Omar Rodríguez-López

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez maintains an extraordinarily active career as a recording artist, guitarist, composer, bandleader, and filmmaker. First recognized for his athletic six-string work in the post-hardcore group At the Drive-In and later in the experimental prog-metal outfit the Mars Volta, he has issued more than fifty recordings under his own name since launching the series with 2004’s A Manual Dexterity: Soundtrack Vol. 1. His wide-ranging catalogue draws from punk rock, prog, metal, funk, traditional Latin music, blues, jazz, film music, and avant-garde composition, with legendary salsa pianist Larry Harlow standing as his chief influence. Playing left-handed, Rodriguez-Lopez favors a physical, mercurial, and fluid approach enriched by an extensive pedal collection. The charting 2007 release Se Dice Bisonte, No Búfalo inaugurated a ten-year stretch during which he regularly issued multiple albums annually. Xenophanes, released in 2009, embodied his attraction to intricate and frequently humorous narrative frameworks. Following the Mars Volta’s 2012 dissolution, he delivered three solo albums that same year, among them Un Corazón de Nadie. Four further albums appeared in 2013, including Woman Gives Birth to Tomato!, while he co-established Antemasque alongside former Mars Volta vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala. In 2016 he entered an unusual arrangement with Ipecac that generated a dozen albums issued biweekly, beginning with Sworn Virgins; the partnership extended through another twelve recordings in 2017. That same year he rejoined At the Drive-In for a reunion tour supporting the studio album in•ter a•li•a. In 2018 Rodriguez-Lopez produced Chilean songwriter Mon Laferte’s live-in-the-studio concept album Norma, which earned a Latin Grammy.

Born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, in 1975, Rodriguez-Lopez grew up between South Carolina and El Paso, Texas, where he settled and formed the hardcore band Startled Calf at age fifteen. He entered At the Drive-In in 1993 and remained until the group disbanded at the height of its popularity in 2001. The following year he founded the Mars Volta and the instrumental side project the Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Quintet. He scored Jorge Hernandez Aldana’s El Búfalo de la Noche in 2005 and, by then, had already released four solo albums: 2004’s A Manual Dexterity: Soundtrack Vol. 1, the self-titled Omar Rodriguez in 2006, and both Se Dice Bisonte, No Búfalo and The Apocalypse Inside of an Orange in 2007. Continued double releases followed in 2008 with Calibration and the earlier-recorded Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Jeremy Michael Ward. Old Money, Megaritual, Despair, and Xenophanes—all from 2009—featured the latter sung entirely in Spanish by Rodriguez-Lopez and duet partner Mexican singer-songwriter Ximena Sariñana. The brisk pace persisted into 2010 with Solar Gambling, Cizaña de los Amores, Tychozorente, and Mantra Hiroshima. In 2011 he produced and played guitar on Le Butcherettes’ debut Sin Sin Sin, contributed to Ximena Sariñana’s first EP, and issued Un Escorpión Perfumado.

After his mother’s death in 2012 Rodriguez-Lopez paused solo activity to pursue collaborations. The Mars Volta concluded with Noctourniquet, yet he still released Woman Gives Birth to Tomato! with the Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group plus the solo albums Saber, Querer, Osar y Callar, Octopus Kool-Aid, and Un Corazón de Nadie. He also formed experimental art-rockers Bosnian Rainbows that year with ex-Mars Volta drummer Deantoni Parks, Le Butcherettes vocalist Teri Gender Bender, and keyboardist Nicci Kasper; their self-titled album arrived in 2013. Rodriguez-Lopez additionally played bass and produced Le Butcherettes’ sophomore Cry Is for the Flies. He launched Antemasque with longtime collaborator Cedric Bixler-Zavala and a rotating lineup that included Flea, Travis Barker, Marfred Rodriguez-Lopez, and Dave Elitch; the band’s self-titled debut appeared in 2014.

Throughout 2015 Rodriguez-Lopez produced Le Butcherettes’ third album A Raw Youth while cataloguing an extensive archive of unreleased material. In 2016 Antemasque issued Saddle on the Atom Bomb, he participated in At the Drive-In’s reunion tour, and he began the Ipecac series of twelve biweekly albums that included Sworn Virgins, Arañas en La Sombra, and Corazones. He also formed Crystal Fairy with Teri Gender Bender, Melvins guitarist Buzz Osborne, and drummer Dale Crover, releasing the single “Necklace of Divorce” b/w “Drugs on the Bus” in October and “Chiseler” in December. The Ipecac marathon continued through 2017 with twelve additional albums such as Gorilla Preacher Cartel, Roman Lips, Solid State Mercenaries, Birth of a Ghost, Zen Thrills, and Ensayo de un Desaparecido; Crystal Fairy simultaneously released its self-titled debut and toured in support.

In the first half of 2018 Rodriguez-Lopez organized remaining unreleased recordings. That June he accepted an invitation from chart-topping Chilean singer-songwriter Mon Laferte to produce her romantic concept album Norma. The pair had first met two years earlier when he invited her to sing on several unreleased tracks, bonding over a shared affection for musicals. She subsequently asked him to produce and to assemble and conduct thirteen musicians performing live in the studio. Norma was recorded in a single day at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles and mixed by Bruce Botnick without overdubs; the song cycle explored the stages of a love affair and won the Latin Grammy for Best Alternative Album.

In 2019 Rodriguez-Lopez partnered with Ernie Ball/Music Man to introduce his signature “Mariposa” electric guitars. He also completed recent archival recordings that had been cut, mixed, arranged, and produced by Johann Scheerer at Clouds Hill Studios in Los Angeles with bassist-keyboardist Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez, drummer Audrey Paris Johnson, pianist-keyboardist Leo Genovese, and vocalist Virginia Garcia-Alvez. Some material originated from sessions dating back to 2006, though everything was rearranged and re-recorded as new, comparatively accessible rock songs. During summer 2020 three separate digital volumes of Cloud Hill Tapes containing roughly twenty new songs appeared individually, followed by a physical three-LP set compiling all three volumes.