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

Paul Donoughue
January 14, 2010 12:00am
AUDIENCES who have witnessed the kaleidoscopic nature of a Mars Volta performance - deistic in scope and sound - often come away praising two things: the thick, near palpable stage energy and the band's lengthy improvisations.
The second one, however, is a misconception.

"True improvisation is actually the field of much more talented musicians," admits Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, guitarist and chief composer for the Texan band. What they are actually doing on stage, between songs, is something they rarely have time for otherwise: rehearsing.

The energy is real, though. And it exists as much on record as it does on stage. The band's five full-length albums are complex mega-structures, rising and falling in great swaths of atmospheric sound and playing with time signatures and layering.
The Mars Volta sound is cultivated by Rodriguez-Lopez in an almost dictatorial fashion.

Notorious for his strong-armed leadership in the studio (he has fired members in previous sessions to slim the sound), he often employs a technique of disassociation, the intention being to "strip musicians of their musicianship".

"If I teach someone the part way ahead of time, they over think it, they study it, they study it to a clinical degree and then they just execute the part," he says. "They've broken down the time signature, they've seen what key it is in. They attach all these 'things' to it, and they to do their 'very best'.

"For me their very best is when you give them the part then and there and you strip away their sophistication. They don't have time to think about much else besides playing the part with full intention and full heart."

The band are known for concept driven work. Francis The Mute was loosely based on the contents of a diary found in a repossessed car by a former band member; De-Loused in the Comatorium spoke of a character in a drug-induced coma (based on the experiences of a friend of the band, who jumped to his death from a bridge in El Paso, Texas, after emerging from a coma).

Last year's Octahedron garnered a reputation prior to its release as the band's "acoustic album". The lead single Since We've Been Wrong does, in fairness, verge on epic balladry. But if Rodriguez-Lopez's diet of Nick Drake and Syd Barrett informed the musical side – making for a softer, more contemplative palette at some points – the thematic side of the album was just as biting as usual.

"Disappearances and kidnappings," Rodriguez-Lopez explains rather simply, on the phone from Belgium, in the middle of the European leg of a tour that will end in Australia this month. "Just from the intrigue or the obsession with the unanswered."
The kidnappings and disappearances to which Rodriguez-Lopez refers were the spate of abductions and murders, from the early 1990s, of young women from the Mexican border city of Juarez (across the border from El Paso, where he was raised). The number of women murdered or disappeared during the following decade is thought to be about 400.

"I guess it's just more the attraction towards not knowing. When someone dies, you can attach your religious or political views to it and say 'Oh, they are with God now, or they are with Vishnu, or they are in the dirt, rotting' or whatever your views are. When you don't know I think it is a much harder and complex thing for a human being to accept."

It's not the first time the issue – of which Rodriguez-Lopez speaks passionately – has appeared in his music. His former band At The Drive-In, which disbanded in 2001, drew attention – in a video from their final album, Relationship of Command – to what they saw as an inadequate response to the problem from Mexican authorities.

In more than 15 years of making music together, Rodriguez-Lopez and Mars Volta and former At The Drive-In singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala have often given social commentary a place in their art. It clearly flows naturally from them, though Rodriguez-Lopez admits there's only so many ways you can help "when you are doing something as silly as playing in a rock band for a living".

They return to Australia for the Big Day Out this month, a festival surely etched into their minds. In Sydney in 2001, during At The Drive-In's only Australian tour, the band stopped repeatedly mid-set when the crowd became dangerous.

"Let's dance rather than beat the shit out of each other," Bixler-Zavala said at the time. Later that day, while watching headliners Limp Bizkit, Sydney teenager Jessica Michalik died after being crushed in a crowd surge.

"That was one incident, and it hasn't repeated itself," Rodriguez-Lopez says of the crowd problems. "We haven't had that type of experience (again)."

The Mars Volta have since made several successful trips to Australia.
"As it stands now, (Australia) sticks out as a very magical place in my mind and a place that I will take any opportunity to revisit."

The Mars Volta play the Big Day Out on Sunday at the Gold Coast Parklands. Octahedron is out now.

http://tvnz.co.nz/entertainment-news/mars-...re-1-22-3329400

Texas' own Grammy award winning Mars Volta are one of the headlining acts at this year's Big Day Out.

Their music is a fusion of hard-rock, punk, with some jazz and a little latin thrown in.

Rolling Stone magazine dubbed them the best progressive rock outfit in 2008.

Fans can see Mars Volta along with dozens of other acts on the Big Day Out stages on Friday.

However, the band have been soaking up some of the Kiwi atmosphere in Auckland ahead of their appearance and ONE News caught up with them for a chat.

To my feeble mind, this band could be a lot of folks’ choice in the next decade, as well. If you’d told me in 2k that they’d be my choice for “Band of 2KX” I wouldn’t have believed it, but if these cats stay true to their inspirations and keep moving forward, sideways, whatever, their deepest work may very likely be yet to come.

www.fasterlouder.com.au/features/22109/The-Mars-Volta.htm

The Mars Volta’s Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is one of the most prolific, yet enigmatic, characters in rock and roll today. The man released six solo albums in 2009 but still remains somewhat of a mysterious entity.

Talking to him from his messy Belgian hotel room, I attempt to dissect the band’s live shows, find out where the band’s at now and whether At the Drive-In will ever get back together. Just don’t ask him where he gets his inspiration from.

2009 was something of a contradiction for The Mars Volta. They released Octahedron to critical acclaim and were awarded a Grammy for ‘Best Hard Rock Performance’, but in the process fired their drummer Thomas Pridgen. Omar won’t tell me why (it’s “family stuff”) but I do know that the band are currently in the process of trying out new drummer Dave Elitch; who will likely use the Australian shows as practice.

I ask whether it’s tough for the band to go through line-up changes, with such intricate and demanding songs. “Sure yeah it’s tough, but it’s also exciting,” he observes. “It’s like getting a new girlfriend; finding someone who is a great person, intelligent, funny, with a good sense of humour, fun, beautiful, all of that. It’s fun. You have a lot of dumb conversations along the way but once you get there it’s all worth it.”

The band will be in town over January for Big Day Out, where At The Drive-In made headlines in 2001 when Cedric Bixler-Zavala labelled the crowd “sheep” for heavy moshing and walked off stage after only a handful of songs. The Mars Volta will only play a few songs too, but for different reasons – their live songs clock in at anywhere between five and 50 minutes.

Fans can expect new material at the band’s Australian shows, and Omar also points out that the live shows aren’t as improvised as people might think. “Most of it’s worked out already before we play. A big misconception is that we do hours and hours of improvisation, which just simply isn’t true. I put a set-list together based on what I feel like playing; songs that I still think are fun to play. Then I’ll throw in themes from new songs, so it’s also a way of rehearsing them onstage. If you listen to the history of the band you’ll always hear certain melodies or parts or little sections that later appear on records. There’s so much time on stage when you’re on tour, it’s a great healthy time to rehearse new material.”

Looking back at the band’s past, chaos has always seemed to be the way of life for both the band and Omar himself. The band’s 2008 album The Bedlam in Goliath was plagued with various problems, including the engineer suffering a nervous breakdown, the studio flooding and tracks disappearing. With constant line-up changes, the band seems almost as volatile as the music itself.

“Chaos has been a way of life since I can remember,” Omar elaborates. “Chaos has always been attracted to me and it’s not something I can choose. I think a lot of people around me over the years have thought I’m attracted to chaos, and I thrive off of it or it’s how I perform the best, but I just think for whatever reason it’s what’s been chosen for me. It’s what I’m used to.”

So, is there a new album on the way? “Yeah, I scrapped one, made another one and scrapped that too. I’m in the middle of another one now and this one’s looking like a real winner,” he says, giggling. I can’t decide if his laugh is one of genuine excitement or sarcasm, but I’m looking forward to it either way.

After talking about new material, I decide to turn the conversation towards the past. It’s with a healthy dose of trepidation that I ask whether now would be an ideal time to re-form At the Drive-In, with the recent departure of Thomas Pridgen and sister band Sparta effectively disbanded. I get a lengthy laugh in response.

