The Mars Volta
The Mars Volta |
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The Mars Volta is an American rock group founded by Cedric Bixler-Zavala, Omar Rodríguez-López, Isaiah "Ikey" Owens, and Jeremy Michael Ward in 2001. They are generally considered progressive rock, with jazz, punk, psychedelic, and Latin influences. They are known for their wild, energetic and improvised live shows, as well as their usually concept-based studio albums.
History
The Beginning
The roots of The Mars Volta are found in the side project of At the Drive-In members Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez known as De Facto; which also included Jeremy Michael Ward: audio technician, close friend, and cousin of At the Drive-In member Jim Ward. De Facto featured Bixler-Zavala on drums, Rodriguez-Lopez on bass, and Ward with various loop, vocal, sound, and distortion effects, — a composite of sounds, hanging squarely on tripped-out, instrumental dub. Though De Facto started as a local band with a rock feel, they were rooted in the realm of dub reggae pioneers such as Lee Perry and Dr. Alimantado. The group also dabbled in electronica, Latin, salsa, and jazz which provided them with a distinct sound. The band played local shows around their home town, El Paso, Texas, and released their first album How Do You Dub? You Fight for Dub, You Plug Dub In.
The group eventually moved to Long Beach, California in 2000 and keyboardist Ikey Owens was added to the band lineup. In 2001, De Facto released their second album, Megaton Shotblast, on Gold Standard Laboratories, and received instant success. Although much of their initial fan base was based upon their association with At the Drive-In, De Facto continued experimenting with new sounds after Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala decided to end their time with the other band. The remaining members of At the Drive-In went on to form Sparta. Rodriguez-Lopez cited frustration with growing mainstream success, as well as creative suffocation as his motivation for quitting At the Drive-In, although Bixler-Zavala takes credit for the break-up of the band.
Eva Gardner joined De Facto, and it became what is now The Mars Volta, a new project they envisioned would fulfill their creative desires. During 2001, the band recorded two songs with drummer Blake Fleming and producer Alex Newport, which became their first demo. Later the lineup for their first public show at Chain Reaction in Anaheim, California was Rodriguez-Lopez, Bixler-Zavala, Owens, Gardner, Ward, and drummer Jon Theodore. This lineup recorded three more tracks with Alex Newport, which became the Tremulant EP, released sparsely in early 2002. Since the demise of At the Drive-In, Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala once again found themselves performing in small clubs characterized by chaotic live shows and heavy drug use.[1]
De-Loused in the Comatorium
Following the Tremulant EP, The Mars Volta continued touring and changing band members while preparing for De-Loused in the Comatorium, produced with Rick Rubin. Whereas Tremulant had no general theme (except the prophetic mentioning of its follow-up album), De-Loused was a unified work of speculative fiction that told the story from the first-person perspective of a drug-induced coma, in which the protagonist battles with the evil side of his mind. Though lyrically obscure, The Mars Volta stated in interviews that the album's protagonist is based on their late friend Julio Venegas, or "Cerpin Taxt", as mentioned in the story, who was in a coma several years prior to his awakening, after which he jumped from the Mesa Street overpass onto Interstate-10 in El Paso during afternoon rush-hour traffic. Venegas' death was also referenced in the At the Drive-In song "Ebroglio" from their album Acrobatic Tenement. The music on the album is heavily inspired by prog-rock pioneers King Crimson, even going so far as to directly quote passages from Larks' Tongues in Aspic.
At the time of the recording the band did not have a bass player. Flea (bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) played bass on nine of the ten songs on the LP. De-Loused became both critically and commercially their biggest hit, eventually selling in excess of 500,000 copies despite next-to-no promotion, but featured on several critics' "Best of the Year" lists. The band later released a limited-edition storybook version of the album, available by download from the Gold Standard Laboratories Web site. The book speaks of Cerpin Taxt (sometimes referred to as the album/story's "hero") and his suicide.
While on tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in support of their album, Ward was found dead of a heroin overdose. The band canceled the tour's second leg, and the first single from De-Loused was later dedicated to Ward. It was this event which finally convinced bandmembers Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala to finally quit using opioids.[1]
Frances the Mute
As the band resumed touring De-Loused, they added Juan Alderete (Racer X) on bass and Marcel Rodríguez-Lopez (brother of Omar) on percussion. Work on their second album began in 2004.
In 2005, the band released their second full-length album, Frances the Mute. The album was inspired by late sound technician Jeremy Ward, who found a diary in a car he repossessed while working as a repo-man. Each track of the album is loosely based on characters described within the diary.
