a five-piece, sometimes eight- or nine-piece band and now I'm just playing as a three-piece.

CG: Is there much improvising?

ORL: No, it's all composition. We never really improvise. There's jamming on sections but that's all planned, you know like "once we get to this bridge section we have 32 bars where we can be expressive but we've got to come back in on the pre-chorus". It's all very planned out but if it's done right it feels natural and it should feel to the crowd that it's happening in the moment, otherwise it's too uptight, you know.

CG: For all of your releases over the years you've overseen pretty much all the aspects of an album including production, artwork and video clips. Is that something you strive for?

ORL: I just love doing it. It's that simple. It's really fun and I love doing it so what else can you do? I have friends that have kids and some of them have full time nannies and they go and do their thing and the babysitters take care of the kids and they come home at night and kiss their kids and put them to bed and that's enough for them. Other friends take their kids everywhere. They spend all their time with their kids, they take them to the studio and the park and they want to be around them all the time. It's like that with me. I can't help it. It's just so much fun and I absolutely love what I get to do. Simply put I'm a very, very lucky individual and I don't want to ever take that for granted. I get to do the same thing I did in my dad's garage as a kid and I get to do that now as an adult and that's pretty cool.

CG: One person you do trust with your kids is artist Sonny Kay, who's been doing a lot of artwork with you over the years. Can you tell me a bit about your collaborations with him?

ORL: Yeah we've had a very interesting relationship over the years, we used to run a record label together and have done all sorts of stuff. We have a lot of similarities but we're also completely different people, which is always a good thing if you are creating art.

CG: In what ways?

ORL: Completely different cultures. He comes from an English background and he's a very proper gentleman, very well spoken and knows proper grammar and I'm just a rowdy Spic from the equator and I'm not very proper at all. Latin culture is very loose, very improvised, very much the opposite of the English culture with the "don't put your elbows on the table" things. I'm constantly butchering the English language and having bad etiquette and it drives him crazy and it drives me crazy that he could be so uptight.

CG: Sounds like a good balance.

ORL: I think that's part of the chemistry. We work really well together. It's good to have tolerance and remind yourself that it's a great big world out there and there are completely different kinds of cultures and culture clashes.

CG: You've mentioned before that you were a fan Carlos Castaneda and his books on shamanism and what he calls "non-ordinary states of reality". Have they influenced your creative work at all?

ORL: Yeah, well it's my reality. That's what I was raised with. That's the type of household I was brought up in. He calls them "non-ordinary states of reality" but for me it's my reality, it's the way I view the world. Some people are raised believing that you die and the worms eat you and that's your reality. I'm Latino, I was brought up with Latin culture and I was brought up with magic and spirituality and meditation and vegetarianism and rituals my whole life so that's just where my heart is.

CG: You incorporate that a lot into your art. There are lots of magical sigils in your artwork and references to occult and esoteric knowledge.

ORL: For me its things I grew up with and it's not because I read about them in some book. It's because I lived them and I've seen them work. It's what I was brought up with and it's just family tradition for me. The same way as eating fried plantains and beans is family tradition. Rituals were always a big part of my upbringing: sun rituals, moon rituals, rituals for healings or for opening your mind.

CG: And you're able to tap into that for creativity?

ORL: Yes of course. Everything is a way of transmitting energy and expressing yourself. Everything you do is an expression of yourself, whether it's the way you move your body or the way you form sentences. So all of your music, lyrics, if you film something; everything is symbolic and has a double meaning; even the most superficial things. That's the beauty of it. I have a close friend who's the exact opposite, he's very straight and down the line. He says, "Why does everything have to be something?" That's his joke with me. It's just two different ways of viewing the world.

CG: I was thinking about you being a left-handed guitarist and as a left-handed musician too it got me wondering if it sets you up to a different approach because you are playing from a different hemisphere in your brain than most people. Any thoughts on that theory?

ORL: S---. I hadn't even thought of that! That's a good question. You know since I was a kid someone grabs my guitar and goes "oh it's backwards" and that's the normal comment I get but that's their reality. In my reality it's like "oh my god all these other guitars are backwards and mine is the only one that's correct!" It's just a matter of perspective. It seems so normal to me that all guitars should be left-handed!

