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The brain behind Grammy-winning progressive rock group The Mars Volta, Rodriguez-Lopez has written all the band’s music, mixed the recordings by himself and fired musicians at will — sometimes without so much as an email to let them know.
“I’ve been a real bastard over the years,” he admits, perched on a couch in the top-floor sun room of his Echo Park production offices, looking out over L.A.’s sun-soaked Eastside hills. “All in the name of following my vision.”
Wiry thin, he has an Einstein-style wild mess of dark hair and big, round, smudgy spectacles. He’s the kind of guy who forgets to eat, shower or brush his teeth when he gets on a roll writing music.
He certainly has his admirers; devoted Mars Volta fans liken the band’s members to gods. They obsess over their innovative, genre-shattering, long-winded compositions, full of changing time signatures, singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s high-pitched howling vocals and Rodriguez-Lopez’s experimental guitar riffs.
Our music feature this week focuses on Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, a giant of the progressive rock and post-hardcore scenes who seemingly wants nothing to do with them.
The mastermind behind The Mars Volta and At the Drive-In tries to tell us he’s not a musician, for all kinds of deep and philosophical reasons. He might start out talking about how many hours of sleep he gets nightly, and end up describing the principles of some ancient religious text. In other words, he’s one deep human being. Below are excerpts from our meandering interview.
On doing interviews:
People get bummed out or consider it arrogant when they ask me what are my influences and they want me to talk about records. I could care less about records. I’d rather talk about how my influences were my mother, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, Roberto Clemente’s life. Those are the real things. Because that’s music.
On his own “music theory”
People who go and they buy the same amp Jimi Hendrix had or they play the guitar upside down – you ain’t never gonna sound like him because that’s not his music. His music was the fact that had a tumultuous relationship with his father that he never got figured out. His music was the fact that had a brother that he absolutely loved and wanted to be with all the time but he was in and out of jail. His music was the fact that he wanted to be accepted by the black community but he wasn’t until the very end of his life. That’s his music. The other stuff is just a vehicle.
Passion’s the only thing that’s going to make you good at anything. You can learn the technical aspects of anything but that ain’t going to make you necessarily good or tasteful. Look at how many awful musicians come out of Berklee and all these music schools – just faceless, mindless musicians that are being churned out under the concept of, like, ‘Well, you know all the theory so there you go, you’re good to go. You excel at theory.’ Like, big deal.
On why he doesn’t think of himself as a musician:
Musicians definitely get stuck in this pitfall of having to think about things in terms of theory and how theory fits together and why that can work or why it doesn’t work. I have absolutely no interest in any of that. I’m only interested in the simple element of does it move me or not. Because at the end of the day all I’m here to do is to express myself. I have to stay true to that. Any deviation from that path is treated like a dagger pointed at my heart.
I’m basically in most peoples’ eyes just a product, they know me as the At the Drive-In guitarist, The Mars Volta whatever. It’s funny to be diminished to just a guitarist, which I don’t even consider myself. It’s just one of many vehicles.
I had very informal music training. I had true music training, which is the fact that I come from a culture that is enveloped and surrounded by music. Everyone in my family plays music, none of them are musicians. When my ancestors were slaves, when they were conquered by the Spanish – I’m Puerto Rican, a lot of people think I’m Mexican – in any culture music and laughter is what gets you through any kind of trauma, you know?
At The Drive-In and The Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez has unveiled the first track from his new band Bosnian Rainbows. The track is titled ’Torn Maps’ and you can hear it below
Rodriguez-Lopez, who announced in late 2012 that he and At The Drive-In frontman Cedric Bixler had placed The Mars Volta on hiatus, is joined in the new outfit by drummer Deantoni Parks, keyboardist Nicci Kasper and singer Teri Gender-Bender, who is also a member of noise experimentalists Le Butcherettes.
Even as he gets his latest band, Bosnian Rainbows, up and running, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez says he’s not closing the door on any of his other endeavors – including the now on-ice Mars Volta and even At the Drive-In, which reunited briefly last year for a handful of high-profile festival shows.
“I’m open to anything as long as there’s positivity involved,” Rodriguez-Lopez tells Billboard. “I love music, and it’s not like this is politics or something where lives are at stake. It’s so much fun, and we’re lucky we get to do this for a living. I’m open to collaborate with anyone that’ll have me. It’s so much fun.”
He is, however, keenly aware of onetime bandmate Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s angry online comments about the end of the Mars Volta.
“I heard about it at the time,” Rodriguez-Lopez says. “I was making a film and heard about it hours later; people were like, ‘Are you OK?’ I understand where he’s coming from; I’ve known the guy for 22 years. I’ll always respect and support any decision he makes. If that’s how he wants it, I totally get it and I support it.”
