|  Mars
Volta Interview
An
edgy, nervous tension mixed with the blood running through
their veins—the kind of brutal anticipation that can
both stimulate and torment even the truest musicians and fans.
Many of the combustible beings in attendance had experienced
the same kind of impatient yearning during the wait between
the releases of Tremulant and De-Loused in the Comatorium.
An eerie restlessness hung over the crowd at Emo’s that
night like a canopy of ghosts prepared to both plague and
illuminate the thought processes of those already savvy enough
to be in the know. The show had been sold out for over a month.
Those in attendance were part of a spiritual wave of sonic
intellect that existed with the realization that the domain
of modern rock music creativity was being dissected and stretched
by the unabashed seriousness of five musicians on a vivacious
mission, free of worldly reluctance. The Mars Volta was riding
the snake, and it wanted sink its teeth into souls and senses
alike.
Flashback to early 2001: Upon returning from a European tour
with former band At the Drive-In, (the ground breaking emocore
outfit which was finally receiving recognition after countless
years of DIY touring and indie-label surfing) Omar A. Rodriguez-Lopez
was unhappy with corporate demands and, more importantly,
bored with the music that the band was playing. “We
were just going to keep making the same records,” said
Rodriguez. “It was nice to finally get the attention
with At the Drive-In after six years, but it left us musically
bankrupt, spiritually bankrupt.”
So,
just as the five-piece from El Paso was about to break out
and breathe fresh air into the expired lungs of pop music,
Rodriguez, along with childhood chum and fellow ATDI band-mate
Cedric Bixler Zavala, split the band apart in hopes of exploring
a revitalized taste of emotion and sound. “The idea
was to have a band that was free of boxes, free of conceptual
limitations. We both knew that would mean a lot of sacrifice,
a lot of broken hearts and a lot of change in our life. But
we were both willing to accept that so that the music would
not suffer,” said Rodriguez of the ATDI’s demise.
Without wasting much time, the Puerto Rican Rodriguez and
the Chicano Zavala began to move the puzzle pieces into place
for what would become a Latin timbre-seasoned painting of
prog-rock conquest and free-jazz jubilance. By combining the
open ended key-jabs of Ikie Owens and the chilling sound manipulations
of Jeremy Ward, two members of Zavala and Rodriguez’s
experimental dub side project known as De Facto, the two visionaries
laid the ground work for the kind of art that leaves room
for experimentation while yielding warnings of genre-bending
superiority. With the addition of the meticulous Jon Theodore,
a seasoned stick slayer and whip-smart sequence provider with
drumming experience in several jazz-rock projects, the band
was ready to take on their journey with punk-rock aesthetic
and perseverance.
The group released the Tremulant EP in 2002 on their own Gold
Standard Laboratories label. The three-song, twenty-minute
ride and teaser dabbled in spacey dub progressions, waltzy
jazz beats that stopped and started on a dime and hellacious
spitfire guitar fuzz that sifted between distortion and precision
while being loosely tied together with the moaning tweaks
and coos that are the starved romantic pipes of Zavala. Several
surprise shows and brief touring led to a quick buzz within
indie-rock masses. Notable boards chairman Rick Rubin signed
on to produce the band’s first full-length album, and
at the end of 2002, the group of restless and weary guardians
of rock retired to Rubin’s haunted mansion in Laurel
Canyon near Los Angeles to record De-Loused in the Comatorium.
The daring task of putting such a concept record together
was both disturbing and uplifting. “The initial fear
anyone had of the studio was not understanding what’s
haunting you,” said Rodriguez of the Laurel Canyon estate,
the same place the Red Hot Chili Peppers recorded their classic
BloodSugarSexMagik. “Once you understand the mutual
existence between something frightening and something inspiring,
it can be very uplifting.”
For
the album’s theme, Rodriguez and Zavala decided to create
a fictional story based upon Julio Venegas, a childhood friend
and punk rock mentor to the two while growing up in El Paso.
Venegas had committed suicide in 1996 but was a huge inspiration
to both band members—turning them on to certain films,
literature and music outside of bands like Minor Threat and
Black Flag which the two young punkers celebrated as chieftains
when they were teens. The lyrics on De-Loused, written by
Zavala and Ward, celebrate the life of Venegas and fictionally
take on the pre-suicidal coma and surface-scratching dreams
battling good and evil that Venegas possibly explored in his
last days. The end result is a nightmare of scathing pleas
that question one’s vision and purpose but manage to
offer some kind of hope at the bottom of the pile of pain
and suffering.
 The
music itself is an open invitation to explore your own livelihood.
Each track is a fruit-bearing epic that offers depth and speed
along with soothing swirls of unconventional time signatures
and a cultured know-how that would merit respect from many
heroes resting in their place of solace. Psychedelic grit
takes hold of the album from the get-go, while the often punk,
often angst, but seldom soft drum work of Theodore actually
disappears before your ears into clouds of salsa and meringue,
suggesting sexual tension and spastic shifts, turning sharply
like a riding roller coaster while wearing a blindfold. Each
track at times sounds like it may fall apart or not make it
out of the stereo speakers; however, each song is tightly
bound by sharp musicianship and reluctant passion.
These
are the kind of realizations that the band hoped would come
true at the dawn of their creation. The balance of success
and failure in life, however, is constant. The record illustrates
that concept, and just upon its release earlier this summer,
Jeremy Ward was found dead of a heroine overdose.
It is 1:30 a.m. at Emo’s, and the Mars Volta has been
playing for over an hour without pause. The band’s live
performance is a cerebral, indulgent adventure that constantly
delves into improvisational changes, solos and harmonies.
“We try to keep a balance between complete structure
and complete freedom,” said Rodriguez of the band’s
live show. “The way songs sound on the record are just
the way they happened to come out the night we recorded them.”
At
this point, the band has played nearly every track from the
album. Zavala, whose discerning eyes stare at the crowd with
a disgruntled annoyance, has managed to keep a piece of gum
in his mouth through the entire set while wailing in pitches
that pierce ears and gleefully plea for invitations into the
brain and spirit of the audience.
Rodriguez,
armed with two Orange half-stacks and a collage of effects
petals, gallantly solos around the stage while meringue dancing
and hand-clapping in between the vocal sputters of Zavala.
Owens, who sports shades at night, looks like an animated
church organist, bobbing his head to every pound of Theodore’s
drum kit. John Alderete follows on bass, often fitting in
his conjectures with the rest of the melodic mayhem.
 The
music actually comes to somewhat of a peaceful pause before
Zavala dedicates the albums calmest track, “Televators,”
to the late Ward. “Not a day goes by that we don’t
think about that motherfucker,” he utters with a melancholic
grin. The song then pulsates into a ballad-like hymn that
climaxes with Zavala begging the audience to, “Please
take my hand.”
The Mars Volta gives and takes. The balance is a concept adopted
by the most notable musicians in history. If an artist isn’t
taking anything from the music they create, then giving it
to someone else is rather pointless. The Volta illustrates
this point with a vital offering of eclectic despair, neatly
nestled between the haunted and demented lives that most humans
experience at one time or another. Mars was the God of War
in Greek Mythology. Volta is a Latin term for “shift
in music.” The time is now kiddos. Go create. These
guys have set the much needed standard.
-Smitty, photos by McPhail |
