Geek: Had you developed superstitions in the past or was this a new experience for you?
Cedric: It’s not a new experience for me. I had superstitions before I played the game, which is why I was curious to play. I think the main reason I played is the same reason anyone walks into a psychic shop; they want to make contact with people who used to be alive.
Geek: Was the series of bad events rather nerve-wracking? Were you concerned they may not end?
Cedric: I know Omar was. I think for me it was just kind of the way things operated for us as usual. People always telling us what we can’t do and basically saying “no” to us all of the time. It was another kind of suit telling us “no”. For me, it was fun because we were trying to win and beat it. For everyone else, it was bad.
Geek: I previously spoke with Omar about his solo album (Se Dice Bisonte…) and he talked about how he tends to get sick of the kind of music he’s making on a pretty regular basis. Do you have a similar sense?
Cedric: I can listen to it right after we’ve mixed it a bunch and I can still listen to it because I don’t get burnt out like Omar might get burnt out. I definitely feel the weight of the album being a little old already. We wanna work on new material already and I have other albums to work on that are Omar-related. I think the next thing we’ll do is something like an acoustic album.
Geek: What exactly might that sound like? Would the songs be similar to what you do now, or a complete reinvention?
Cedric: Romantically, I’d like to think it was a reinvention. It might be a reinvention from the fact that we play a lot of aggressive and chaotic stuff. It’s going to be our version of an acoustic record, so it’s not going to be our version of a Nick Drake record.
Geek: Do you ever feel limited by the music The Mars Volta creates?
Cedric: I only feel trapped by the way certain magazines and certain editors call us prog rock or whatever. It scares away a large portion of people who might be looking for something different. I get tired of that, personally. We always get tired of what we do. That’s why the songs we play live sound nothing like what they sound like on the album.
Geek: The new album is called TBIG. I’m assuming that means there are some biblical connotations. Would that be true?
Cedric: Not necessarily. It’s just the fact that Goliath can be seen as a very huge task or overwhelming obstacle. The obstacle was getting over being superstitious about the contents of the record. Even deeper then that, the album kind of serves as commentary on the way a lot of women are affected by organized religion. There’s commentary on things like honor killings and things like that that happen in the Middle East.
Geek: Even after 4 albums, you still had problems with your record label trying to dictate your single by altering the track “Goliath” to make it more radio friendly. How frustrated are you with working with a major corporation?
Cedric: I guess it’s frustrating only in that once you give them a song like “The Widow” they expect you to have one in the album all the time. On our last record they completely dropped the ball and didn’t know what to do with it because it was more bilingual than they had expected and it was kind of an antidote to Frances The Mute. A lot of the time they don’t really have the right or the green light to say what goes where. But they do choose singles and this time around there were a few songs that were already short enough. But they wanted to take a cool song like “Goliath” and butcher it and take away all of the most interesting parts and give it some sort of Wolfmother makeover. We had to stand up and say something about it. Usually, we don’t care about singles, but if they’re going to butcher a song for the sake of attracting people, I don’t want to attract those people in the first place because you just attract morons.
Geek: Did you call Amputechture an antidote to Frances the Mute? Can you clarify that?
Cedric: It’s not a concept album per se with a narrative and an obvious theme. It’s more like a TV show where it’s the same TV show but with different episodes. It’s a time where we got to exercise electric material that was a lot mellower. It probably came from the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival we curated where we had people like Antony & the Johnsons, CocoRosie and Blonde Redhead. They’re really well-versed in very subtle and mellow stuff that’s just as subversive and compelling as an aggressive rock music. Right away when someone hears AMP and they’re a fan of FTM they don’t like it. It is definitely our most misunderstood record. But if we had children and they were our records, AMP would be our autistic child. We’re very overprotective of it because it doesn’t function in the real world but it does other things that most humans can’t do. That’s why we really still love it because it’s elicited such a strong reaction in the fans.
Geek: There’s a lot of pressure on you and Omar to reunite At The Drive-In. Do you grow frustrated with that, or do you feel honored?
Me: What? Is there pressure, really? From who, Sparta fans?
Cedric: I can’t really say I feel honored. It’s great to have the attention, but I really feel that was a band that pulled the wool over a lot of people’s eyes. We got credit for a sound that we were pretty much the 20th generation of. I would have no problem with reuniting and doing a show personally just because I would honestly do it for the money. If I got money from it I could put it back into The Mars Volta. I could get better production without the use of the label. How could that benefit TMV or me artistically? It wouldn’t be about the performance or the nostalgia. To me, it would just be getting into bed with someone who wanted to lend me money, pretty much. I’m not interested in the music really and all the kids who are really into that band, if they would just do the math, they would realize that people like Drive Like Jehu, The Jesus Lizard and even Fugazi, who everyone does know, did it first and they did it better.
Geek: Do you have any plans for other side projects?
Cedric: No. I was going to do some spoken word stuff because Lydia Lunch asked me to do it, but I’m really afraid of it. I don’t know how I would do it. I’m just so comfortable with all of these people. I wouldn’t want to work with someone else in the studio because Omar’s the only person I could get naked with in the studio. Other people are weird. They have their own way of doing things. Everything here is so loose and so liberating, I don’t think I could work with anybody else.
Geek: You and Omar have worked together since the mid-90’s. Are there strains on the relationship, or is it a perfect friendship/musical partnership?
Cedric: I wouldn’t say it’s perfect. We have our flaws and we have our ups and downs like any relationship. We don’t really argue as many couples do. Any time we have had disagreements it’s always minor and it always benefits the music. I’m just fortunate I’ve known him for so long that we finish each other’s sentences artistically. There’s a reason someone put us together.
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