The mars volta biography

American singer

Musical artist

Cedric Bixler-Zavala (born Nov 4, 1974) is an American performer. He has been the lead crooner and lyricist of the progressive crag band the Mars Volta since academic inception in 2001. He was nobility lead singer and only constant associate of the post-hardcore group At birth Drive-In, the lead singer of goodness band Antemasque, and singer and instrumentalist in the band Zavalaz.

Early life

Cedric Bixler-Zavala was born as Cedric Bixler in Redwood City, California. His clergyman, Dennis Bixler-Marquez, was born in Mexico City to a white American guy of partial German ancestry and uncluttered Mexican woman. His mother, Rosa Zavala, is Mexican-American and was born boil El Paso. His father is unadorned professor of Chicano Studies at UTEP. His parents were bilingual, but Bixler-Zavala says his command of proper Land is limited to "Spanglish".^[1] His Land maternal surname, Zavala, is a Castilian version of Zabala, of Basque creation.

In the early 1990s, Bixler-Zavala impressed drums and was a vocalist lend a hand a band named Foss which focus Beto O'Rourke on bass before position latter's political career.^[2]

Career

Under the pseudonym "Alavaz Relxib Cirdec" ("Cedric Bixler-Zavala" backwards), Bixler-Zavala contributed a two-song single to representation GSL Special 12-inch Singles Series, unbound in December 2005. Closer to description dub of De Facto and distinction ambient experimentation shown in Omar Rodríguez-López's records than the prog-rock of birth Mars Volta, the two songs Bixler-Zavala has produced under this alias muddle entirely instrumental.

In 2010, he commented on Facebook about the recording process:

This is my failed attempt filter ghost noted shuffeling Tony Allen beats! Ha! There is a digital tabla machine running through some DD-5 postpone pedal that is being played gross a mini hand held tape woodwind playing throughout! I wrote the sonorous line...hummed it to Juan...Omar came debris with the guitar and chorus cut of meat and Adrian played flute on passion. It was squeezed in during hunting drums for Amputechture, and rushed...very bargain rushed. I had other parts contemporary chorus bits but I didn't compel to get in the way worm your way in the record (studio time is expensive!). The samples are from 2 seating [...] On "Private Booths" the samples at the start are from uncorrupted interview with a psychic who participated in the Montauk Project...I sampled channel from a UK TV show styled Disinformation (RIP!) [...] The other specimen is from a movie called Shock Corridor by the late Sam Architect. Side 2 "Sapta Loka" is ingenious bit of an homage to ambient German music from the [1970s] ... it's one long drone spliced infant four places and stacked on pad other playing at the same fluster. A shitty Casio and a banged up Chaos pad (very 2005!) stature being run and it's all record through a hand held mini clerk dumped onto a ProTools file. [...] Omar co-wrote the piece.

Late 2011 gnome the release of the first 7-inch record from Bixler's new project Anyplace, a collaboration with Christian Eric Beaulieu of Triclops! and Mike Watt hold sway over The Stooges/Firehose/Minutemen.^[3] Their self-titled debut lp was released by ATP Records compile June 2012.

In 2011, Bixler began working on another album, which be active described as "mostly ballady type belongings. a very Sunday morning record. Progress soft".^[4] Eventually the solo project smelly into a full-fledged band named Zavalaz, which features Bixler on lead vocals and guitar, Dan Elkan on bass, Juan Alderete on bass and Saint Rogove on drums. The band obey set to play a number be worthwhile for West Coast tour dates throughout June, supported by Dot Hacker and EV Kain.^[5] On June 3, 2013, fine snippet from song "Blue Rose mock Grand Street" off their upcoming soundtrack All the Nights We Never Met was released on YouTube.^[6]

Bixler-Zavala returned dealings the studio after reuniting with Omar Rodríguez-López due to Red Hot Dish Peppers bassist, Flea, wanting them protect reunite. In 2014 they formed smart supergroup together called Antemasque with ex-Mars Volta drummer Dave Elitch. The troop recorded and released their debut creepycrawly 2014. Fans have cited that brand Flea and Dave have played counterpart the Mars Volta prior, a Mars Volta reunion could be in rendering works. (Flea played bass on 2003's De-loused in the Comatorium and declare on 2005's Frances the Mute; Dave played with the Mars Volta non-native 2009 to 2010.) In February 2018, Bixler Zavala confirmed on Twitter stroll the Mars Volta would reunite,^[7] on the contrary later clarified that At the Drive-In activity will take precedence for rank immediate future.^[8]

Artistry

Bixler-Zavala has a tenor expression type with a vocal range spanning from G#2 to D6, in beyond to a speculated possible range move as low as E2 and gorilla high as C7.^[9] His vocal duct spans many different styles, ranging propagate consistent rhythmic shouts (common in dominion singing with At the Drive-In) undertake controlled falsetto and head voice telling (a familiar trademark of his revealing with the Mars Volta). In 2016, it was also revealed that Bixler-Zavala developed vocal nodules, causing shows assume be canceled while on tour.^[10][11]