Catch the Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group on their Australian tour with Le Butcherettes this December.

Caleb Goman
30 Nov 2011

Omar Rodriguez- Lopez is one of my favourite musicians. You might know him from At The Drive-In, The Mars Volta, De Facto or his 20+ solo records or you may know him for his films (his most recent The Sentimental Engine Slayer – trailer at end of post). He is incredibly prolific and offers beautiful insight into creativity and life through his eyes. Whenever we catch up we always have the most thoughtful, inspiring chats. I’m super excited about the Australian tour that kicks off on December 9th…I’m even more excited he’s bringing the Mexico/Los Angeles band Le Butcherettes he signed to his label. He will also be joining them on bass! These shows are not to be missed. Seriously.

What’s life been like for you lately?

OR-L: It’s been mellow. I’ve been taking time off and just being around my family.

That’s lovely, family is so important.

OR-L: Definitely! Without a doubt.

You live in Mexico now these days?

OR-L: Yeah. I’m in the process of moving. I’m actually going to move back to Texas to be with my family.

What inspired your move to Mexico?

OR-L: Just being around my culture. I’m Puerto Rican so I like being around Latin culture. I was raised in Mexico as well. We went from Puerto Rico to Mexico and then to America. I just wanted a higher quality of life than what America has to offer.

Do you play music and create every day?

OR-L: Yeah pretty much. In some form or another, yes, I express it every day.

Do you have a daily routine at all?

OR-L: Yeah to a certain degree. I wake up, I eat, basic things like that. It’s not like when we spoke last time and I pretty much had the routine of at 11am to midnight I’d be in the studio. It’s just laid back now. My priorities are waking up and eating right and figuring out the day from there.

You’ve said in the past that your records are just opinions, notebooks and journal entries; you discovering life and beautiful things and learning lessons – is there any important lessons that you’ve been learning lately?
OR-L: Oh sure. There’s a lot. If I had to simplify it and boil it down to its most common denominator it’s that there is nothing more important than love. There is nothing more important than love whatever that is to you—family love, people… everything else has to come second to that. I’m a romantic and with most romantics it’s easy to fall under the illusion that love is enough and that love will fix everything—it’s not enough! Love is an art form, love is a craft, love is like anything else. If you want to be a good piano player you have to practice playing piano. If you don’t play piano for 20 years you’re not going to be a very good piano player. Love is the same way. You can’t just think because you love your mother or you love your father or you love your woman that that’s enough, you have to refine it and you have to work on it every day. What the means is that because it’s a craft and an art form it has to come before anything, it has to be at the top of the list. All things being equal, if love is an art form and if guitar is an art form, painting is an art form, it comes down to you have to decide which art form is more important to you because that is the one you are going to excel at. If you spend most of your time painting you’re going to excel at painting. If you spend most of your time playing piano, you’re going to excel at playing piano. I want to excel at loving and I realise that everything else is secondary. It is the root of everything. If you’re great at loving you’ll be great at playing piano or painting. Everything else becomes so small in comparison. It goes back to why spending more time with the family and doing things outside or whatnot it important.

You’re an avid journal keeper, is that something you’ve always done?

OR-L: Yeah since I was very little. Like any kid, you have your notebook where you draw your dragons and space monsters and whatever else comes to your mind. It’s a way of creating your own personal world. I love keeping a journal.

What’s one of your first musical memories?

OR-L: It would have to be my father and my uncles and my mother, just basically being at home. It’s just part of my culture and my upbringing. Puerto Rican culture revolves around music and food. Everybody plays something even if they are not musicians. Music is used as a language, it’s a second language. Before I ever learnt English I already knew the language of music because it was what was most spoken at my house besides Spanish, those are my musical memories. In other cultures, in America say for example, they have Christmas songs… when Christmas time comes around – I say that because it’s almost Christmas time now – there are a lot of communal Christmas songs that everyone knows and sings, they have that thing where people go door-to-door singing, well, Puerto Rican culture is like that all the time, it’s not just Christmas, it’s everything. There are songs that talk about the food you’re eating, there’s songs that talk about what it is like to be Puerto Rican. There’s songs that talk about what it’s like to be like from this village or that village—it’s just inherent in the culture. For me I’ve never thought of music as something separate from life or family life. I’ve never been cognisant of music like when people ask, did you ever think you’d end up being a musician? It would be like saying, did you ever think you were ever going to eat rice and beans with fried plantain? It doesn’t enter the consciousness when it is something that is around you all the time, it is just something that is there.