Frances started out as an even bigger commercial hit than De-Loused, moving 123,000 copies in its first week and debuting at number four on the Billboard album charts, largely because "The Widow" received a considerable amount of radio air-play. Reviews of Frances were generally positive (with a 75 on Metacritic) if somewhat polarized; Rolling Stone called it "a feverish and baroque search for self that conjures up the same majesty and gravity as Led Zeppelin three decades before,"[2] while Pitchfork Media called it "a homogeneous shitheap of stream-of-consciousness turgidity."[3] However, even the detractors of Frances the Mute generally praised the band's musical abilities.[4] "L'Via L'Viaquez" was later released as a single, stripped down from its original twelve-minute length to five minutes.
Rodriguez-Lopez wrote all the instrumental parts (guitar, keyboard, and drum lines with help from Theodore) as well as arranging and producing the session himself. He used a method that jazz musicians such as Miles Davis used to invoke great performances from bandmates: refusing to let the other members hear each other's parts, or the context of their own part, thereby forcing them to play each part as if it were a self-sufficient song. In order to accomplish this, the musicians recorded to the pulse of a metronome.
On May 20th, 2005, instead of playing a traditional set at KROQ's Weenie Roast Festival, the band played a 40 minute improvisational jam that was jokingly named on-spot as "Abortion, The Other White Meat" by Omar.
Mid-way through their headlining U.S. tour, former At the Drive-In member Paul Hinojos left the band Sparta to join The Mars Volta, claiming, "My time with Sparta has run its course, and simply wasn't fun anymore." He is now their sound manipulator, the position being previously held by the late Ward. Hinojos had also toured with The Mars Volta in 2003 and 2004.
During mid-2005, the band toured in support of the album with System of a Down and curated the All Tomorrow's Parties festival[5] (which featured bands and artists including the Locust, Mastodon, Blonde Redhead, and Diamanda Galás), titled A Nightmare Before Christmas.
In addition, a full-length live album named Scabdates was released on November 8, 2005.
Frances the Mute, which debuted at a career-best No. 4 on the Billboard Top 200 (selling roughly 100,000 copies in the first week), has sold nearly 465,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan ratings.
Amputechture
Amputechture was released in Australia on September 9, 2006, on September 8, 2006 in Europe and on September 12, 2006 in the US. Omar Rodríguez-Lopez produced the record and Rich Costey mixed it. The artwork was created by Jeff Jordan. It was their first album that was not a concept album. Although the motif of "amputation" was explored there was no underlying narrative. It was also to be their last album with drummer Jon Theodore.
John Frusciante was featured on every track on Amputechture, except for "Asilos Magdalena". Rodríguez-Lopez contributed the solos and riffs where the guitar work needed to be doubled. Bixler-Zavala said in an interview, "…he taught Frusciante all the new songs and Frusciante tracked guitars for us so Omar could sit back and listen to the songs objectively. It's great that he wants to help us and do that." Upon completion of the recording, the band embarked on a North American Tour opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers until the beginning of late 2006.
On July 28, 2006, drummer Jon Theodore was replaced by Blake Fleming, formerly of Laddio Bolocko, Dazzling Killmen, and the very first Mars Volta demos. In addition, Paul Hinojos expanded his role, contributing both guitar and sound manipulation skills.
The Mars Volta's live set at Endfest in Auburn, Washington on August 12 took a turn for the worse when around halfway through their set, the group was pelted with a water bottle filled with urine by members of the crowd after Cedric Bixler-Zavala made comments about of some of the fans who were slam dancing, a practice which that band was previously critical of. The band then cut their performance short after Rodríguez-Lopez smashed his malfunctioning guitar into an amplifier.[citation needed] As they left, Cedric Bixler-Zavala told the crowd, "I will pay $ 100 to $1,000 to somebody to find the person that's throwing urine up here. I will give you free merchandise and a lifetime supply [of passes] to Mars Volta shows. Find that person and kick his ass for me. Bring me his head and we'll be friends.".[6]
A new song entitled "Rapid Fire Tollbooth" was debuted live on September 22, 2006 in Chicago, IL, as reported by fans and attendees of the show who had received set lists from the stage.
On September 25, The Mars Volta played a unique set on the opening night of a double-header in Toronto, Ontario. Cedric Bixler-Zavala fell ill and could not perform, so The Mars Volta played with John Frusciante on third guitar. The set consisted of over 47 minutes of instrumental material, including a lengthy cover of the Pink Floyd composition "Interstellar Overdrive".
On October 17, while opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in East Rutherford, New Jersey, the band played with drummer Deantoni Parks, it was later revealed Blake Fleming was removed without explanation. Parks remained with the band only until the conclusion of the Japanese tour because of his prior commitments with other bands.
On a 2007 episode of The Henry Rollins Show, The Mars Volta performed "Tetragrammaton" and "Day of the Baphomets" in a rare television performance. Afterwards, they did an interview with Rollins about the creation of Amputechture.
