The Mars Volta formed in 2001 in the wake of the breakup of El Paso post-hardcore favorites At the Drive-In, built around the songwriting partnership of guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala. Bixler Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez were both born in El Paso, Texas, and when they met in high school, they discovered that they both shared an affinity for music. After relocating to Los Angeles, the pair assembled a fluid early lineup that included drummer Jon Theodore, keyboardist Isaiah "Ikey" Owens, and sound manipulator Jeremy Ward, releasing the short Tremulant EP in 2002 before diving into a full-length debut that would define their sound: a swirling, hard to classify mix of progressive rock, post-hardcore, psychedelia, and Latin American musical influences.
That debut, "De-Loused in the Comatorium," arrived in 2003 and became the band's breakthrough. The album was based on a short story by Bixler-Zavala and sound manipulation artist Jeremy Ward, imagining a man who enters a week-long coma after overdosing on rat poison and morphine, a narrative based on their late friend Julio Venegas, or "Cerpin Taxt," an El Paso poet and artist who went into a coma for several years after a deliberate overdose. The record was produced by Rick Rubin and showcased a band taking extreme risks in their progressive rock sound that exceeded any expectations their label could have had, and it featured a notable guest turn from Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea alongside Rodriguez-Lopez, Bixler-Zavala, Theodore, Owens and Ward. The follow-up, 2005's "Frances the Mute," pushed them further into the mainstream: the album debuted at #4 on the US Billboard 200 and became the band's biggest commercial success, selling over 500,000 copies in the US and achieving Gold certification from the RIAA. Across the rest of the 2000s, The Mars Volta built a reputation as one of rock's most restless and ambitious acts, cycling through numerous musicians while Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala remained the constant core. 2008's The Bedlam in Goliath topped the Alternative Albums, Hard Rock Albums, and Top Rock Albums charts while soaring to Number 3 on the Billboard 200, and its track "Wax Simulacra" won the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance. The band continued with Octahedron in 2009 and Noctourniquet in 2012, but internal tension between the two leaders led to a very public split, with Bixler-Zavala announcing on social media that he was leaving and declaring the band finished rather than merely on hiatus. The decade that followed saw both members pursue other projects, including Bosnian Rainbows, Zavalaz, and Antemasque, before quietly reconciling. RodrÃguez-López and Bixler-Zavala reunited privately in 2019 and began recording new material, with the band publicly announcing its return in 2022. That year brought a self-titled seventh album described as a "clean slate," followed in 2023 by an acoustic reimagining, Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazon, and in 2025 by the album Lucro Sucio; Los Ojos del Vacio, alongside a documentary on the band's history and a run of tour dates including festival appearances and shows with Deftones. Now firmly active again, The Mars Volta remains one of the most influential and singular forces in modern progressive rock, its early run of albums still regarded as a high water mark for ambitious, genre defying rock music and its live shows remembered for their sheer intensity and unpredictability.
It is that early, ferocious incarnation of the band that appears in this archive. Wayne Dennon photographed The Mars Volta once, in 2003, right as "De-Loused in the Comatorium" was reshaping what people expected from a rock band, and the resulting 33 photographs remain among the collection's most viewed items, drawing 25,517 views from visitors returning again and again to a night that captured the group at the very start of its wild ascent.