“Oh man,” Omar says. “That’d be like if you were married and you were settled in and you’ve got a house, would now be an ideal time to get back with your high school girlfriend again? It’s a funny question. It’s funny the way people view bands, as so disposable, like ‘Now you should have a reunion.’ These are human relationships we’re talking about.”

So, where does the man get his inspiration from these days? The band has a well-documented history of drug use, but these days the answer is much simpler… at first.

“It’ll sound stupid but…it’s called living,” he begins. “I know it sounds really dumb and cheesy, but inspiration is really that simple. There’s nothing grandiose about it. Inspiration is simply information that’s coming in.

“For example, I have an addictive personality, and at the moment I’m doing interviews but I can’t stop thinking about waffles. I ate three or four yesterday and now I can’t stop thinking about them! This is inspiration, this is happening right now. Then once you start digging beneath the surface, the waffles thing is just the surface. You start posing a lot of questions to yourself, like, ‘Why can’t I stop eating waffles?’ You come up with answers or you come up with more questions – there are only two options there.”

Being so widely creative, would Omar want to be remembered most for his solo stuff or The Mars Volta? “I don’t know, it’s a weird question,” he muses. “It’s all the same to me, the solo stuff and Mars Volta. It’s all my music and I do all of it I guess. I don’t separate one from the other. It’s all just images and portraits; it’s all expressions. I don’t know if I’ll even be remembered, so I don’t know what I’ll want to be remembered for. I guess I hope it’s something positive, and that I was a good person.”

Craig Mathieson delves into the disarming and somewhat anti-hubristic world of Omar Rodriguez-Lopez from the Mars Volta.

IT IS tempting to structure a narrative for the Mars Volta that is as complex and diverse as one of the group's songs: time changes, startling improvisations, attempts at transcendence and sudden changes of direction. For many, the acclaimed cult band - formed in 2001 by punk-rock graduates Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala - is the epitome of contemporary progressive rock, detailed to the point of not mere overload but virtual oblivion.

Rodriguez-Lopez, however, sees it in more essential terms. ''What it needs to be, it will be,'' explains the softly spoken songwriter, guitarist and producer, speaking from the Belgian leg of the European tour that preceded the band's Australian dates as part of the Big Day Out.

''There's been people coming in and out to the point where that is now irrelevant. There was an era in the band that a lot of people, career-wise, say was damaging to me but it was absolutely necessary to me at the time. Now is a different moment. It can change halfway through a tour; it can change halfway through a show. We might begin playing and I'll realise, 'I don't want to do this any more', and everything will change when the tour ends.''

Such decisions are integral to the Mars Volta, who formed after Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala split from At the Drive-In, the cataclysmic post-hardcore outfit from El Paso, Texas, whose own Big Day Out shows, a decade ago, alternated between electrifying and frustrating.

Since then, Rodriguez-Lopez has set a dizzying pace. There have been five official albums through the Mars Volta (the most recent being 2009's Octahedron), more than a dozen solo albums, various collaborations and several independent films he wrote and directed. Bolstered by his sci-fi lyrics, Rodriguez-Lopez often appears fixated on the surreal and the densely impenetrable but he's also fascinated by structure, often sketching shapes when he first describes his ideas to other musicians.

''I've never made anything with the intention of getting it out to people,'' he says. ''I do things for the love of the process, for what I learn from doing it.''

Rodriguez-Lopez is somewhat disarming, in that he speaks without the hubris his music suggests he traffics in. He's more likely to be apologetic than arrogant. Still, there are few people he'll compare his creative process to.

Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist and occasional collaborator John Frusciante is one, while another is Mexican screenwriter-turned-filmmaker Guillermo Arriaga, whose credits include Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel.

''It's very natural that life brought us together,'' says Rodriguez-Lopez, who scored the 2007 Mexican film El Bufalo de la Noche, which Arriaga adapted from his own novel. ''As different as we are as people we have similar themes in our work, we share certain ways of telling a story.

''I was in Amsterdam when we started working together and he said to me, 'What are you doing, you're living in a completely different culture? You'll miss your people and your language.'

''At the time I thought that was shallow but years later I came to understand … He was absolutely right. Holland had great things but I missed my own language and my own people.''

Rodriguez-Lopez tends to spend several years living in a location and then moves on. During the Mars Volta's tenure he's been based in Los Angeles (where the band's career was marked by issues of addiction), Amsterdam and New York. Nowadays he's happily based in the Mexican city of Zapopan, which he has little intention of leaving.

''It's just the most wonderful place I could be,'' he says. ''I'm Puerto Rican, so it's close to my culture and my language … I've always had an affinity with the Mexican people and we lived there for five years before we moved to El Paso in the States.

''Mexicans are just some of the most alive people in the world. The difference between Hispanic and Germanic countries is the difference between a handshake and a hug - Mexico, in particular, has that. For being a third-world country and having some of the poorest people in the world, it's one of the happiest countries there is.''

Meeting Omar Rodríguez-López, the Mars Volta's guitarist and co-leader, is like meeting and talking to a shaman. Intelligent, well-read and possessing a wealth of musical ideas and spiritual insights, one learns much from listening to his insights and musical musings.

Last year his band released the fifth Volta album, Octahedron, and Rodríguez-López himself has released a string of over a dozen releases under his own name as well. I recently met Rodríguez-López in Melbourne, Australia during the band’s stint on the Big Day Out music festival, and sat down with him for the following interview for Ultimate-Guitar to discuss his approach to music making, his unorthodox influences and John Frusciante.

UG: You view the studio as a laboratory of sorts where you conduct musical experiments. With that in mind, do all the musical ideas that end up on a Mars Volta recording come from this studio environment or do they come from the onstage improvisations?

Omar Rodríguez-López: Nothing is ever taken from a jam and there is very little actual improvisation that happens on stage too. There has been a big misconception about the band regarding this matter. Quite literally onstage, what our fans perceive as an improvisation or jam is usually a rehearsal of new material. When you’re playing these songs every night, you can get bored so I will usually give the band new material. I will say, ‘we’re going to take out this section and we’re going to play this new part in there’ which could be something I may have shown the band a week ago or even five minutes before we go onstage. Either way, it is a way of rehearsing and making good use of that time onstage. As far as the studio goes, I consider it as another instrument no different from say a pedal or a musician or an actual guitar. So if you’re viewing the studio as an instrument then the answer to your question is yes, a lot of the ideas do come from the fact that you have such a vast instrument at your disposal to play with.

You co-produced Mars Volta’s 2003 debut album De-Loused in the Comatorium with Rick Rubin and then have produced yourself each successive Mars Volta album. What did you learn from Rubin that you now apply in your production approach?

There are two main important things I learned from him. When we produced that album together, he made me realize that every problem has a solution no matter how big. I used to really freak out about things, but he was very much the Zen person, making me realize how simple the whole process is when you really break it down once you really let go of all these things that you get hung up on. And second to that, it would be that he showed me a lot of what I didn’t want to do. He showed me a direction that I personally didn’t want to be going in. So working with him, I saw exactly what I didn’t want. And that is a big key to things really. Also Rick does not see the studio as an instrument, at all. He sees the studio as place where you basically go to finish something, like the last stage of something. So for Rick, he sees it as a place you go and you just do it and that’s it. So it’s a very methodical approach and very much so about going in there and recording this thing and then it is done.

"As far as the studio goes, I consider it as another instrument no different from say a pedal or a musician or an actual guitar."
Let’s discuss gear, what’s the set-up like for the studio?

I use a couple of Supro amps and a Harmony combo amp which I’ve used on almost every single record, a couple of boutique amps whose names I can’t remember right now unfortunately. Also a Vox AC-30, and a small Orange combo amp. Guitar wise, I mainly use my custom Ibanez. I do have a lot of guitars, but not so much because I am a guitar freak or collector, but more so because it’s kind of like when a dog starves it will always eat more than it can. I’m left handed and growing up I never had a normal guitar, I’d always have to restring the guitar as it was always out of tune so when I started having money and if I ever saw a left handed guitar, I’d buy it. But once Ibanez came into the picture and started making me guitars, I no longer had to worry about it being in tune as I had an actual intonated left handed guitar.

