Progageddon: The Mars Volta

There must be a moment between the back flips and tango gesticulations when Mars Volta vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala - on their current US tour - stares out at an arena packed with middle-aged Red Hot Chili Peppers fans and wonders whether the aforementioned gymnastics, the 20-minute jams of salsa punk abstraction and percussive onslaughts are really going to be worth the effort.

‘Amputechture’ is the band's most challenging album to date, and it's oddly ironic that it is currently being premiered across the US to seated audiences of gawping "soccer moms."  Speaking to Gigwise from somewhere between Toronto and Montreal, Bixler-Zavala sounds like he's very nearly had enough.  Pinning down what's making the ‘Amputechture’ tour unique, he says, "Trying to look like you're having a good time when nobody else looks like they're having a good time." 

It's a sense of alienation that seems very much at the forefront of what it's like to be involved in the Mars Volta - whether as a band member onstage, or as part of the crowd trying to make sense of the formidably harsh sound of zero compromise that makes their latest album so powerful, if not immediately likeable.  

The feeling of an entire arena struggling to make sense of what the hell you're up to is palpable to Bixler-Zavala, who has little interest in holding anyone's hand.   "We'll play something like ‘The Widow’ [single off ‘Frances the Mute’]," he says, "and then you kinda have this sigh of relief like, 'Oh, it's this band!'  At that point they're kind of like, 'Ok, we're supposed to like this, I guess?'  and then we launch into more ‘Amputechture’ material." 

The image of Bixler-Zavala as the stern prophet mercilessly sifting the true fans from the confused dilettantes is a hard one to shake, and his elitist tendencies very nearly become distasteful as he chuckles at the Chili Peppers fans who "don't even own a p-funk album."  But he does care about the people who come to see the Mars Volta, or at least is more aware of them than the band's relentlessly self-indulgent urge for exploration would lead you to believe. 

It's not the only sign of the Mars Volta beginning to engage with the wider world, and ‘Amputechture’ deals with issues from religion, cultural differences between Europe and South American to the pro-immigrant marches that took place in the US this spring.  It's also telling that the songs on the album evoke a sense of time and place for Bixler-Zavala, reminding him of specific locations during the ‘Frances the Mute’ tour, where ideas flowered and songs were created -- Poland for ‘Tetragrammaton’, Belgium for ‘Asilos Magdalena’.  In general, he says, "When I think of ‘Amputechture’ now and the way it sounds it reminds me of our stint at ATP.  Our jams there had a lot of the ideas that ended up on ‘Amputechture’.  Plus the weather was just miserable, and that was the perfect setting for the kind of things we're talking about on the album."      
 
If Bixler-Zavala freely imposes judgement on his audience, one can only guess at the kind of scrutiny the rest of the Mars Volta go through.  As well as that seems to be working, it has resulted in drummer Jon Theodore's expulsion from the band for "laziness" and lack of commitment.  Says Bixler-Zavala, "you can't be in a band, or a relationship with someone, if you're constantly asking, 'Do you really like me?'  And they don't really like you, they just like the benefits of [the relationship].  We come to a city, and we play one album live, but we're making another album during the day and then [that night] after we play.

"And Jon just wasn't having that.  Jon likes his women, Jon likes his surfing,  Jon likes his drinking...  You can ask any fan that was in Hamburg when we played for Frances the Mute.  We were set to play the last thirty minutes of the set and Jon took off, because the night before he partied too much."  So Theodore out, and Blake Fleming in.  According to Bixler-Zavala the difference in work ethic between the two is like night and day.  "If I were to walk over to [Blake] now and say 'we need to record some ideas,' he would drop what he was doing.  He understands the music comes first."