It’s like breathing.

OR-L: Exactly!

You also film lots of things. You’ve been filming since the beginning of At The Drive-In and documenting your journey as a musician; why do you feel you have such a need to document everything so avidly?

OR-L: Because I can, because it’s there. It’s another brush stroke and another colour on the palette of paint. I was born in era where the average person can walk into a store and buy a video camera. Thirty years ago that was only something that was there for rich people. We live in an era where you can get a couple of hundred bucks together and you can by a camera and document things. Going back to it again, it is how I was raised. When we moved to America and my father starting doing well with his business, one of the first things he did was by one of those VHS camcorders. He used to film all of our family outings (pretty normal stuff, families film their family outings) that was always stuck in my head. When he first brought a camera he showed me how to use it and I started filming right away. I’d make little short films. It felt very natural. My dad didn’t film family vacations in the normal way, he always turned it into a narrative somehow. There was always a narrator. He’s always would turn it into this big fun event that would involve everybody, so then everybody wanted to play with the video camera. Being the second oldest son I was allowed that luxury. It’s just there in your subconscious or the makeup of how you do things. When I grew to be an adult and At The Drive-In started making some money, one of the first things that I did was go and buy myself a video camera. I filmed stuff because I thought it would be a cool thing to show my mom back home and eventually my children.

Do you think the footage will ever come out to the public?

OR-L: I’m sure parts of it will, yeah definitely. I have about three films in my closet/vault, together with unreleased records. I imagine at some point as the years pass by I won’t care and I’ll just put it out. Over the years they’ve just been journal entries. I cut together a small film of my experience of At The Drive-In. I cut one together about my experience in De Facto. I started to cut one together about my project The Mars Volta, about what became very, very long. You also start to lose interest after a while and you start to film other things or become interested in other things. I imagine at some point parts of it will come out definitely.

I know that the new Mars Volta album has been finished for a while, the musical parts were finished for a very long time while awaiting the lyrics/vocals. In an interview recently when someone asked you about what the record sounded like you said ‘The first thing that pops into my mind is that it sounds like me and Cedric finding answers and insight into each other’s spirits.’ I thought that was really beautiful. I was wondering what insights you found?

OR-L: It runs pretty deep so it gets tricky. Off the top of my head some things would be like, I never realised how much my controlling-ness or my dominate personality affected him. I just always saw it as I was doing it for the greater good of us both. I never stopped to think about how it affected him and in inadvertent ways. I was able to see that during that process. It’s hard to get into because it is so layered and a lot of it is so personal which is why I usually just try to speak in general broad brush strokes. You learn a lot about yourself when you do a project and you learn a lot about whoever you let into that project. At the end of the day that’s the only real reason to do anything – to make records, movies or anything else – it’s to learn.

I know exactly what you mean. I learn so much from each conversation I have/interview I do. Our last chat taught me so much.

OR-L: Exactly. I remember it well.

You are bringing Le Butcherettes (pictured above) to Australia on your tour. I’m so excited to see them! I read an interview with Le Butcherettes’ frontwoman Teri Gender Bender and she said that you discovered them when you went to a show they were playing. She went on to say that the power went out and that they keep playing regardless. What was it that you saw in them?

OR-L: What I saw with them is something that is undefinable. When you talk about it you can only use general terms like, I saw that spark or that spirit. It’s so abstract in a way. You see that thing in people where you know that it is honest, you know that they are doing it because they have to do it, you know that it’s a primordial type of urge.

There’s people that like entertainment, there’s people who like playing music and then there are people that are searching for God. God not being… I’m not talking about Christianity or Judaism or anything like that, just in broad terms for whatever the fuck you want that to be. Those are the three different sections that I found when you talk about art: entertaining, people that are being expressive and that want to play music, that love to play music and there’s people that are trying to communicate with God—they fell into that category and that was what I was able to see very quickly. Like you were saying, the electricity went out but they still played! Somebody else would say, well what’s the point of playing with no electricity? Another person would say, because they absolutely have to, this is how I’m trying to communicate with God. God could be me, it could be myself, I could be trying to get to know myself—the point being, it is absolutely vital. That’s what I saw in Le Butcherettes.