So how many guitars do you have in your collection?

I have around 30 guitars everything like old Les Pauls, old Mustangs, old SGs, anything that I could find because left handed guitars are so rare to find. If you’re right handed you’re quite spoilt as you can go anywhere in the world, walk into any shop and buy a guitar but when you’re left handed, you can only get what you find.

You have a ton of effects in your rig, are you constantly seeking out new effects and sounds?

Yes definitely, but the type of sounds that I want, are obviously constantly changing. At first, and for a long time, it was all about the most intrusive sound, the sound that sounded most unlike a guitar. While lately for me it is been the most subtle sounds. Things like changing the tone of the guitar simply by putting on different pedals, things that probably somebody in the audience wouldn’t even care or realize. But for me, it’s become very fun to hear the difference between say from one Flanger to another.

Having so many varied effect pedals, do they inspire you with ideas directly as well?

Sometimes, but a lot of the times it’s the execution of the songs that are inspired by the pedals themselves. The songs themselves are a direct result of being a human being. Of living and experiencing life such as falling in and out of love, having a conversation, having a shit whatever, from the most the mundane things to the most highest things. It’s all an influence and can generate a tone that becomes a song. Executing those songs then becomes the fun part of it, it becomes the playground it becomes the film and everything else. The pedals can steer the song into a different direction especially if you find a really cool tone for a certain section that you would never had imagined when you wrote the actual musical part of the section for the song initially.

How does the studio set-up differ when it comes to the live environment?

Live, I pretty much rely on the old faithfuls. Pedals like the Electro-Harmonix Memory Man, MXR Phaser, Moogerfooger Ring Modulator, those pedals that can resist all the touring. At home I become most interested in individual pedals especially boutique pedals, pedals that people are really putting in a lot of time and love into. And again things that most people probably won’t even realize. But it is beside the point as its all about what you’re doing and the sort of bubble you’re living in when you’re creating.

Your biggest hero in regards to guitar playing is actually a Puerto Rican cuatro player, Yomo Toro…

Yes, it is because my culture is second only to my family tree, my immediate environment is my biggest influence. So being Puerto Rican I come from a very musical culture that is centered around son montuno styles like that, which are better known as salsa music. It sings about the culture and the culture sings about the music. So growing up, that was what surrounded me, and so those are my heroes. So people like Héctor Lavoe became the food of the imagination for me. These were people who are constantly shaping my musical identity even if I don’t realize it. My true great influence was the piano player Charlie Palmieri and Larry Harlow…I always wanted to be a piano player really but stayed with guitar because the big thing about Yomo Toro was that he was left handed.

"Rick Rubin showed me a direction that I personally didn’t want to be going in."
Former Red Hot Chili Pepper guitar player John Frusciante has been consistent with contributing guitar on the Mars Volta albums. How important has John been to your musical vision and guitar playing approach?

John is responsible for raising the bar as the musician that I want and in executing my music. He made me realize there are musicians like him, those who are a complete all rounded musician. John is very versed in the technical aspect, he knows all the intervals, and knows what you’re playing and why, but he is not limited to that only. He also has the emotional aspect. I’m a musician who is stuck in the emotional realm. A lot of musicians are stuck in the intellectual realm and some are stuck in the sexual realm, and then there are the musicians that are a complete body and not only of the head or a heart. John is that complete body. He understands the whole aspect of music. And so what this does for me is it liberates me, as I can come at him from whatever angle that occurs to me within my limited emotional state, where I can show him something and because of his level of intuition and professionalism, he can do it within minutes. And I’m very impatient when it comes to this sort of thing so I need this type of musician. I have to say that more important to all of this is, is our personal connection we have and our close friendship which started from a shared love of the cinema of Luis Buñuel and Werner Herzog, you know things that other people don’t usually like. So the most important thing is that he understands me as a human being.

Aside from Mars Volta do you find you have an urge to be prolific and keep performing music in your various other projects?

It is something that happens with or without my own desire. It is in the same way as I compare it to the inner dialog of the mind. We really have no control over it. We wake up and our mind is thinking and it’s constantly going on without us. The Buddhists make a point of their life of quieting this inner dialog, they work their whole life in order to achieve this moment. So when it comes to producing material and recording songs, I always say there is nothing special about it, it’s as simple as putting a bucket underneath a leaking faucet if you know what I mean.

Finally, what has the rest of 2010 in store for Mars Volta?

This current tour will be the last for this part of the year, until the end of the year at least, when I’ll start the band up again. But for now, I’m going to give everybody some time off and will probably record some new things.

Interview by Joe Matera
Ultimate-Guitar.Com © 2010

Record Store Day update: Q&A with Omar Rodriguez-Lopez

April 17 is the third annual Record Store Day, when some of the more than 700 independently owned record stores across the country (not to mention more in the UK) celebrate a dying breed — a place where you can find music and talk to people who are as passionate as you are about it.

Everyone from Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones to LCD Soundsystem and Wilco are issuing special edition albums and singles, many of them on vinyl, in honor of their music store brethren. The Smashing Pumpkins will roll out their new album on that day. And numerous artists will do in-store performances.

There's nothing like that going on here, but All That Music & Video owner George Reynoso is opening an hour early — at 10 a.m. — and offering 20 percent discounts on vinyl and Beatles coffee mugs, plus other breaks and giveaways all day.

You can read about it in a story we're running on Saturday's Living section front and on elpasotimes.com.

One of our own, The Mars Volta's Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, is making his recent Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group album "Solar Gambling" available Saturday as a limited-edition vinyl album.

I emailed him some questions, via his publicist, and asked him about that and his movie, "The Sentimental Engine Slayer," which is making the festival rounds and, let's hope, comes to El Paso sometime soon.

My big idea: Book that and El Paso native Ryan Piers Williams' Iraq-era drama, "The Dry Land," at this year's Plaza Classic Film Festival.

Warning: There is a bad word in here, but, what the hell, it's rock 'n' roll.

But I digress. Here's what Omar had to say.

Q: Why did you decide to release new music for Record Store Day?

A: Well, technically it isn't a brand new album, but rather one I released via mailorder about six months ago. We decided to bend the "mail order-only" rule and allow some copies to be available on Record Store Day because of my desire to support an important tradition in my life -- that of visiting a physical record store and the experience of unearthing an LP. There's nothing quite like it. But, sadly, we see more and more record shops closing in order to give way to the impersonal, fast-food way of consuming music.

Q: Do you remember the first time you bought music at a store? If so, what did you buy, where was it and what was that experience like (I used to manage record stores back in the vinyl days!)?

A: Yes, I think it was Eddie Palmieri "Live at the University of Puerto Rico." I used to go with my parents every week to the local record store in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, to buy the latest release from artists like Hector Lavoe, Willie Colon, Fania Allstars, etc. My first record experience on my own as a teenager was at a record store in El Paso, on Kansas Street, that was called Metal Storm. I bought Dead Kennedys' "Frankenchrist," Overkill's "Fuck You" (bought only for the eloquent title and amazing record cover), and Token Entry.

Q: Any plans to perform in El Paso any time soon, and, if so, in what capacity (Mars Volta? ORLG? Something else?)?

A: No plans as of yet. I'm taking most of the year off from touring. Just a couple of festival shows.

Q: Tell me about your first movie. What inspired it? When did you shoot it here? Did you finance it yourself? Any plans to show it in El Paso? Maybe the Plaza Classic Film Festival in August?
A: "The Sentimental Engine Slayer" is actually my third film production. It was shot in September/October 2007, on a small budget with the help of a very talented group of dedicated people who lived and breathed the experience of the film. The cast and crew crowded into a single house in the northeast. When I ran out of money for catering, my mom would come and cook for us. Many of the places I love and grew up with are in the film, as well as my family and many close friends. I would love to screen the film in El Paso. The city is important to me, not to mention being the canvas for the film itself.

Possibly one of the most complex and eccentric musicians of our time, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez of The Mars Volta gets deep and meaningful with Mikey Carr at Sydney's Big Day Out 2010.