Omar Rodriguez Lopez keeps his creative throttle set to interstellar overdrive. He doesn’t bask in the achievements of his previous band, At the Drive-In, his ten-years-and-counting blockbuster The Mars Volta, his production company, or any of his myriad film scores or solo releases. Rodriguez Lopez is always fully engaged, generating off-balance riffs, cosmically effected tones, and mind-bending song arrangements.
This year saw the release of Telesterion [Rodriguez Lopez Productions], a sprawling collection of all things Omar outside of The Mars Volta. Its seemingly boundless range spans everything from ear-melting monolithic rock to what sounds like salsa music on acid to intergalactic battle scene soundtracks. Subtlety is scarce. You might think that such a dedicated artist would have mountains of information about the material he creates and produces at his fingertips, but the Puerto Rican native and current Mexico City resident has difficulty detailing past tracks. He uses everything around him as inspiration for the day’s music. The next day, he clears his internal Etch A Sketch, and begins anew.
This interview took place in the wake of a GP Presents event with the Omar Rodriguez Lopez Band at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall—and another show when the Mars Volta opened up for Soundgarden.
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s former bands the Mars Volta and At the Drive-In are the sort of acts that fans get tattoos of. But unlike the permanent nature of inking yourself, he’s moved on to another project with his new four-piece Bosnian Rainbows. On the band’s debut (out next month), we find Rodriguez-Lopez exploring a punchy goth sound with Le Butcherettes frontwoman Teri Gender-Bender, drummer Deantoni Parks and keyboardist Nicci Kasper of Dark Angels. Hive recently caught up with Rodriguez-Lopez before the release of their debut album to talk about the “virgin” experience of playing with a new band, why the At the Drive-In reunion was emotionally tough and the Mars Volta breaking up over Twitter.
The Mars Volta and At the Drive-In are bands that people are really passionate about. Is it a different experience for you touring with a band that nobody’s ever heard?
Totally. You can’t pay for the specialness of what it is when you just go play music when nobody knows anything about it. It’s that initial experience. I hate to use the word “virgin” — it’s so dumb — but it is like doing it for the first time. Just like when At the Drive-In went out for the first time, or the Mars Volta. People have no clue what to expect, and there’s that excitement about it. You’re just playing music, and there is no expectation, really.
With At The Drive-In’s reunion tour now a passing memory and the recent acrimonious split of his mind-bending prog crew, The Mars Volta, prolific noodler Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is currently putting most of his energy into new post-punk-influenced outfit Bosnian Rainbows, who release their self-titled debut next month. Whereas he called all the shots for a decade in Mars Volta, he’s now happy to be sharing the creative load with his new band mates. Q sat down with him ahead of the band’s recent appearance at London’s 100 Club to discuss self-expression, his relationship with Cedric Bixler-Zavala and what really happened during the At The Drive-In reunion shows…
How does it feel to be part of a collaboration again?
“It’s amazing, it’s liberating and it’s invigorating. It all sounds so dumb. There’s nothing like the feeling of getting schooled by the band. That’s the main thing; that’s the only way you get better.”
Formerly a member of At The Drive-In, De Facto and The Mars Volta, and currently playing in alt-rock foursome Bosnian Rainbows, Omar Rodríguez-López is a musician who needs no introduction to anyone even vaguely into rock music since the turn of the millennium.
Bosnian Rainbows – ‘Turtle Neck’, from the album ‘Bosnian Rainbows’
Below, the guitarist talks Clash through five albums of absolute importance to his musical development – five truly foundational records.
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Teri Gender Bender & Lia Braswell of Le Butcherettes in their trailer at Coachella.
Inside a small trailer backstage at Coachella yesterday, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez was trying to cool down after his first performance of the day, and the dressing room wasn’t much cooler than the triple-digit heat outside. Rodriguez-Lopez pulled double duty on both festival weekends in Indio, California, playing lead guitar with the reunited At the Drive-In on the main stage just hours after a full set on bass with Le Butcherettes, the fiery garage-punk band whose next album he is currently producing in Los Angeles.
Rodriguez-Lopez is a full permanent member of Le Butcherettes, and during the trio’s raging 45-minute set, he stood back with a smile as Guadalajaran singer-guitarist Teri Gender Bender roared through anxious pop hooks with sharp edges, at one point tossing a big Casio keyboard into the moshing crowd. New drummer Lia Braswell slammed a heavy beat from stage left and fans waved Mexican flags, as they would again later for At the Drive-In. Soon after, Rodriguez-Lopez sat with Le Butcherettes for several rounds of bottled water and talked with Rolling Stone about their busy Coachella week.
Is playing two sets a day a challenge?
Rodriguez-Lopez: No, it’s a blessing. Go play music all day? I should be so lucky. Last weekend we played, then we cooled off, we ate, and then just when you really feel like you’re winding down, “Oh, it’s time to play.” It’s perfect.