After hearing the late, great Jaco Pastorious, I decided to develop my fretless skills. I knew I had to get a fret- less in my hands because there had to be something within that instrument that Jaco needed that wasn’t accessible in a fretted bass. I was determined to find what this fretless sound was all about.

Since meeting my bass teacher, Steve Evans, in the early ’80s, I had known about his stock 1970 Fender fretless P bass. He lent it to me a few times, and I knew right away I wanted it. The instrument seemed to enhance itself. I would let a note sustain and then move my finger very slightly. All of a sudden, these nuances I wasn’t hearing in fretted instruments rang out. I could envision more music with this bass than any other bass I had owned. Fifteen years ago, I decided to borrow it one last time with the intention of never giving it back. Steve laughed and said I would probably play fretless bass better than he did.

After a proper setup from Eric’s Guitar Shop for my new acquisition, I decided first to make sure I had good intonation. A friend of mine had taken upright bass lessons and he mentioned that his instructor would have him check the intonation of fingered notes against an open string. I took that advice and would check the open strings against their respective notes as I fingered them. For example, I’d play an E on the third string and check it with the open fourth string. Then, I moved that idea around to major thirds, fifths and then all the rest of the intervals. I can’t tell you how fast my intonation came together. I would have to say within months, I could stay in tune with the open string notes and also in band situations.

The next step for me was to work on articulation. Jaco made his mark here and, in my opinion, it made him one of the most expressive bassists of all time. This is the key to becoming a musical fretless bassist. The way you slide into notes, the way you place vibrato on a note, and the finger pressure you apply to the string against the fretboard all contribute to your articulation and sound. Sometimes I want a fast vibrato to get me that classical cellist sound, or I want to apply hard pressure on the string to give the note more of a “point.” Other times, I want to slide up or down into a note. That makes the string resonate in a unique way that only comes from sliding. All of these ideas come primarily from your left hand and they tax your hand muscles differently than in fretted bass. It sure can be a workout, so make sure to warm up!

The right hand works basically the same way as far as position placement on the bass. If you are placing your hand up on the neck, you will receive a more upright, full sound. Moving your hand close to the bridge will get a sharper, midrange articulation. The difference here between fretted and fretless comes from how the two hands manipulate the sound together. I like to play near the bridge to make bass harmonic slides pop or to make fast runs stand out. I like to play close to the neck to get the fretless to sound like an upright bass or make it sound like a dub bassist would. There’s a tonal variety, I believe, that’s available exclusively to the fretless. It is, in my opinion, a more expressive approach to bass playing.
After focusing my efforts on an unaffected fretless sound, a thought came to mind. If there were so many more tonal varieties on a fretless, what would all that diversity of sound and tone create with effects? I soon found that, in terms of the assortment of sounds, nothing compares to a fretless instrument driving effects. Pedals and rackmount units gain a new life because of the variety of tones the fretless generates. Envelope filters work with so much more tone than on a fretted bass. Fuzz boxes sustain differently and seemingly longer, wherever you play along the neck. When you combine a synth pedal along with sliding into a note it can sound like the wheel-bending effect on a Minimoog. The fretless bass seems to send a different harmonic message when you use a vibrato or chorus pedal. It gives them a richer and fuller audio signal. Ring modulators seem to really take off and go in multiple directions that fretted basses just can’t compare to.

My fretless manifesto is my homage to one of my musical heroes. I knew Jaco was on to something very unique and I was compelled to follow him and see if I could offer a musical point of view that hadn’t been fully investigated. I feel my fretless bass is my voice and I want to continue to develop sounds that represent the past and the future. My history and my destiny lie within my fretless bass.
Juan Alderete de la Peña has been playing bass for more than 30 years and has become one of the most respected players in the indus- try. Best known for his work in The Mars Volta and Racer X, Alderete’s recent project is Big Sir, his duo with Lisa Papineau. He continues to scour the internet in what little free time he has to feed his addiction to stompboxes. For more information, visit pedalsandeffects.com.