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I did time growing up listening to The Misfits and really angular, angry stuff, but then I graduated and blossomed from that. I'm just more in touch with female energy as far as that's concerned 'cause there's so much aggressive energy going on behind me that I think it needs the high notes. It needs to pierce, it needs to have that banshee quality, I think.
-Cedric Bixler-Zavala |
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Photo of Cedric from tmvfr.info
It's interesting you bring up Nina Simone, because that was one of the things I wrote down in my notes about your own vocal approach. Your vocals are very reminiscent in my mind of female jazz singers like Nina Simone with the melismatic approach. Would you consider Nina Simone one of your chief influences?
Yeah, definitely one of them. I mean, I've always had a super, super strong Bjork undercurrent in what I do. There have been times where I'm singing something and I think, "Fuck, that's from the first Sugarcubes album. That's 'Coldsweat' to a T." So I have to figure out a way to make it an influence and not a Xerox copy. I would say female energy is more part of what I do vocally than anything else. I did time growing up listening to The Misfits and really angular, angry stuff, but then I graduated and blossomed from that. I'm just more in touch with female energy as far as that's concerned 'cause there's so much aggressive energy going on behind me that I think it needs the high notes. It needs to pierce, it needs to have that banshee quality, I think.
It presents a nice yin and yang thing from the music to your vocals...
Even if I get made fun of for it sometimes, like opening up for System of a Down. There are tons of males in the audience who don't know if I'm a guy or a girl. I guess that's a good thing. I guess it makes them think a little. It might give some small kid the courage, if he has that range, to not be afraid to dive right into it. Not everything has to be macho and so tough all the time.
John Frusciante by Michael Jurick |
For the last album, I'd read in a previous interview that Omar had everyone in the band play their parts completely on their own without any knowledge of the other musicians' parts in order to have you guys play without any kind of preconceived notions as to what was being done before you did your take. Was that the same approach that was taken for this album?
Yeah, definitely. Even though people rehearsed the parts, they didn't know how it all connected. Certain songs are just chopped all together and there were places where we only kept certain little parts that seemed the coolest. No one understood where it was going, but that's fun because you tend to put a certain emotion into it when you don't know what's going on, when you don't know that there's a left turn coming up or anything like that. It's just fun that way. It helps diffuse the purpose of doing what technically proficient musicians tend to do, which is just talk about it and overanalyze it. By that time, it's lunch and you've wasted studio time.
I wanted to ask you about your relationship with John Frusciante. I know that he worked on this album. Can you tell me how you guys first met and his role in the production of this record?
I first met John with our other band, De Facto. We opened up for him and then he and Omar were just inseparable after that. They just became really good friends, and I think they influence each other back and forth all the time.
The Mars Volta |
Because he'd played on the other records, it just seemed natural for him to be on this record. Since Omar had to produce the record, he would teach John a song right before we were gonna track it, literally. I'd walk up to the studio, and they'd be on the street corner sitting on the sidewalk learning a song right before we were gonna record it. That way, Omar could be hands-free, directing everyone in sort of a Zappa-type mode, I guess. It worked because John can do that. John can learn something no matter how complicated, no matter how many parts. He can learn it right then and there, and that's what we needed. That's what Omar needed so that he could be the producer and kinda stand outside of the situation and listen to it without having to play guitar, especially for these songs. Some of the parts demand so much attention that I don't think he could be doing the role of producer and guitar player at the same time. So John is like a great secret weapon to have. He knows what is needed immediately and helps speed things along. There wasn't too much art school discussion over it. We just did it and it was over. It was fast and it was great.
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