The Bedlam in Goliath
In 2007 Thomas Pridgen became the new permanent drummer for the band. He joined them at the March 12th show in New Zealand, where the band debuted the song known as "Idle Tooth" on the band's setlists, which later appears as "Wax Simulacra" in Bixler-Zavala's on stage lyric booklet.
After shows in New Zealand and Australia, The Mars Volta toured a few West Coast venues as the headliner, then entered the studio to record the fourth LP titled The Bedlam in Goliath.[7]
Planned for release around the same time as the new album is a live concert DVD shot by director Jorge Hernandez Aldana of one of their most recent Australian performances.[8]
Rodriguez-Lopez also composed the score to the film El Búfalo de la Noche, which was written and directed by Guillermo Arriaga and Jorge Hernandez Aldana respectively. The Mars Volta as a whole performed the score.[9]
In addition, other future projects have been mentioned by band members. One is a film shot by Rodriguez-Lopez documenting the entire history of the band including studio and backstage footage taken over the years. Another is a new live album similar to Scabdates featuring songs from Frances the Mute and Amputechture.[8]
The band kicked off their supporting tour with a December 29, 2007 "secret show" at the Echoplex in Los Angeles, California, followed by a special New Year's Eve performance at San Francisco's Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.[10] That night they played their first ever acoustic set, which included six songs and the first live performance of "Miranda, That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore" [11] The band then departed on a club tour of east coast U.S. throughout January, with an album release show at San Diego's Soma, followed by another month's worth of European dates from mid-February to mid-March.
On November 5th, 2007, The Mars Volta released a document by Jeremy Robert Johnson entitled, "The Mars Volta's Descent into Bedlam: A Rhapsody in Three Parts".[12] It includes a history of the band and describes the obstacles and inspirations they encountered in the creation of The Bedlam in Goliath.
The Bedlam in Goliath is set to be released by Universal Records on January 29th, 2008. For the B-side of the Wax Simulacra single, the band recorded a cover of Siouxsie and the Banshees.
On January 2 The Mars Volta released an online game called "Goliath: The Soothsayer". It is a game based on a true story that inspired their forthcoming album "The Bedlam In Goliath". The album chronicles the band's purported experience with the "Soothsayer," a Ouija board owned by vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala and its transition from a source of fun on tour to a psycho-spiritual force that almost tore the band apart. The game is available exclusively via Amazon.com from January 2nd through January 29th, the release date for the album. [citation needed]
On January 16th, The Bedlam in Goliath was leaked onto numerous Torrent websites.
On January 17th, the band made their network television debut, performing Wax Simulcara of The Late Show with David Letterman
Album Five
In a recent article on The Mars Volta in Relix magazine, it was stated that "Rodriguez-Lopez is constantly recording solo albums, Volta songs, soundtracks and has filmed almost every moment of The Mars Volta for a movie that he will one day release. As the band tries to figure out how to play Bedlam live, Rodriguez-Lopez already has the next two albums laid out musically and is knee deep in production on the follow up to Bedlam. "its a mellow album" he says "the last one was our most aggressive. The next one we keep calling our acoustic album." [13]
Cedric Bixler has expressed an urge for their next album to not be released on a major label [14].
Etymology and trivia
Cedric Bixler-Zavala stated in an interview:
The Volta is taken from a Federico Fellini book about his films, what he characterizes as a changing of scene, or a turnaround; a new scene to him is called Volta. Y'know, changing of time and the changeover. And Mars, we're just fascinated by science-fiction so and it's something that ultimately looked as in anything I write, its meaning is always up to the listener. As the way we write songs and words, if it looks great on paper then to us it's like painting, so if it looks good meaning the second then people usually have a better interpretation than we ever would.
The article "The" is used to disambiguate the band from a group of European techno artists that previously took the name "Mars Volta".
The music sample that The Mars Volta use to introduce their live shows is the title theme to the film A Fistful of Dollars, composed by Ennio Morricone. The band had also introduced their earlier live shows with the theme from A Clockwork Orange.
Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala also happen to be Doctor Who fans and incorporate the Axon characters into their backdrop and play the show's theme song at the end of concerts over the PA system.
The backwards vocals at the end of "Eunuch Provocateur" are the lyrics from the song "Itsy Bitsy Spider". Other backwards vocals in the same song can be heard saying "did mommy or daddy ever have to spank you?" These samples come from an old vinyl the band used that contained children's songs.
Members
According to the liner notes for Amputechture, "The partnership between Omar Rodriguez-Lopez & Cedric Bixler-Zavala is The Mars Volta. These compositions are then performed by The Mars Volta Group".
