The Mars Volta
The Mars Volta is an American progressive rock band formed in 2001. The band's only constant members are Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala, whose partnership forms the core of the band. The band's current line-up also includes founding member Eva Gardner, Omar's brother Marcel Rodríguez-López, Leo Genovese and Linda-Philomène Tsoungui.
Known for their energetic live shows and concept albums, The Mars Volta formed following the break-up of Rodríguez-López and Bixler-Zavala's previous band, At the Drive-In. Seeking to experiment and expand their sound, Rodríguez-López and Bixler-Zavala recruited Gardner, Isaiah "Ikey" Owens, Jon Theodore and Jeremy Ward to form The Mars Volta. The band released their debut EP, Tremulant, in 2002, with Gardner leaving the band prior to recording their debut album, De-Loused in the Comatorium. She was replaced by Red Hot Chili Peppers' bass guitarist Flea for the sessions. The Rick Rubin-produced album received widespread critical acclaim upon its release in 2003.
The band's second studio album, Frances the Mute, was self-produced by Rodríguez-López and was the first to feature longterm members Juan Alderete and Marcel Rodríguez-López. The album debuted at No. 4 on the US Billboard 200 and became the band's biggest commercial success, selling over 500,000 copies in the US and achieving Gold certification from the RIAA. The band's third studio album, Amputechture, was released in 2006 and was the last album to feature Theodore. In 2008, the band released The Bedlam in Goliath, a concept album inspired by the band's turbulent experiences with a ouija-type talking board. The album's first single, "Wax Simulacra" was awarded a Grammy Award in 2009 for Best Hard Rock Performance. The band released its fifth album, Octahedron, in June 2009.
Following the release of their sixth album, Noctourniquet, and a run of reunion shows with At the Drive-In, The Mars Volta entered a hiatus in September 2012. Rodríguez-López subsequently formed a new project, Bosnian Rainbows, and the band formally broke up in January 2013 amid disagreements between Rodríguez-López and Bixler-Zavala. The duo repaired their friendship and reunited in 2014 for a new project, Antemasque, and further At the Drive-In tours and recording sessions.
Reuniting in secret in 2019, Rodríguez-López and Bixler-Zavala recorded a new studio album, The Mars Volta, with Gardner, Marcel Rodríguez-López, and drummer Willy Rodriguez Quiñones. The band announced their reunion – after ten years of public inactivity – with an art installation called L'ytome Hodorxí Telesterion, in June 2022. For the band's live return, jazz pianist Leo Genovese, drummer Linda-Philomène Tsoungui and Josh Moreau were added to the line-up. The band's ninth album, Lucro Sucio; Los Ojos del Vacio, was released in April 2025.
History
Formation and beginning (2001–2002)
The roots of The Mars Volta are found in the band At the Drive-In. ATDI imploded on the verge of a commercial breakthrough, partly due to boredom, partly to musical differences. Members Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodríguez-López began to further explore their experimental, dub-influenced side project called De Facto, which featured Bixler-Zavala on drums, Rodríguez-López on bass, Isaiah "Ikey" Owens on keyboards, and Jeremy Ward on vocals, loops and sound effects.During 2001 Eva Gardner joined the members of De Facto on bass, and they recorded two songs with drummer Blake Fleming and producer Alex Newport, which became the first demo by The Mars Volta. The lineup for their first public show at Chain Reaction in Anaheim, California was Rodríguez-López, Bixler-Zavala, Owens, Gardner, Ward, and drummer Jon Theodore. This lineup recorded three more tracks with Alex Newport, which became the EP Tremulant, released in early 2002 by Gold Standard Laboratories.
After the demise of At the Drive-In, Rodríguez-López and Bixler-Zavala found themselves once again starting from the ground up, touring and performing in smaller venues. In their early years The Mars Volta were characterized by chaotic live shows and heavy drug use.
''De-Loused in the Comatorium'' (2003–2004)
Following Tremulant, The Mars Volta continued touring with a fluid line-up while preparing to record their debut full-length album De-Loused in the Comatorium, produced with Rick Rubin and released on June 24, 2003. Whereas Tremulant had no general theme De-Loused was a unified work of speculative fiction telling the first-person story of someone in a drug-induced coma, battling 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", an El Paso poet and artist who went into a coma for several years after a deliberate drug overdose, recovered and later committed suicide. He died jumping from the Mesa Street overpass onto Interstate-10 in El Paso during afternoon rush-hour traffic.In an interview with The Aquarian Weekly in 2008, Bixler-Zavala said about working with Rubin, "Rick really over-simplified some of the parts that we thought were unique, and just made them very digestible. He's got this thing about representing the common man's ears—I'd rather jab the common man's ears. If we don't, we'll never get to a place where future music exists."