They talk about his fascination with "the biggest, most complicated and funniest medium, which is film" and how his work in that arena is really not that different to his musical endeavours, as both are an outlet for his own inner monologue and thought processes. The Mars Volta recently recruited a new drummer, Dave Elitch, and Rodriguez-Lopez explains to Mikey his outlook on the band as a vehicle for relating his ideas to the world. He is, and has always been the musical director of whatever project he works on, so it's made clear to new members from the outset that they are there to see his ambition come to life. Rodriguez-Lopez alludes to the fact that this relationship, inevitably un-democratic in nature, might well have influenced the eventual collapse of his first successful band, At The Drive In....

Apparently, the Big Day Out festival also holds a special place for Rodriguez-Lopez too—mainly it's often the last stop on The Mars Volta world tour—but also because it was on stage here in Sydney, in 2001, that At The Drive In effectively broke up. He says it was "the most important moment in my life" and began a whirlwind of creative and personal exploration that continues to this day. Heavy, mate. Heavy.

INTERVIEW: OMAR RODRIGUEZ-LOPEZ
[Recently, Alternative Press did a feature called "Class of 2000," wherein they looked back at several important/influential albums that are now 10 years old. One of them was At the Drive-In's Relationship of Command. So I interviewed guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez for the third time, to get his thoughts on that record and the disintegration of ATDI soon after its release. Some of the Q&A didn't make it into the magazine, for space reasons, so here's the full transcript.]

What was your relationship with producer Ross Robinson like?
On that record, Ross basically ran the show. I was very eager to be learning at that time. I always say I’m still in training. I’m still learning, but the root of my training was from [producer] Alex Newport, who came before Ross. Then Ross and then Mario [Caldato Jr.], because De Facto—the other band Cedric [Bixler-Zavala] and I had—recorded with Mario C right around the same time. Then of course, there was Rick Rubin. My schooling was watching those guys and seeing what pieces of gear they had and asking questions about why they’d choose to use that particular gear. Ross, at that time, had the reputation for being the wild guy who would throw things or drive you around, doing things like method acting, but for whatever reason, he didn’t really do that with me. I know he threw a trash can a couple of times, and he took Paul [Hinojos, bass] and drove him in an SUV really fast through the hills in Malibu, where there was no barrier, to get his adrenaline going and recorded him that way. But with me it was a very different type of relationship.

How did Iggy Pop wind up on the record?
That was by way of Ross Robinson. He had been talking to Iggy because they were gonna work together. I don’t know if they ever did, but they’d sort of been chatting, so Ross had passed him our previous records and he liked them. So, of course I brought up the idea, “Why not [have Iggy] come and do something on the album?” Ross mentioned it to Iggy, and he was completely open to it. He came down to the studio for a whole day in which he sang [on “Rolodex Propaganda”] and did the ransom note on [“Enfilade”].

When you were making Relationship of Command, was the band already divided into you and Cedric versus the other three?
It was always like that. You see, that’s a thing people don’t understand because we never really talked about our internal affairs. There wasn’t the “reality show” approach to bands like there is now. It was like that from the beginning. It was always me and Cedric. We were in tons of bands before At The Drive-In and we continue to be in bands after At The Drive-In. It was always sort of us against particularly Jim [Ward, guitar] and his candy-coated way of doing things. For example, people always say we broke up out of nowhere and we imploded because of the popularity, and that’s something that always makes us laugh. We’re all good friends now. We all talk now. I invited Tony Hajjar [drums] and Jim and Paul [Hinojos, bass] down to my house in Mexico and had them over. I flew them down here. We’re all good friends, and we still laugh about that [rumor] because [the break up] had nothing to do with that. It was just that I felt it was our time. I felt that the lifespan of the band was over and I broke the band up. It was all personal affairs. It was very much a life thing, it had nothing to do with external pressure and all those theories. Going back to this point again about the way people say that we imploded out of nowhere, they don’t understand the context that we broke up at least three or four other times before we finally broke up. There were three or four times where I or Cedric or Cedric and I both talked about leaving the group because our desires were so different [from the rest of the band]. Looking back on it, it’s part of the beauty of that band and what made it work. It wasn’t what we wanted versus what they wanted. It was a really special dynamic, even though it was volatile in that way. It was what made the band what it was. I don’t regret it at all.

If the band hadn’t broken up, what do you think the album after Relationship Of Command would have sounded like?
It would have been a heartless piece of garbage. I mean, I can only assume that because I wouldn’t have been doing it for the right reasons, and I don’t think that expression or art should come second to anything else. I think the only reason to [play music] is expression—getting out the thing you have inside that can’t be conveyed through any language, whether it be English, Spanish, Japanese or German. So I think when something isn’t real, people will perceive it. Even if they don’t, I just think we would have imploded. I would have been very unhappy; Cedric would have been very unhappy doing it just to do it; and then a true resentment and a true hatred for each other would’ve grown. That’s what happens in a normal human psychology—you start blaming each other. Even though I would have only blamed myself for not leaving, that would be the true blame. It would’ve been easy for me to blame someone else and be like, “Oh, they’re the reason this record sucks.” When in actuality, I would have been the reason—for not being honest. You know, it’s like I always say when people ask me about the breakup: It’s like staying in a relationship with a woman you’re not in love with. It doesn’t work for anybody. You’re lying to yourself, you’re hurting yourself and in the process you’re hurting the other person. You know the way life is. Life is not gonna make it easy for you when you’re living a lie.

What’s your least favorite thing about the album?
In a heartbeat I could tell you, one of my only regrets out of anything I’ve ever done is the way that record was mixed. That record was ruined by the mix. Up until I moved to Europe in 2005, I had the rough mixes that we made on the console [for reference]. Those CDs that I kept were so much more potent and raw. People think that was a raw and energetic record, but what they’re hearing is nothing compared to what it truly was before it was glossed over and sent through the mixing mill that was Andy Wallace—who is a wonderful person and a very talented mixing engineer and has done great albums—I’m not trying to offend him… And I understand he had the pressure of the label and all the people who had dreams of it being this grandiose thing, and being played on the radio, which it was, [but] that record was ruined by the mix. I just find it the most passive, plastic… It’s the one record [I played on that] I still to this day cannot listen to. The mix ruined it for me.

The cover art has a lot of Trojan horse imagery—was that related to the lyrical content, or was it that you guys felt the band were sneaking into the mainstream or something?
It was a running concept that Cedric had going through his lyrics that we all noticed. It wasn’t even a conscious thing for Cedric, but it was more looking at the overall thing that we had created and seeing the lyrics and the music and the themes we talked about at the time. We realized that, first of all, it’s a nice story. It can also be seen politically. I think we always thought of it conceptually more as ideas or a passion. You’re surrounded by something that’s passionless and you bring a heart inside. I don’t think it was ever as grandiose as us sneaking into the mainstream world. We had no idea what that record would end up doing. We were just happy to be making our album. I think it ended up taking on that context for people, but at the time, being in the middle of it and making the record, it was way more of a personal thing. In all of our music, whether it’s evident or not, our politics are in that music. At the time, we toured a lot with other bands and were exposed to a lot of people. For me in particular, I just became completely disillusioned and saw what bullshit the music scene was. It’s why to this day, I don’t have opening acts. It’s like the term “Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.” Rock ’n’ roll, which is supposed to be the musical aspect of it, comes last—sex and drugs are first. It was the sort of thing where you run into other bands and they talked about anything else but the things that were actually important. So it just seemed like a lot of the illusion of what art was and why you do music were shattered when you met all these bands who were really just interested in partying and girls. They put very little time or effort into their craft. So what that means to me is that it’s something without soul and something without heart, and that’s what I relate about coming in with heart and being surrounded by a sea of things that don’t have anything truly to do with the path of healing.