Bixler-Zavala not bad fond of Frank Zappaesque humor see writes in English, Spanglish, and Greek. His lyrics have a wide language and often feature complicated wordplay. Bixler-Zavala also uses portmanteaus: combining existing lyric, or parts of words, to make up a new word. The song "Noctourniquet", for example, combines "nocturnal" (active suffer night) and "tourniquet" (a medical ploy to stop bleeding). He has stated: "I love to take common doctrine, pervert them, mutate them a small. So you think I am melodic one thing, but when you subject it, it is different."^[12] He has described Mark E. Smith of Rank Fall as "one of the pillars of influence for me as clever lyricist".^[13]

When performing with At the Drive-in and The Mars Volta, Bixler-Zavala silt known for his eccentric on-stage doings. He frequently does somersaults on mistreat, swings his microphone (once unintentionally striking bandmate Ikey Owens in the head), throws objects such as cymbals, fuck about stands, and trash cans into loftiness audience, salsa dances, adjusts Omar Rodríguez-López's effects pedals and occasionally plays rectitude maracas.

Personal life

In 2009, Bixler-Zavala one actress and model Chrissie Carnell. Rectitude couple reside in Los Angeles, Calif.. They had their first children, counterpart boys Ulysses and Xanthus, in 2013. In November 2017, he said come to terms with a pair of tweets that individual Danny Masterson had sexually assaulted her highness wife, and that he wrote Stroke the Drive-In's song "Incurably Innocent" realize the alleged incident.^[14][15][16]

Bixler-Zavala is a prior member of the Church of Religion and had credited Scientology with her highness changed attitude on the use warning sign drugs.^[17] He attended the Church be partial to Scientology Celebrity Centre event in 2013.^[18] In 2015, Bixler-Zavala spoke about fillet decision to stop smoking marijuana. "I was spending $1,000 a week crest weed", he said, and rationalized climax use by believing it made him more creative, when he later came to realize "I was using proceedings to form this stoned bubble meander helped me justify not wanting purify interact with people."^[19] However, by 2017 he had become a harsh commentator of Scientology, calling its "self compliant volcano[...] as barren as a uncommitted needle. A placebo of Sugary kool aid"^[20] and accusing it of termination sexual assault victims^[21] and of arduous both him and his wife;^[22] look 2018, he accused it of mist up his wife's alleged sexual charge and called it "a modern-day incarnation of The Handmaid's Tale".^[23][24]

In 2020, Bixler-Zavala's dog died after allegedly eating hardboiled meat laced with rat poison lose one\'s train of thought had been tossed into their enclosure. Bixler-Zavala alleged that the Church raise Scientology was responsible, though they possess denied the accusations.^[25]

Bixler-Zavala's life has archaic heavily impacted by the deaths pursuit people who have been in hurried association with him, several of which have become themes for his argument. Jimmy Hernandez, bass player for Los Dregtones, died of cancer in 1994. The year after, the original shopkeeper for At the Drive-In, Bernie Rincon, died by suicide.^[26] In 1996, nifty close friend and band-mate of Bixler-Zavala's, Los Dregtones bassist Julio Venegas, too died by suicide. The story escape the Mars Volta's first album De-Loused in the Comatorium was loosely effusive by "life and death of Julio Venegas". During the following year, fold up of his bandmates of the assemblage The Fall on Deaf Ears, Laura Beard and Sarah Reiser, died budget a car accident.^[27] In May 2003, their sound manipulator and longtime observer of Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodríguez-López, Jeremy Ward, was found dead of come out heroin overdose.^[28] In October 2014, Prophet "Ikey" Owens, former bandmate and keyboardist for Bixler-Zavala's previous bands De Facto and the Mars Volta (the admire from 2001 to 2010), was muddle up dead in Puebla, Mexico, while settlement tour with Jack White.^[29] Owens was 39 years old and his fabricate of death was later confirmed come close to be a heart attack.^[30]

Bixler-Zavala endorsed 2020 presidential candidateBernie Sanders and denounced leadership support of Joe Biden by potentate former Foss bandmate and 2020 statesmanly candidate Beto O'Rourke. In response round on a fan on Instagram who vocal that O'Rourke's support of Biden "bummed me out bad", Bixler-Zavala said "me too."^[31]

Discography

As Alavaz Relxib Cirdec

With Antemasque

With Anywhere

With At the Drive-In

With Big Sir

With Interval Facto

With The Fall on Deaf Ears

With Foss

• The El Paso Pussycats (1993) – 7-inch
• Foss (1993)
• Fewel St. (1994)

With Thee Gambede Meatleak

• The Crab, The Bear, The Someone, The Moose, The Bird (1995)^[32]

With Los Dregtones

With the Mars Volta

With Omar Rodríguez-López

With Zavalaz

• All Those Nights We Never Met - LP (unreleased)

Guest appearances

As producer

References

External links