Current
- Omar Rodriguez-Lopez – guitar, production (2001–present)
- Cedric Bixler-Zavala – lyrics, vocals (2001–present)
- Isaiah Ikey Owens – keyboards (2001–present)
- Juan Alderete – electric bass (2003–present)
- Thomas Pridgen – drums (2007–present)
- Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez – percussion, synthesizers (2003–present)
- Adrián Terrazas-González – flute, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, and additional wind and percussion instruments (2004 in studio, 2005 in show–present)
- Paul Hinojos – guitar, sound manipulation (on stage 2003–2004, joined officially 2005–present)
Former
Sound Manipulators
- Jeremy Ward – (2001–2003)
Drummers
- Jon Theodore – (2001–July 2006)
- Blake Fleming – (August 2001, July–October 2006)
- Deantoni Parks – (October–November 2006)
Bassists
- Eva Gardner – (2001–2002)
- Ralph Jasso – (2002)
- Jason Lader – (2003)
- Flea – (2003, on De-Loused in the Comatorium)
Keyboardists
- Linda Good – (2002)
Guest musicians
- John Frusciante – guitar on "Cicatriz ESP", "L'Via L'Viaquez" and Amputechture (excluding "Asilos Magdalena")
- Sara Christina Gross – saxophone on "Meccamputechture"
Timeline
The Mars Volta Group
According to the band's official website and the sleeve notes of Scabdates, there are fifteen more people that are a part of "The Mars Volta Group":
- Henry Trejo – Rodriguez Lopez's guitar tech
- Amery "Awol" Smith – production manager
- Jesse Isaacs – Owens' tech, Hinojos's guitar tech, stage manager
- Jerry Riccardi – Alderete's bass tech, Bixler Zavala's tech
- Joe Paul Slaby – drum tech
- Dan Hadley – lighting designer
- Shaun Sebastian – monitor engineer
- Keith Mitchell – lighting director
- Jonathan Debaun – recording engineer
- Greg Nelson – front of house engineer
- Jack Lee – in-ear monitor engineer
- Lalo Medina – tour manager
- Paul Drake – tour manager
Discography
Studio albums
- De-Loused in the Comatorium
(June 24, 2003)
Gold Standard Laboratories/ Universal/ Strummer Recordings
#39 U.S., #40 UK - Frances the Mute
(March 1, 2005)
Gold Standard Laboratories/ Universal/ Strummer Recordings
#4 U.S., #23 UK, #9 AUS. - Amputechture
(September 12, 2006)
Gold Standard Laboratories/ Universal/ Strummer Recordings
#9 U.S., #49 UK, #6 AUS, #16 NZ. - The Bedlam in Goliath
(January 29, 2008)
Universal/ Strummer Recordings
EPs
- Tremulant EP
(April 2, 2002)
Gold Standard Laboratories - Live EP
(December 16, 2003)
(limited edition)
Gold Standard Laboratories/ Universal/ Strummer Recordings
Live
- Scabdates
(November 8, 2005)
Gold Standard Laboratories/ Universal/ Strummer Recordings
#76 U.S.
Singles
| Year | Song | US Hot 100 | US Modern Rock | US Mainstream Rock | UK Singles | Album |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | "Inertiatic ESP" | - | - | - | 42 | De-Loused in the Comatorium |
| 2004 | "Televators" | - | - | - | 41 | De-Loused in the Comatorium |
| 2005 | "The Widow" | 95 | 7 | 25 | 20 | Frances the Mute |
| 2005 | "L'Via L'Viaquez" | - | - | - | 53 | Frances the Mute |
| 2006 | "Viscera Eyes" | - | - | - | - | Amputechture |
| 2007 | "Wax Simulacra" | - | - | - | - | The Bedlam In Goliath |
Other
- "Televators" (Australian Tour Edition) – January 19, 2004, also containing the Live EP, Universal Music Australia
- "Frances the Mute" b/w "The Widow" (live) – limited edition marble-green-colored 12"
References
- ^ a b The Mars Volta: Spaced Out
- ^ Mars Volta: Biography
- ^ The Mars Volta: Frances the Mute: Pitchfork Record Review
- ^ The Mars Volta - Frances The Mute
- ^ All Tomorrow's Parties Festival
- ^ The Mars Volta bottled at Endfest
- ^ The Mars Volta Records New Album at Ocean Way
- ^ a b INTERVIEW WITH OMAR ALFREDO RODRIGUEZ-LOPEZ
- ^ Bufalo de la Noche
- ^ The Mars Volta Announce New Years Eve Extravaganza
- ^ http://www.coachella.com/forum/showthread.php?p=387430
- ^ The Mars Volta's Descent into Bedlam: A Rhapsody in Three Parts
- ^ http://www.thecomatorium.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=98971&hl=relix
- ^ http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/articles/16219