How did the album come to be released by Grand Royal?
That was our dream come true. We used to put out our records ourselves, and then we did them on Fearless and Flipside. When the idea first came that labels were asking about us, we had the conversation with our manager about what would be the ultimate label for us. This was years and years before [Relationship of Command], but we said Grand Royal. It just seemed like the perfect thing. They had the right attitude and seemed to be doing it for the right reasons, yet they were sort of considered a major. They had some push behind them, tour support, all that kind of stuff. So if we could dream, it would be Grand Royal. Then years later, when we got signed after Fearless, we signed actually to a company called Den, and they were really ahead of their time, actually. It was sort of like this internet label. In fact, that was kind of the weight that crushed them. They were making TV shows that were gonna be strictly on the internet. They gave us a digital camera when we first signed with them that was nicer than our own. We kept filming everything and cut them up and with that we made these little programs. But at the time, most people’s internet connections weren’t fast enough, so it didn’t work. You’d sit there to watch the TV show and you’d give up. Then Den crumbled under some sort of scandal, I don’t know what it was. I wouldn’t wanna start a rumor, but one day the owners told us, “Den is closed. That’s the bad news. But the good news is that you’re gonna be on Grand Royal.” It literally happened from one moment to another. We couldn’t believe our ears. So the same core of people we were working with remained the same, just all of a sudden now we were talking to [Grand Royal owner and Beastie Boy] Mike D. Mike went on to put out a De Facto record, and we never asked him to. We never pushed it on him and said, “Oh, by the way, we have this [album from our other band].” He sort of just heard about it and put it out. Once I broke up [ATDI], I drove straight to L.A. and he was the first person I told. He was kind enough. I expected him to be mad at me and never want to talk to me again because they had gotten distribution with Virgin based purely off At The Drive-In. But instead of being mad at me, he said, “Well, whatever you do next, I definitely want to put it out.” So he was gonna put out the first Mars Volta record, and then Virgin pulled out completely and he decided to close Grand Royal.

Any more solo albums coming this year?
There’s four that have already come out and there’s six more coming this year. Then I’ll be releasing another film that hopefully will be in the winter festivals and then one that I’m making now that’ll hopefully be in the spring festivals. And touring in between all that, of course.

Back in my youth, when I attended summer camp, my Polish councilor (the lead singer of Polish rock band, Cool Kids of Death) introduced me to the glory, the legend, and insanity that was At the Drive-In. At the ripe age of 13, songs off of Relationship of Command were so cool to me, even though I had no idea what they were even saying. Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s lyrics and vocal style were unlike anything I had ever heard before, and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’ guitar sounded like what I wanted my guitar to sound like: Satan on cocaine. When The Mars Volta took fruition and all my friends began to rave about them, I thought they had taken everything to an all new and even crazier level. Something about the way Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez work as a team is fantastic during this day in age, and in a way, inspirational to create something far greater than anything most people’s ears have ever taken in. Not to mention, they both hyphenated last names. It just seems these two were a match made in rock and roll heaven that is the post-hardcore progressive punk equivalent of Lennon and McCartney.

It seems like an act of the magnitude that Cedric and Omar create could only come out of a place like Texas (El Paso, no less). While bumming around the El Paso hardcore scene, the two met each other when Omar was singing for a band called, Strattled Calf, and met through future At the Drive-In bass player and mutual friend, Paul Hinojos. When At the Drive-In took form, however, Jim Ward was the band’s original guitar player. Together, they formed the band after leaving another El Paso outfit, and recorded to EP’s in the early nineties entitled Hell Paso and ¡Alfaro Vive, Cajaro!” Both of these EP’s did not contain the riffage of Puerto Rican born sensation Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, because he was busy hitchhiking around the country. Eventually though, Bixler-Zavala called Rodriguez-Lope and told him to return to El Paso and when he did, he became the bassist for At the Drive-In.

The band recorded their first full-length album, Acrobatic Tenement. The album had more gritty, punk sound, almost reminiscent of the Replacements sound, but with Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s distinct vocal style. Their following EP, El Gran Orgo was a bit more melodically inclined, with epic tracks like the tight and rhythmic anger of “Honest to a Fault”, and “Fahrenheit”, a two-minute poetic collision from Bixler-Zavala, complete with shrill and early Rodriguez-Lopez genius. The band then recorded another full length album, in/Casino/Out, which was the climax of the band’s work as a unit. While it still contained their gritty punk sound, things began to sound a bit more polished and intense. The fast-paced and chopped “Alpha Centauri” and clear-sung and beautiful “For Now…We Toast” are included among the tracks recorded on this live-in-the-studio modern day masterpiece.

The reason behind this recording method was because people didn’t think they were capturing the glory of At the Drive-In’s live show on record. Their live show would define everything about them for the rest of their careers. The way Cedric Bixler-Zavala moves on stage, almost hurting himself for the good of the song. He literally hits the deck on numerous songs, only to bounce back up, while throwing the microphone into the air, catching it in time to deliver a chorus. He flails and thrusts in such a way that looks like slam dancing in Hell. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez on the other hand would pound on his strings in such a way that it looked like he could start gushing blood at any moment. Their live show projected them so fast, from touring with the likes of AFI and Mustard Plug, to suddenly opening for Rage Against the Machine. But, it wasn’t until 2001 that everything boiled over.

In my personal opinion, there is a period of work in the combined work of Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and it began with At the Drive-In’s final masterpiece, Relationship of Command. The album includes their hit song, “One Armed Scissor”, complete with Bixler-Zavala’s fantastic lyrics and what would become Omar’s signature guitar style. Tracks like “Sleepwalk Capsules”, “Mannequin Republic”, and “Enfilade” capture the fury, the rush and the mayhem within Rodriguez-Lopez’s guitar playing, as well as Bixler-Zavala’s ability to scream until his throat went numb. It’s just too bad the band broke up shortly after this album. In their time, At the Drive-In lit a new spark in modern hardcore, by turning it into a more intellectual type of music and it was all due to a combined chemistry and anger between the band’s leading two members.

However, there was no reason to fear because Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala kept at the music industry. It was clear they were destined to continue blowing minds for a living. They formed the Mars Volta shortly after, and recorded the Tremulant EP, which picks up right where Relationship of Command left off. Shortly after that though, they recorded what would go down as the Mars Volta’s masterpiece De-Loused in a Comatorium. While the record contained bizarre, post-modern lyrics, shrill guitar riffs that sounded like a derailing train and hardcore rhythm that seemed impossible, this oddity was a concept album about a man who tries to commit suicide by overdose, has a crazy head-trip while sleeping, and wakes up only to jump off a building since he is so disappointed with humanity. Songs like “Inertiatic ESP”, “Roulette Dares”, “Drunkship of Lanterns”, and “Televators”, all tell this horrific tale through their suspenseful and unprecedented sound. Who else could create a fucking album like this?

As a follow-up, the band released Frances the Mute, where things got much, much more experimental. The band began writing series of songs, increasing the instrumentation to a whole new level (so, so, so many bongos on this record), and creating twelve-minute epics. And for subject matter and lyrical inspiration, the band told the story of an orphan searching for his biological parents, which came from a diary found by their friend in a repossessed car. Songs like “The Widow”, are haunting with Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s flamenco style, combined with Bixler-Zavala’s ability to tear it the fuck up. The band also wrote two songs, constructed of various parts under the titles, “Miranda, That Ghost Just isn’t Holy Anymore”, and “Cassandra Gemini”, which ranged up to 32 minutes. It was here the Mars Volta claimed their throne, and the two musicians became icons of modern day music, showing that they could escape the boundaries of what music enthusiasts could perceive as possible.

The problem was that it was becoming too insane for most human minds to handle. Their next effort, Amputechture, was their first non-narrative record, and dealt with themes in current events. With eight tracks, a number of them being about 15 minutes in length, it marked a new style for the Mars Volta, that people did not seem to understand or enjoy. Then came The Bedlam in Goliath, an album I have only listened to once and thought it was too shrill and wild for my brain to handle while I read over biology notes. There was also, last year’s Octahedron took them back to their roots a bit, with shorter and tighter songs. The Mars Volta though have kept their torch lit for the insane live shows that they put on. As a result they are still one of the most relevant and important bands of our time. They still tour, and they still put on a tremendous show, and they are still putting out albums.

Together, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala have been the driving force to keep their bands moving forward, experimenting with new types of sound in their rare brand of post-hardcore progressive jazz salsa punk. They have never been afraid to do anything, both live and in the studio. Nobody can truly classify the music these two have created, and that’s what makes them so iconic. They created something nobody can name. As long as these two keep plugging away at their respected instruments, their station of genius will always be operational.