The Mars Volta had no official bassist during the recording session, but Flea played bass on nine of the album's ten songs, with Justin Meldal-Johnsen playing double bass on "Televators". Flea's bandmate John Frusciante also contributed additional guitar, synthesizer and backing vocals to "Cicatriz ESP". After several temporary replacements, a permanent bassist for the band was found in Juan Alderete.
Despite limited promotion, De-Loused earned strong reviews, and appeared on several 'year-end best-of' lists. The album remains The Mars Volta's best-seller, with over 500,000 copies sold. Rolling Stone ranked a track from De-Loused, "Drunkship of Lanterns", the 91st Best Guitar Song Ever. The band later released a limited-edition storybook version of the album, available by download from the Gold Standard Laboratories website. The book speaks of Cerpin Taxt and his suicide.
While on tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in support of the album, founding member Jeremy Ward died of a heroin overdose. The band had 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 band leaders Rodríguez-López and Bixler-Zavala to purportedly quit using opioids. Bixler-Zavala recalled: "One day, we were all getting high, and Jeremy asked me if I could see he had worms in his head. I never touched the stuff again. His passing was the final nail in the coffin. We never went back."
''Frances the Mute'' (2005)
As the band resumed touring to support De-Loused, they added Marcel Rodríguez-López on percussion. Work on their second album began in 2004. That year the band received the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Vanguard Award.File:The Mars Volta.jpg|thumb|right|Live at Paradiso – Amsterdam October 16, 2005
In 2005, the band released Frances the Mute. The story given by the band on the album's concept concerns a diary that had been found in a repossessed car by late sound technician Jeremy Ward, while working as a repo-man. The author of the diary is unknown but appeared to be someone who was adopted and was searching for their birth parents, and who may have suffered from mental illness caused by the death of a loved one. The lyrics for each track on the album are loosely based on characters and life events described in this person's diary.
Frances the Mute started as a bigger commercial hit than De-Loused, moving 123,000 copies in its first week, and debuting at No. 4 on the Billboard album charts. Reviews of Frances were generally positive 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", and even the detractors of Frances the Mute generally praised the band's musical abilities. "L'Via L'Viaquez" was later released as the 12 minute B-side to "The Bible And The Breathalyzer" single, a song which did not appear on the album. Frances the Mute has sold nearly 465,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan ratings.
Rodríguez-López wrote all of the instrumental parts as well as arranging and producing the recording sessions himself. He used a method that Miles Davis used to evoke 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. While in the studio, Rodríguez-López recruited Adrián Terrazas-González to play saxophone, flute, and additional wind instruments for the album. Terrazas-González was added as a permanent member to The Mars Volta while touring in support of Frances the Mute.
Several songs written during the original recording sessions for the album never made the final cut. Notably, the self-titled 14-minute epic "Frances the Mute", which was originally to open the album and was ultimately supposed to decode the album's concept, was not included due to time constraints. Instead the track was featured as a b-side to the single release for "The Widow".
File:The Mars Volta live 2005.jpg|275px|thumb|left|Live at Birmingham Academy November 30, 2005, with drummer Jon Theodore
On May 21, 2005, instead of playing a traditional set at KROQ's Weenie Roast Festival, the band played a 50-minute improvisation jam that was jokingly named on-the-spot as "Abortion, The Other White Meat" by Rodríguez-López. In keeping with The Mars Volta's tradition of testing and developing new work live, parts of "Abortion" later appeared on "Population Council's Wet Dream" from Rodríguez-López's 2009 album Old Money.
Midway 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." Hinojos joined as live rhythm guitarist and became the band's sound manipulator, the position previously held by the late Ward. Hinojos had previously toured with The Mars Volta in 2003, filling in for Ward's sound manipulation duties.
During mid-2005, the band toured in support of the album with System of a Down and curated the All Tomorrow's Parties festival at Camber Sands in England. In addition, a full-length live album named Scabdates was released on November 8, 2005.