Interviste e articoli di carattere generale, sui TMV, ovviamente!

It is 2:30pm in New York. Have you slept well?
Omar: Yes, but by this time I usually have. Of course this way is not how I'd most like myself to be. I was working until 7am.

That's exactly what this conversation is going to be about: productivity and creativity. Earlier this year there was the new Mars Volta album THE BEDLAM IN GOLIATH, with ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FUNGUS and MINOR CUTS AND SCRAPES IN THE BUSHES AHEAD, two older solo works, appearing simultaneously. You are infamously known to record up to eight albums a year.
Infamous? This only relates to the average of what people produce today! Not everything I record gets published.

Well...
Okay, how should I explain it? I don't really have a 'social life'. I don't drink, I don't go to clubs. When I want to have a good time, I go in my studio, work on things and express myself that way. Funny, now I'm talking about 'work' again, when I've just been talking about 'play'. People mistake these concepts with pleasure. So do I. There is this interesting outlook on creativity and productivity which leads to people saying "now you must be serious, to be able to do the work". But this is so much fun for me that I can easily talk about it as 'play'. I'm very thankful that I can do things that I love, and make a living from it. Earlier I had some pretty dumb jobs, and recording was done in the evening. Today I can do what I want all day and night: record.

Work is a game for you? Really?
Yes, absolutely. Okay, sometimes there's some work involved, when I have to concentrate really hard and have to finish things off. That feels a little bit like work. The rest of the time, I'm enjoying myself so much that it doesn't seem like work to me.

Do you ever ask yourself, who's going to listen to all of it?
Oh no, I never think about the listeners, unless we're playing live. But when I'm recording? Never. I think that's the biggest mistake an artist can make: to think about their audience. The best thing a creative person can do for themselves is this: be absolutely selfish.

In what sense?
What makes me lucky? Where do I keep finding fun in what I do? What do I want to express? And what would be the record that I'd enjoy listening to? In the end, I am also a listener, and I'm not different from other people...…

Hm...
True, true! There are only ten different types of people in the world. If I'm happy with something, it's because it corresponds to the laws of the Universe that there are enough people out there whose preferences and quirks I've divided.

ABSENCE is a guitar record, MINOR CUTS plays with elements of Dub and film sequences that are played in slow motion. A very different creative output, no?
Sometimes I can't be bothered with the guitar, and I just want to play bass or keyboards or something. I never sit down and think "now I'll make an ambient record", it doesn't work that way. The question is much more about, if it's raining or snowing or the sun's shining outside, and what's going on inside you. They are always different things, and from that, different music comes out of you. In MINOR CUTS a more meditative voice is expressed.

But expression never stands alone. What is it about, what should be expressed?
Everything. It's an expression of everything that I feel. I believe that the human soul always feels somewhat trapped. In the body, in material things, in fear, perhaps in desire to attach itself to other souls. I believe that our consciousness always tries to keep up with, keep in contact with the soul, but the soul is much more complicated and smarter than our intellectual ability could ever be.

That's why we have language.
Language helps, but in the end it just confuses things even more. I speak Spanish and English, and I still don't feel that words could ever express my innermost feelings: hatred, love, intoxication, peace, loss, desire... for me, those things are only adequately expressed through music. Some people understand it then, others don't.

Is there such a thing as inspiration? For the purposes of enthusiasm, and the influence of spiritual states in the creative process?
Yes. I believe in inspiration as enthusiasm. I believe in speed, in chance, and what arises from all the chaos. Which comes to what you just called the 'spirit': chaos is its spring. Chaos is the basic state of the universe, and it very much resembles what is in a soul.

People fear the chaos.
Because they forget that chaos always follows the form. You can't have one without the other. The reason is that the human consciousness is laid out to recognise the structure in the chaos. What sounds chaotic, is in truth the perfect expression of that which is real. What people fear, is the big question mark which shows the chaos. It's like looking into an abyss, the edge of insanity.

Is creativity also a form of therapy?
Exactly. I always say that when people ask me why I do what I do: "music is my therapy". It's in my nature to deal with the chaos and hectic rush and riddles in me, and to produce a connection with the universe, to myself and to other human beings. Some people talk and pay a therapist for it, I use the language of music. But at the beginning, I don't understand what's coming out. Is it a violent record? An affectionate one? Most of the time I only get what it is, and why, slowly and much later: "Oh, so that's how I felt! That's what I wanted to say!"

What about when you're virtually 'out-therapied'? Are you also no longer creative?
No, then I have arrived at the end of a life cycle. Then it is necessary to begin a new cycle. When everything's been asked, when everything's been answered. Then you go on to the next question. If you are serious about asking a question, you must be prepared for the fact that you can no longer stop it. It is a permanent trip which knows no end. This would then be death.

Must I love or hate myself, to be creative?
Both. Both are in you, like everything is inside you, the answers to all questions. All cultures, from the antiquity to today, from the Greeks, the Vikings up to the Asians, all know variations of the symbol of Ying and Yang, light and dark.

Can anything new originate from improvisation?
I feel my most proud when people say: "the music sounds so spontaneous, this must have been great fun!" But it is actually the result of methodical and structural considerations, yet it sounds organic and accidental. We only improvise on stage.

Do you ever think: Damn, what nonsense have I made here?
Yes, often. Some things I find embarrassing, but that's okay. That's why they're there; Why did I wear this T-shirt, why was I with this woman, why did I make this shit music? Because these are all evidence for the fact that you are a person, part of the process that we call life. Our conversation here is a special moment which only the both of us share. If you write it down, it is another moment, maybe only for you. And then somebody reads the text, and then there is a moment which you share with the reader...and so on. It's the same with records.

With Mars Volta records too?
Sure. Unfortunately, due to reasons regarding our contract, I'm only allowed to put out one Mars Volta record per year, the rest must be published under my name.

Is it true, that the next one will be acoustic?
Not if you mean 'only acoustic guitars', but it is more intimate. We play around that a lot, or better, 'played'. Of course, the album has been finished for a long time.

Of course?
Yeah, sure. At the moment I'm in the middle of the next Mars Volta album after that one.

>>>www.myspace.com/omarrodriguezquintet>>>


And the picture says: "I have no social life. I don't drink, I don't go to clubs. When I want to have a good time, I go in my studio."