On short notice, I was able to sit backstage and speak with two of the most intimate, prolific and passionate players of our time—Vato Negro, which is Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Juan Adelante and Deantoni Parks. The set times were running way behind, but these extremely humble artists were still willing to give an interview five minutes before downbeat.

SS: Vato Negro was supposed to perform at the One Day as a Lion show at Eagle Rock at the Center for the Arts, but there was a last-minute cancellation. Do you have a previous relationship or connection to Zach De La Rocha and One Day as a Lion, besides Jon Theodore (former drummer of The Mars Volta)?
Omar: Yeah, we’re friends. I’ve known him since the At the Drive-In days. Zach took us on tour. And [Juan] has known him.
Juan: Yeah, I’ve known Zach since I saw them at Roggie’s, before they had the record deal. Jon was in the band, and Joey from The Locust (keyboards and synthesizers for One Day as a Lion) is on Omar’s label, Gold Standard Laboratories.

SS: To me, music is a very spiritual thing and can create a trance-like window into the spiritual world. Music accomplishes the feeling that religion strives to, even being dependent on it to evoke the otherworldly state. I’ve read a book by a jazz piano player, and he talks of getting to an inner heaven during his improvisational playing. He believes God is speaking through his instrument and music is the purist form of religion. What are your thoughts on how this relates to your live performances and your writing process?
Omar: Fuck, that’s a big-ass question.
Juan: I say we pass that one on to Dee [Deantoni Parks, Vato Negro drummer). Ha ha. Who was the piano player?

SS: Ken Werner of Effortless Mastery.
Omar: I think that anyone who plays music will tell you that there’s no greater high than playing music, know what I mean? You can see it in Coltrane, where he gets off drugs and his music gets even further and further out. I think any musician, any artist describes playing music as reaching some sort of nirvana or a type of meditation or your “zone.” There are a million different words for it. But as general as it is, it’s also individual to every person.

SS: I completely understand. Some people might not pull that same experience.
Omar: It’s connected to spirituality, because music exists whether we play it or not, that’s what people don’t understand. What we do is we carve a rock that exists, like a sculptor who sees the statue that has to come out of it. That’s all we are doing…training ourselves to always see the music that’s in the air, and we pull it out of there. So really we’re not authors of anything and nothing belongs to us, because it’s already written and already exists.

SS: Exactly. To me, music is the most primitive and universal form of a language or communication.
Omar: You mentioned going to music school, and that’s why people waste too much time on music theory and not about the basic concepts or the spirituality of it with the approach. Deantoni taught at Berklee College of Music [in Boston] and tried to do just that. Of course that didn’t last too long because that’s just not how people want things run. But I think that if you went to music school and before you play a note, you have to watch Man on Wire, watch Fellini Satyricon, you have to go look at Marcel Duchamp’s work, and if they took that approach, more people would see the sculpture inside of the rock. Instead, people are looking in text, which really doesn’t teach you anything. You can read about it all you want.

SS: Definitely. Academia opposed to practicality.
Omar: Yeah, it just ends up producing faceless musicians.

SS: Do you guys have any rituals before you play?
Omar: We usually hang out together. That’s a ritual, or sometimes we warm up together. Laughter is a ritual—we make each other laugh, listen to music. I think that anything you do is a ritual, whether you know it or not. If you look back at things that you do before you play, you realize the pattern, even if the pattern wasn’t intentional. Then there are intentional patterns, like I said. The Mars Volta, we always warm up together.
Juan: Shots will go.
Omar: People who drink will have a toast, things like that. There are conscious rituals and then there are unconscious rituals that spring from togetherness and wanting to do this music.

SS: Juan, you were a member of Racer X. What are the similarities and differences of playing with Omar and Paul Gilbert in which there are two completely different styles of music?
Juan: That’s like apples and oranges, you know, like jazz and country. Ha ha. It’s hard, but it is all music. And that was so long ago, at least the spirit of what it was back then. I think the common thread is that every time you play, it’s heavy and very demanding. Your effort makes a huge impact on all the other dudes and vice versa. And I’ve played in other bands where it wasn’t like that, so if there are any similarities it’s that.

SS: And now for a nerdy question. Can you explain the collaboration between you, Cedric [Bixler-Zavala], RZA and MF Doom on the Handsome Boy Modeling School song “White People”? Was that intentional or a mere coincidence with Handsome Boy Modeling School as a middle man?
Omar: All of the above. I’ve been a fan of RZA, Handsome Boy Modeling School and Dan the Automator, so as far as intentional, sure, I have sat in my room and thought, “Man, it would be cool to do something with them.” And coincidence, sure, everything just happens, maybe I wheeled them to me. I have no idea. But the fact is somehow it happened, and one day the phone rings with a number I don’t know and they leave a message. It’s Dan the Automator, and he says, “I want you to do this track. Can you bring Cedric?” Yes, we make the track and then are on the record. We go listen to it and then say, “Oh my god. This is crazy. Remember we used to listen to the first record all the time when we lived in Long Beach? So we probably ask ourselves the same question.
Juan: [to Omar] Remember he called me and said, “Can Omar and Cedric help out on a track?” Yeah, here are their numbers. I just know him from the Bay.

SS: Omar, you are producing the upcoming Le Butcherettes full-length release Sin Sin Sin. She told me about how you met at a concert in Mexico City. How is producing Le Butcherettes different than your personal production endeavors?
Omar: I don’t control it. I have to let go and realize that somebody else is my boss. That’s the big difference, and I have to serve their music, because I might have my own concept of what their music is gonna be, but just like with music or making something, you can’t make anyone learn a lesson. You can’t make anyone see something you are seeing, and you can’t force a situation. You take what’s there and where that thing is at the time, and you give your best to the project to make it what it needs to be, not what you want it to be.

SS: When will your upcoming movie, The Sentimental Engine Slayer, become publicly available?
Omar: Right now it’s in Europe doing all the festivals, and it’ll probably play in some theaters here, but as you know, independent cinema is a joke, and it’s disappearing. People only care about films if it’s an event film, which my film is not. Most likely we will have a limited run and then put it out on DVD, but this does not mean that we do not make films. I’ve made three films since and will continue to make things even in the face of other’s diversions, which is the other cinema that is available to us.

Omar Rodriguez Lopez of Vato Negro will be playing as the Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group as part of a recently announced tour when they play a SOLD OUT show at the Troubadour on Tuesday, September 14 with Le Bucherettes.

September 14th: Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group w/ Le Bucherettes at the Troubadour

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez : IPaintMyMind Exclusive Interview
September 23rd, 2010 | Published in Features, Music



OMAR RODRIGUEZ-LOPEZ:

IPaintMyMind Exclusive Interview

“Definitions of what I’m doing exist in other people’s minds, but not in mine. In my mind, I’m chasing what it is, and my tastes are constantly changing…Music. Art. Whatever you’re doing, it should mirror your life.”

For all the hyperbole surrounding The Mars Volta, there’s something affirmative about people who are unwaveringly devoted to making their mental projections a reality. The size-able niche Omar Rodriguez-Lopez has carved around his various projects is entirely based on his vision. He adds and subtracts pieces, instruments, and people, who come together creatively in shifting proportions, based on the tone of Rodriguez-Lopez’s his next artistic revolt. In a years time, he releases more music than most artists release over 5 years. His impetus for pushing the boundaries of his own creative output is the same driving factor that has framed all great art that has ever existed in the world – a desire to grow and evolve through creative expression. Despite the formulaic nature of the music industry, Omar has been able to stay busy, almost even working ahead of himself in an attempt to chart unexplored soundscapes who’s birth occurs in his minds-eye.

IPaintMyMind was able to photograph and meet up with Omar before his show at The Congress Theatre in Chicago, IL (9.18.10), where he was finishing up a tour with the Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group, one of of his many musical endeavors. This was a rare occasion since Omar hasn’t tended to bring his lesser known projects on tour, opting for an array of studio releases instead. On this night, it was clear that the devoted fan base was excited to see his latest incarnation, despite a lighter crowd than can be expected when The Mars Volta rolls into town. The groups’ set-up for the show was apropos – drummer Deantoni Parks was sideways, front and center, with Omar behind him, and the band playing in a circular shape, as if huddled around the main power source in a one-room jam space.

