Their studio albums, however, don’t conjure thoughts of a great live band. The albums are fractured, dense, and difficult for singing or dancing along. Their eleven- and twelve-minute songs feature nearly formless passages and odd breakdowns of winds, trumpets, and computer beeps. One might think they would struggle to be compelling live, let alone be able to transport their equipment. Yet they’re consistently ranked as one of the best live acts in music.

This is a reputation they fully deserve. They’re punishingly loud. (When the ex-drummer of Suicidal Tendencies offers you earplugs, take them.) They get your attention. They don’t bother much with stage patter, but they project confidence and tremendous focus. They’re a band in complete control, and they have a gifted sense of dramatic timing—they lack instantly hummable melodies, chants, or traditional crowd-pleasing weapons, but they know how to pull back and wallop the crowd. They know how to tease and deliver.

This precision is hard earned. “I rehearse the band nonstop—as much as I can,” says Omar. “And we do long days. At the beginning, it was very much boot camp. I literally had them rehearsing twelve hours a day.

“Those stories about Suicide opening for the Cars or Elvis Costello and causing riots because people hated them so much—that’s inspiring,” says Cedric. “I wish I were in that band.”

”They both laugh about the common impression that they’re an improvisational band. “There’s the misconception that even our records are improvised,” says Omar. “Our records are the least improvised of all—they’re complete architecture. It’s good on one hand, it’s a compliment, to know that it sounds natural, it sounds like a band playing together, because it’s made as the complete opposite. It’s made one person at a time; it’s made very scientifically, very cold, so it’s great that it comes off warm. But when people say, ‘Oh, that’s great, you guys just jam and record,’ on the one hand, that’s great. On the other hand, I want to pull my hair out, thinking of all the work it took to make it sound that way.

”To anyone raised on blues-based rock, their live show often feels as though it’s left the map. But The Mars Volta just have different maps. They take great risks with the audience, veering between thumping rock and roll charisma and introverted noodling. Cedric is the real showman, whipping the microphone cord in huge loops around himself and frightening the roadies with equipment-endangering leaps and lunges. Omar wears an absorbed and happy expression, occupied with his clear purpose in life. Together with Thomas Prigden, they form a triangle of power, building a series of addictive, mind-peeling crescendos. The music becomes incrementally more ferocious and mesmerizing. The show has a wavelike rhythm to it; the band pummels you and then pulls you closer. It’s like they teach a new musical logic in the course of a show.

Omar and Cedric speak with great admiration of the filmmaker John Cassavetes, telling the story of how he once overhauled a film because the test audience laughed and cried in all the predictable places. “He said, ‘They’re seeing all the surface stuff, but they’re missing the point,’” says Omar. The band’s artistic goals are not so far removed from those of Cassavetes. Seeing The Mars Volta live calls to mind Bill Murray’s character in Tootsie, who said, “I don’t like when somebody comes up to me the next day and says, ‘Hey, man, I saw your play. It touched me; I cried.’ I like it when a guy comes up to me a week later and says, ‘Hey, man, I saw your play. What happened?’”

-Tom Vale

Photos by Bryan Sheffield

The Mars Volta: www.themarsvolta.com
Universal Records: www.unistudios.com

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Posted to Music Features on Monday, April 21st, 2008 by Justin.