The "Hiatus" Era
If the belief that the whole is better than the sum of its parts were to request an example to best assert its thesis, then Omar and Cedric in the latter half of 2012 and all of 2013 would be prime candidates. While differences in opinion are wider than the Grand Canyon when it comes to the output of this year, it is non-controversial to propose that none of it came close to what The Mars Volta had been concocting for ten years prior.
Bosnian Rainbows had emerged from the depleted final tour of The Mars Volta in 2012. At the time there were hints it would be their last show, and the palpable waning of energy as the tour progressed seemed as strong of evidence as you could find. With a few At The Drive-In reunion shows wrapped up Omar hastily assembled significant other Teri Saurez, Deantoni Parks, and Deantoni's long time collaborate Nicci Kapser to form a new group. Initially intended to be a new Omar Rodriguez-Lopez group, their communal lifestyle in Hamburg Germany led them to decide to instead form a whole new band, one steeped deep in collaboration, community, and broccoli.
It only took about a month for the majority of the material for their first album to be developed, with their first performance being an abbreviated set at Clouds Hill. Less than two weeks later their first concert on 8/30/2012 in Belgium was performed. It is pretty remarkable, when you look at the time line of events, that Omar played in four different bands, At the Drive-In, The Mars Volta, the Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group and Bosnian Rainbows, in less than two months. The shows, booked some time in advance, were billed as the Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group, leading most people to initially assume we would be getting snappy riffs, spacey jams, and occasional grimy synth ballads. Instead, attendees bore witness to a more pop-oriented, 80's post-punk inspired style of music with Nicci on synth bass, Deantoni playing a drum and keyboard hybrid, Omar naturally on guitar and Teri leaving her guitar and keyboard behind so she could marry her vocals with full body expressions.
The band's first single, Torn Maps, a pop-rock number with nods to 80's stylings, debuted in January of 2013. The second single, Turtle Neck, a more post-punk stylized song featuring a pretty sharp and heavy jam in the middle, would be released the next month in January. Reaction to the new material was mixed, some listeners appreciated the more stripped down, art-rock vibes of this new quartet while others found it to be lackluster in contrast to the other works these individuals had played in prior. It is also fair to say that a decent amount of the vitriol for the act came from scorned The Mars Volta fans who were bitter about the likelihood this meant their adored band was dead. Those paying attention at the time already had a hunch the writing was on the wall, and this was simply adding more kindling to the speculative fire.
Bosnian Rainbows were persistent though, touring aggressively through the remainder of 2012, playing an impressive amount of back to back concerts, slowly winning over old Omar fans and new appreciators. If nothing else, their work ethic was impeccable. So much so that when interviewed members of the group were already alluding to new material being written even before the debut album had released. Why promote the upcoming album when you can hype one that is even further away.
It would take until February of 2013 for Cedric to confirm The Mars Volta's death in a furious run of tweets condemning Omar for failing to tour Noctourniquet through the United States aside from the brief stint opening from Soundgarden and the 2011 secret shows. Fans at the time already, more or less, knew this was the case, but hearing it in such final terms prevented plausible deniability. The Mars Volta died in February 2013.
Despite internet humdrumming Bosnian Rainbows kept touring, and touring. 2013 was no different than 2012 as Bosnian Rainbows continued to rack up concert after concert, fine-tuning their songs and evolving them as they went along. They were clear in their message, we are own band and we are here to stay. Tracking the band meant you could observe songs growing and perfecting. Parts became more nuanced, dynamic, or tonally acute. The rough sketches of the early 2012 shows were clearer in vision as 2013 progressed.
It would appear that Cedric decided to venture into his own world of song-writing and performing sans Omar. Zavalaz came to the surface in early June, bring Juan Alderete back on bass, along with Dan Elkan, Nate Wolcott of Bright Eyes fame, and Gregory Rogrove. Cedric announced an upcoming album along with a snippet of the song Blue Rose of Grand Street. The tiny sampling promised a stark deviation from Bosnian Rainbows' dreary early 80's inspired synthetic art-rock, instead opting for a mid 70's AM radio rock vibe. Music for cave dysphoric cave dwellers, meet music for cruising through the flat plains of America with the windows down.
An extremely brief 15 day tour showed promise. The live shows, which fortunately were recorded to a decent extent, showed a sparkly and warm throwback band harking to an older era of music, giving hints of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Neil Young, and maybe even a hint of The Carpenters. Cedric sang about conceiving twins, healing from emotional pain, and seeing a potentially bright future along with playful guitars and warm Hammond organs. Sure, it was not the high-flying antics of Cicatriz ESP, but his clever lyric-smithing was ever present.
All of this seduced fans with the potential for an interesting future where Cedric and Omar, in their own bands, could still produce interesting and engaging music. Heck, Zavalaz would even open for the Red Hot Chili Peppers for two nights in Alaska later in the Summer, indicating the band was serious and here to stay. It is hard to imagine getting the opening slot for that band if you are not serious about your future.