Before the gig, we sat down with Omar as Le Butcherrettes blasted behind us. As the crowd livened, so did Omar, and we’re glad he let us engage his synapses despite a crazy night of travel before arriving in Chicago. The reality is, at IPMM, we admire Omar’s passion, perspective, and most assuredly, his music. Topics of conversation? The latest Omar release, Tychozorente, what’s next for The Mars Volta, fake democracies, and how Omar and I both want to apprentice under Madlib.

words by Evan La Ruffa

photos by Brent Murray

EVAN: Lets start with whats been going on lately..I know I’m gonna butcher the name of the album you just released this week…

OMAR: …You can pronounce it however you want, it’s a made up word…

EVAN: I thought it had to be…(Laughs)

OMAR: Yea yea…Three different pieces of words I had seen somewhere and written in my journal at different points, and then they just sorta came together and I just thought it looked like an interesting word.



EVAN: And you made that album with DJ Nobody?

OMAR: Yea, actually, it was done awhile ago. It was just sort of sitting in the vaults, and I had done all this electronic music and had Ximena sing to it, and then there were some areas where some beats were missing, so Nobody just placed the beats in there….and then I was hanging out with Elvin (DJ Nobody) when I was in LA a couple months ago and he asked me what ever happened to it, and then so, I put it out.

EVAN: I was gonna say, cuz I hadn’t heard about it coming out, and then I was like, oh shit, new Omar album…

OMAR: Yea, I just kinda pulled it out and posted it.

EVAN: Nice man, and you don’t play any guitar on the album…

OMAR: Yea, that was during an era when I made several albums with no guitar on it…and then I started doing a blend with very little guitar…it was just where I was at, probably where I’ll be going again.

EVAN: Awesome…and as far as the Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group, this is one of the first time’s you’ve done a tour in the United States.

OMAR: Yea, I’ve usually done Japan, Europe, Russia, anywhere but the U.S. (laughs)…



EVAN: (Laughs) Why exactly?

OMAR: It’s hard to explain, it’s just a different mentality in the U.S. than in Europe or anywhere else, as far as what’s happening behind the scenes. You have to understand, when you’re an unknown band for example, when At The Drive In was first touring…when you tour in the US in a van and are unknown, everywhere you show up you’re treated as a nuisance. So you get there, and they don’t open til late, and then you ask them for water, and they’re like “argggh, hold on, well, I don’t know, you’re gonna have to talk to the promoter,” and blah blah blah. You get to Europe and they’re happy to receive you, they work out a place for you to stay, they cook food for you, it’s just a different mentality. Even on the level of being a person who’s known and who’s bringing people into their venue, and selling out the venue for them, it’s still a little weird…

EVAN: …It’s like shit man, am I imposing?

OMAR: Yea yea! There’s still just red tape…although I have to say, like The Troubador is a cool place cuz I have a good history with them, and they’re always really great… Highline Ballroom is really cool too…..but here’s an example, at another place, the promoter was great but the people who run the place…I brought cameras with me cuz I just wanted to film the shows and edit them for the fans, instead of all those shitty camera phones, and the promoter wanted to charge me $5000 per camera. They just wouldn’t let me film. But at the same time, people have HD cameras in the balcony, but they’re busting my guys’ balls. It’s just kinda ridiculous in this day and age…

EVAN: Not being able to film your own show seems nuts. As far as your music, I wanted to talk to you about seeing music visually, as shapes and concepts, as opposed to thinking of it musically all the time. One of the things that has always interested me about your stuff, was the thought of, did he really think of this ahead of time? Ya know, do you conceive it in smaller parts and then realize what the overall piece is as you organize it, or are you always focusing on the mental image you’ve had of the whole?



OMAR: It’s generally about the album and what the album’s missing, and so I think of it as a whole. Now that means that at times you have to micromanage things and think about certain individual parts once you realize what’s missing from the whole. Like when I wrote Frances (The Mute), when I first showed it to Cedric, I showed it to him as a drawing before I showed him any of the music.

EVAN: What was the drawing?

OMAR: It was just shapes. There was a triangle-looking thing at the beginning and at the end, and when I showed him the acoustic part that happens in the beginning and the end, he understood that…the pieces that grow and get bigger, like a film. Cedric, also being a non-musician thinks very much in those terms also, so he saw it and he got it right away.

EVAN: As far as the way you seem to change your focus from album to album, and go in a different direction. Do you look back at the previous album and say, as far as Volta, Octahedron, it was that, it was missing this, I want to make sure the next album contains what that was missing….



OMAR: In general, I definitely look at the previous album and try to revolt against it. Bedlam was a very heavy album, that’s why Octahedron sounded the way it did, and ya know, Octahedron for me was a failure, and so now I’m trying to do what I couldn’t do then, and see how I can do it differently… eliminate elements that I thought were right on at that time, and maybe bring in elements that I was afraid to do at the time.

EVAN: So why is Octahedron a failure? Just because it’s the last record? Sounds harsh…

OMAR: But that’s for me ya know? The difficult thing about creating something that other people get to hear is that everyone has their own perception of it and they get really tied to something. If you fell in love or had a breakup during a certain album, it represents something totally different for you than it does for me. And the same goes for me…people can get stuck on one thing, and it’s easier when you’re on the other side of it, when you didn’t make it, when you didn’t live with it for months, it’s easy to get stuck on it and say, “This is their best moment,” or “This is The Mars Volta.” So, definitions of what I’m doing exist in other people’s minds, but not in mine. In my mind, I’m chasing what it is, and my tastes are constantly changing. I have to chase that…

For instance, the album that neither of us can pronounce, that just came out (Laughs), it has some of my favorite stuff on it. I think this is amazing for me because it’s the first time I’ve written in a major key. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do, because it’s not natural for me. I have to work at it. And a lot of people have already come up to me and don’t get that. Like, “Why does it sound happy” or “Why does it sound like this”?

The easiest way I can explain it to them is, when you first get into a relationship, and you first start having sex, do you just settle on the first position for the rest of your life? (Laughs) You know what I mean? I hate to bring it to such a crude level but you have to think about it in its simplest form…No, you don’t (settle on the first position). Why? Because you want to try different things, the body just craves it. The mind craves it. It’s no different when making music. It’s the same type of high that is achieved during an orgasm or a religious experience, so this means that you want to explore, and see what’s out there. I’m constantly gonna be chasing the next thing because it’s what interests me.



EVAN: It’s funny because I’ve heard you make comments along those lines before, in different settings, and I end up thinking, of course it makes sense to push forward into new territory, just the way one should generally in life, whether you make music or not…

OMAR: Exactly….

EVAN: …And I think sometimes the reality is that people fall into habit and a narrow script becomes their life…

OMAR: Most people do…most people are afraid of change. In marriages there are a lot of people who are unhappy, who can’t deal with the fact that they’re not in love with each other. Or just getting into what’s safe and what’s comfortable, I just don’t think it’s a healthy way to live. I think the only purpose for a human being to be here, is to evolve to the point where you’re closer to God, whatever God is to you. The only way you can do that, is by evolving and changing and growing, and getting rid of all the layers that cover God, that cover the inside. Whether that’s society or your parents, and their sickness. So you can talk about it in spiritual terms, you can talk about Jung and Freud, or talk about ridding yourself of that neurosis that belongs to your parents, and their parents, and your parents parents parents. Stripping those layers is important, we crave to be better, we wall want to live healthy and happy lives….but we keep ourselves from doing it because we fall into what is safe for us and we make the same mistakes.

Every time you fail a test that life puts in front of you, it’ll put it there again. A year down the road, three years down the road. I have a friend that can’t be faithful to his woman… and I always tell him that if he can’t be faithful then he shouldn’t have a woman. Just live honestly with yourself. But each time he gets himself into a really great situation or finds a really great person, where he’s right there and can evolve, and the second that situation gets put in front of him, it falls apart. Ya know, that will never work. I think it was Einstein who said, “the true definition of insanity is to go through the same motions and expect a different result.” Music. Art. Whatever you’re doing, should mirror your life.



