The story of The Mars Volta’s upcoming album, “The Bedlam in Goliath,” which will be released Jan. 29 on Universal Records, is as strange as it gets. Guitarist and producer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez was in a trinket shop in Jerusalem and purchased a Ouija-like “talking board” called the Soothsayer for the band’s lead singer and lyricist, Cedric Bixler-Zavala.
The band opened the board and found its mysteries oddly addicting for a while on tour, but then bad luck rained on them in the form of equipment issues, musical conflict that resulted in a drummer change, a hobbling foot injury for Bixler-Zavala, a mental breakdown by their engineer, a flood in Rodriguez-Lopez’s studio, and more.
But once Rodriguez-Lopez buried the Soothsayer in a never-to-be-disclosed location, the whole experience inspired the new album, and things started looking up again for our hard-progressive rock heroes. We caught up with Bixler-Zavala just to make sure everything’s OK.
Doug Miller: So ... is everything OK?
Cedric Bixler-Zavala: I hope so. You never know with this type of stuff. Things were happening that weren’t good and the talking board just amplified it. But things are better, and the album shows that. I think maybe a couple of the songs are weird and intense and scary, but for the most part, we tried to do something positive. Let’s say that this record is our version of uplifting, which probably isn’t the normal definition of the word (laughs). For us, it means it’s a bit more mutated. But the videos showcase our sense of humor. It’s showing the lighter side of us that will get us over the hump.
Miller: You’re a huge film buff. What movie has had the most impact on you? Anything recent?
Bixler-Zavala: Hmmm. That’s a tough one. I think I’ll have to go with that Helen Mirren movie “The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover.” What I like about it, apart from the story line, is that it’s a really in-your-face movie but it’s got such great, classy subtlety to it. Whether it’s Helen or any other actor you’re following, every time they go into a new room, everything changes color as well as what they’re wearing — so it’s green in a green room, white in a white room, et cetera. That movie fed on my need to be visually stimulated. It’s why I like graphic novels as opposed to books. The kid in me has ADD.
Miller: Netflix or the old-fashioned video store?
Bixler-Zavala: I’m a video store guy. I like thumbing through things and holding them. That goes hand in hand with why we like to put vinyl records out. I guess I’m from that time. I had 8-tracks when I was a kid. I would go to sleep with something next to me that I could actually hold. And I like packaging.
Miller: You guys have reacted quite angrily at slam dancing during your shows. Do you do the same thing when people sitting near you in the movie theater are talking?
Bixler-Zavala: Oh man, I can’t stand that. I hate that. I either tell them to shut up or whisper to them to be quiet. And if I’m with people of the same mind, even better. I went to see “Fitzcarraldo” at the Egyptian, and (director Werner) Herzog was speaking. I was with (Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John) Frusciante, and he had no problem doing it. I just don’t get it, though. Why are people speaking through “Fitzcarraldo” in the first place? You miss so much with all the visual layers, especially if you’re watching a foreign movie. You could be disagreeing with the translation, and you have to catch everything in one shot. That goes for our music, too. I wish people would promise me they’re not going to talk or fidget. I don’t understand why they get offended when you ask them, either. Sometimes I feel like the only place it happens is in the States.
Miller: Back to the story about the talking board and the album. Do you expect anyone to believe it?
Bixler-Zavala: Yeah, of course, but I think something like that only really resonates with certain people culturally. There’s a pragmatic, scientific thing in Germany, for example, where we were there recently and told people about it and they were like, “Yeah, right.” They’re just trained to see everything as definite and mathematical and that’s the way they are. But in the Latin culture, it’s the exact opposite. They were like, “What the hell were you thinking messing around with this thing?” Belief in things like that, spirituality and its powers, that’s oxygen over there. It does exist, whether you want to believe it or not. That’s just the way it is.
Miller: OK, one more thing. Nothing bad is going to happen to me because I talked to you today, right?
Bixler-Zavala: No. We fastened the album with so many positive energies. If we did do just a straight version of the talking board, it would be bad luck. It would be something like “The Exorcist.” But it is what it is. It’s a vinyl talking board with an overwhelming sense of what’s good going through it.