This new future presented itself as more of an inevitable timeline, as Bosnian Rainbows continued to claim new albums had been recorded and were ready for release, despite their self-title record barely being a week old. Press for the album and the band was quite positive. The record received mostly positive reviews and music journalists were eager to learn more about this band operating as a sort of commune. Rightfully so as there was a lot to write about, Omar had shifted from musical dictator to parliamentarian, Deantoni was breaking the fundamentals of drumming with his keyboard, drum hybrid, and Teri spent every show dancing, gyrating, and jaggedly shifting her body to the music. Concert reviews mostly positive too. For those not entrenched in the The Mars Volta fandom there was a lot to discover and enjoy, and as time wore on, more of those bitter The Mars Volta fans did warm up to the act. Their tenacity can not be discounted.
All of this, coupled with an alleged Zavalaz record not far away, a rumored mixtape from Zechs Marquise, and continued releases from Juan's Big Sir provided the fronting that everything was going to be okay. Ideal? Perhaps not, but there was plenty of music to go around from the veterans of The Mars Volta. By mid-Summer it seemed we were all going to be okay.
Perhaps this new future had a bit of a softer landing due to a mid-Summer leak of a variety of The Mars Volta demos and B-sides, gifting listeners with one last unintended parting gift. The, at the time, capstone made looking to the new horizon a little easier. Yes, The Mars Volta was gone, but we finally got to hear In The Vulpine Clouds, a take on Molochwalker with Thomas Pridgen, and some pretty spicy instrumentals that would later confirmed to have been part of the never released The Somnambulists.
Our less ideal, but not unwelcome future sounded all well and good, in theory, but its reality quickly crumbled underneath its Potemkin Discography. Upon completion of the Alaska shows Zavalaz effectively ceased to exist. Cedric teased fans with a few photos and clips of in the studio work, but beyond that the well of Zavalaz dried abruptly and with little to show for it. Cedric has posited running out of money is what ultimately killed the project, although he had alluded the album was close to being done as well. The last post on the band's facebook was in September, hyping Juan's shows with Deltron 3030.
One would think Omar, being a notorious work horse, would fare better, but aside from their debut album actually making out the door it was not much better. Bosnian Rainbows would continue to hint, allude, and tease that new material was coming, recorded, about to be played live, but aside from some outliers, mainly festival performances, Bosnian Rainbows had the exact same setlist from August 2012, to November 2013 when they played their last show. Additional music would eventually come out, but as a leak on the internet of what appear to be unfinished songs. Had the band cemented a strongly legacy than Zavalaz? Most certainly, to be fair they actually released an album, but it would hard to deny the frustration of the hype not matching the reality.
Matters were made worse when what should have been a moment to celebrate, the song Eli appearing on the hit HBO show True Detective, turned into a digital mud slinging between the band and their label manager Cathy Pellow over how the song ended up on the show. This resulted in the long-term relationship between Omar and Cathy collapsing the Rodriguez Lopez Productions catalog vanishing into thin air, deleted from the internet, not to be seen again for another eight years.
The Hiatus Era is less of a hiatus of the relationship of Omar and Cedric but rather a hiatus of Omar and Cedric. Both seemed lost in this post The Mars Volta world and without each other providing support. The self-described toxic communication between the two had clearly hit a breaking point, intersecting with real world issues that exposed the weaknesses in their dynamic.
When Omar and Cedric's long vacation began Cedric was in the middle of his misadventure in Scientology, a faux-faith that is heinous in its ability to destroy relationships. While the duo have alluded to other individuals instigating the rift I have to imagine Scientology played its own massive role. Later, he was about to become a father, and his wife was about to begin her still ongoing journey to heal from her assault at the hands of Danny Masterson. Perhaps it was not so much mismanagement that killed Zavalaz, but rather life putting its foot down and stating this was not the time for new bands.
Omar, on the other hand, lost his mother in 2012, a serious wound for him that clearly impacted his drive and ability to manage and maintain The Mars Volta and At the Drive-In's significant needs. In a recent interview it was hinted that people involved in The Mars Volta were not sympathetic to the death in his family and wanted to keep the band going and that clearly was not something he was able to manage, understandably, at the time. Bosnian Rainbows provided a safer, significantly lower stakes, avenue for him to grieve and continue his passion for music. Although the aggressive touring schedule does seem to contradict, ever so slightly, the previous assertions, one could challenge this with stating that The Mars Volta or At the Drive-In failing is a financial disaster that impacts the lives of a lot of people. If Bosnian Rainbows failed there were minimal repercussions.
Regardless, the Hiatus Era proved that both these seemingly eternal friends relied on each other to be their best and without that pairing things began to crumble. It also showed that life has an amazing way of derailing our plans. The wall built between Cedric and Omar, the former seemingly more active and the latter more passive came down in the early months of 2014 as Omar came to visit Cedric's kids for the first time. That reuniting apparently became the spark that drove them back to making music together and sure enough it would not be long before ANTEMASQUE, a celebration of friendship in power-punk clothes came to fruition.