EVAN: I also wanted to ask you about the album “Old Money” that you released on Stonesthrow. They’re a label IPMM follows closely, basically because nearly everything they put out is quality. How’d you come to release it with them? You’re buddies with Wolf, right?

OMAR: It was mainly that (I know Peanut Butter Wolf) and love the label, and respect their artists, and PBW, and it felt right. Egon over there was giving me these great mixes from Brazil…

EVAN: Yea, Now Again’s re-issues are always on point…

OMAR: Yea, they find great old recordings and put ‘em out. We just got to talking about it and it seemed like a cool thing to do.

EVAN: I was going to tie that question into Madlib. He’s another guy who releases about as many recording as you do each year…

OMAR: Madlib is amazing. He’s a big inspiration. For me, Madlib, he’s the real deal. I’m just a person looking for answers, you know what I mean? I tried to climb my way out of something…I don’t know his thoughts on his work…I would like to be an apprentice to him, he’s definitely someone to learn from.



EVAN: I agree completely. I read an interview with Erykah Badu in Wax Poetics recently, where she spoke about times for creative input and times for creative output (there are times to take things in, and times to create ourselves), and that writers block/creative block doesn’t really exist, that we psych ourselves out by thinking that way… I relate to the sense of feeling like a sponge at one moment, and a faucet at others….

OMAR: I was about to say, writer’s block doesn’t really exist. It’s a myth created by individual neurosis, which can become collective neurosis. Ya know, it’s like, I heard this guy had writer’s block, do I have writer’s block? Am I gonna get writer’s block? I think I have writer’s block! (Laughs)

EVAN: (Laughs) Ahhh, I can’t think of anything!

OMAR: That’s how ridiculous that is. To me, that’s like saying that there are no thoughts in my head. I mean, people work their whole lives to attain that type of… Buddhists work their whole life to silence their mind. We all wake up and we’re thinking things. You wake up and you go… Did I charge the battery on the camera? I gotta go down there… What time do I have to be there? I should call my girlfriend. Did I ever pick up that thing? Your mind’s constantly wandering. Writer’s block is just a neurosis.

EVAN: You’ve mentioned different musicians and filmmakers who’ve influenced you and I wanted to ask you about writers. You mention Jodorowsky within the film context, not as much as a writer, but I also wondered if you had gotten into Carlos Castaneda’s work?



OMAR: Oh definitely. Castaneda’s amazing, and Jodorowsky as a writer is amazing, no one ever asks me about him as a writer. I think outside of Latin cultures it’s not really known….I think one of his books has now been translated to English. People don’t talk about it but he’s a wonderful writer.

EVAN: His writing is definitely harder to find…

OMAR: Since I was young, I really loved Fromm and Jung. My father is a psychologist, so I’ve always had an affinity towards exploration of the mind and the root of neurosis. Jodorowsky’s books are way more important than his films, and then there’s his work with the Tarot. My mind is drawing a blank, but Octavio Paz is definitely a great writer. Some of my favorite stuff comes from the Sufi poets. They have such great metaphors for love, and God, and have a really great way of communicating big concepts in simple ways.

I think that’s one of my favorite things about expression, and one of the things that I lack that I’m trying to attain… There are those people who take really big ideas and make them very simple. Someone like John Lennon, someone like Jodorowsky. He takes big ideas and makes them into very simple images. I think this is an incredible form of expression.

EVAN: I’ve always felt like you took a more realistic approach in the way you run your bands. As far as, this is my ship….I want you to play and record this. Ya know, bands employ this faux-democracy…

OMAR: Oh yea, I constantly refer to it as a fake democracy. I learned that from all my bands before this band. On one hand, there’s people who will say it’s negative, that it’s a dictatorship. On the other hand, I agree with you, I come from the school of thought that it’s just realistic. I existed in a fake democracy, we did At The Drive In and those guys resented me and Cedric because we were outvoted but had our way. Our songs made it on to the record, it was what we wanted to do. And so, my original idea was that instead of having all that frustration was to from the beginning make it very clear how things are. But even then, when you tell them it’s like this, I think they come in feeling like they can change you…and it’s not a matter of letting someone in, we can all relate to it in relationships…



EVAN: I was gonna say, I think it happens in other aspects of life also…

OMAR: And sooner or later it creates tension, and then you split up for the reasons that you told them about in the beginning. Either way, it’s kinda what ends up happening, but at least you know you were honest.

EVAN: I mean, I like the ATDI stuff, but it’s definitely not my favorite of the stuff you’ve done, and in my own mind, that level of compromise that people throw into the creative process is what derails the creative vision. Ya know, what if this whole time since ATDI you were listening to what someone else wanted, and the vision you wanted to see happen didn’t happen?

OMAR: Right, right.

EVAN: So that makes me think of other creative people who compromise, and ya know, fuck man! Tell them you want it a certain way and do it!

OMAR: My favorite recordings from the artists’ that I love, are the ones where they just start being honest with themselves, and let go of any of the other pretensions, and they say what they want, and say it clear. And it’s usually backwards as far as artists, and scenesters, and really hip people, ya know…the whole joke is that the first record is amazing, but after that… I couldn’t agree less. I love the first Pink Floyd record. Yes, I understand what’s so amazing about it. But I think the most honest things are what Syd Barret does afterwards, where he lets go of all the bullshit, and it’s just his heart and soul. I think what Floyd do without him afterwards gets more and more interesting. I love The Beatles. The Beatles are amazing. I love John Lennon lyrics during The Beatles, but there’s nothing more potent than when he does Plastic Ono Band and he says, “My mother’s dead and I can’t get over it.” There’s nothing more potent than that.

EVAN: Tell us a bit about your partnership with Jeff Jordan – Jeff is a great dude, I’ve always felt it was a natural aesthetic fit… What about his art made you think it would serve as an apt visual equivalent/reference point for your music?

OMAR: It’s unexplainable. The same way you’d say, why are we friends? Ya know, what did we see in each other? I remember at the time we had just fired Storm (Thorgeson), it just didn’t work out. So we were searching for stuff and Cedric brought me a bunch of stuff from a bunch of different artists. Jeff’s stuff was just one thumbnail amongst many, and I was just like, that’s Amputechture, right there. I don’t know what the name of the painting is but I’m calling it Amputechture. So, it just happened…and then people give their own meaning to it. It’s so much more instinctual and random than that.



EVAN: For me, the fact that a random intersection point like that comes up makes it more perfect to me. Just the way any one thing can lead you to any other thing…

OMAR: Definitely… Obviously, there is a reason I went to it, not knowing it, it was my subconscious speaking. And the subconscious is way more in tune with what’s happening in here than the conscious mind. It sometimes takes the conscious mind years to catch up to the subconscious.

EVAN: So what’s up next? When can we expect the next TMV record?

OMAR: This is the last show of the tour and then we have a few shows in Russia soon. I’m just waiting for Cedric to finish his lyrics, and I’ll finish recording him and that will end the next The Mars Volta record…. The music has been there for 11 months now, Cedric has sorta just been doing his thing. I’m to the point now where I’m not pressuring him to get it done. Just because that can lead to the type of writer’s block we were just talking about… I think when we got to Octahedron, it just sort of surfaced that it might be better to put it in park and let him do his thing and take his time….I hope to be done with the record by the end of this year, but it depends on label politics…could be March, June, who knows…

EVAN: Is there any place and time in history, as far as creative things that were going on that you wish you could have been in the middle of?

OMAR: Oh, yea…Rome…I love Roman history, from Octavius Cesar to Caligula. That’s one period in history that utterly fascinates me. I’d like to be there, but I’d like to be invisible. I wouldn’t want to get stabbed, or fed to the lions (Laughs)…I’m really amazed by the ability of man to document things, especially in that era. It’s that life-affirming necessity to write things down.

EVAN: Thanks for making the time Omar…I think we’ve got more than enough to do something cool…

OMAR: Ok, great…