Arguably the more well-known of the two bands formed out of the ashes of indie-rock band At The Drive-In, The Mars Volta are synonymous with unpredictable live shows and mind-bending lyrics. The latter, according to band co-founder Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, is vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s domain. “He doesn’t [set out to write abstract lyrics],” says Omar with a chuckle, “he’s just pulling from his sub-conscious, pulling from the darker, deeper, absurd parts of the brain…”

Even though he plays guitar, Omar doesn’t actually consider himself a guitarist. “I don’t really like the guitar too much as an instrument, and I’ve never felt like a guitarist or a musician per se, but I think now after, god, it’s been almost 20 years now, of playing the instrument, I think we’ve grown fond of each other.”

For those not in the know, The Mars Volta are touring Australia once again, and are happy to be coming back again in June. “I enjoy Australia very much,” says Omar. “We’ve been there about five times now, and I wish we could go twice a year. Very excited to be coming back, especially now that we’re getting to play our own concerts. At the beginning it was just being invited to do the festival circuit. That was really cool as well, you know, we’ll take any opportunity to go over to Australia, but it’s much more fun when you get to have your own thing going on.”

And Omar has nothing but praise for the Aussie crowd. “I know from the past that our Australian crowds are very passionate. They like sharing all these moments and just generally a great time, because Australians seem to have a real soft spot for the underdog, and people who are obviously living completely out of passion and love for what they’re doing. So it’s all a kind of connection between us and the Australian crowd. Plus Australians are, at least from what we’ve experienced, very laid-back. [It] goes hand-in-hand with our own culture.” Reservedly, he adds, “We usually have a great time, but you know…I don’t expect anything, because everything changes and you don’t know what you’re gonna get.”

While latest album The Bedlam In Goliath has been given much acclaim, it was borne out of a dark time for the band, beginning when Omar purchased an Ouija board in Jerusalem as a gift to Cedric. Playing with the gift while on tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Omar and Cedric began to experience otherworldly occurrences. Their studio flooded, the band’s bass player contracted a rare blood disease, recordings were lost and one of the usually-dependable engineers tried to destroy the completed files. So what happened?

“I could just say chaos, I could say upheaval, I could say a challenge to the belief system, a challenge to your spiritual system… you know…Chaos, evolution, death, rebirth…All kinds of things that happened in life in general, all at once, and very concentrated.” And it scared him, because “anything that brings a challenge to the human spirit is usually scary because we don’t know where it’s gonna take us. But those are the ones that hold the biggest reward, the ones that have fear in them.”

For Omar, the best thing that can happen on tour is “being in tune with each other, and having a very wild, exciting and pleasant conversation on stage. Which means just being, you know, psychically linked up, which happens sometimes. And that’s the highest of the high, when we’re all speaking the same language and on the same wavelength. Where we start and finish each others’ sentences, almost.” He adds almost wistfully, “That’s the highest of the high.”

When asked to describe a live show, Omar had this to say on them. “A live show is exactly that – it’s a moment of living, it’s a moment to make your statement. A live show is a hot medium, it’s a sweaty medium, it smells bad, it looks bad. You trip on yourself; you don’t have a safety net. You can be embarrassed, you can be victorious, you can…It’s like sex or something. It’s everything that it means to be alive and be a human being, and be dynamic, and be up and down, and be unpredictable. That’s what it feels like.”

Catch The Mars Volta in all their anarchic, unhinged glory this June.

Tuesday 17 June – Metro City, Perth

Thursday 19 June – Hordern Pavilion, Sydney

Saturday 21 June – Brisbane Convention Centre

Monday 23 June – Forum Theatre, Melbourne

Tuesday 24 June – Forum Theatre, Melbourne (2nd show)