The Bedlam in Goliath was inspired by an Ouija-style game board. How did that get into the Mars Volta orbit?

Cedric Bixler-Zavala: Right after Omar [Rodriguez-Lopez, guitarist] finished Amputechture, he went on a whim out to Jerusalem, him and his girlfriend. They got a guide and did field recordings, filmed a whole lot of stuff, went to go see the supposed birthplace of Jesus. I think a lot of that just struck him. They went to a flea market and he was singled out by a vendor who had this shop that was kind of hidden, kind of blasphemous in that area. The guy just chooses a certain kind of tourist to go look at what he has for sale—manipulated taxidermy, chicken feet that are candle holders, things that you’d expect in New Orleans, not Jerusalem. [Rodriguez-Lopez] found this game board in there and brought it back for me, and I knew it would be great.

But a little greater than you expected, right?

Bixler-Zavala: We played it while we were on the road, and we definitely disturbed the spirit, the Goliath spirit, that was in the board. The spirit utilized my closest surroundings and took all its anger out on the people closest to me, just ’cause it wanted to show what it could do. But I had this attitude of, like, “Throw whatever you want at me. I still have the power of a strong vote in this band, and I vote we keep going for it.” It just reminded me of my mom in high school and doing art: “Why do you have to draw pictures of such grotesque things? Why can’t you draw pictures of angels?” When somebody tells me that, the pictures just get more grotesque, that’s all.

What obstacles did that spirit present in making the album?

Bixler-Zavala: The biggest one was the nervous breakdown of our engineer—him not showing up, sounding like he was completely out of his mind, literally hijacking all the [computer] drives and all the tapes. We had to hire people… to bust in his door and take them all back. That was the biggest indication we’d tapped into something we shouldn’t have.

It feels like there was more room for you to use your voice on this album.

Bixler-Zavala: Well, I think I’m still fighting for some space in there, ’cause Thomas [Pridgen, drummer] is so busy, and there’s so much [musical] information coming at you. Maybe there are just moments that opened up that have it that way. Maybe on the last album the voice was more of an instrument and now I’m doing more actual singing. I don’t know; I’m too close to the material, I think.

You can pick up The Mars Volta’s latest CD, The Bedlam in Goliath here.

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This entry was posted by RNYK on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 8:30 pm