If this is true it doesn’t get much better than this for Mars Volta fans who were treated with the news yesterday that the Texan rock group were finishing up work on their sixth studio LP. According to what we’re to believe is the official At The Drive-In Twitter account the group have aside their differences and will be reforming.
A post on the Twitter account which has only sent out three tweets since it was set up says as follows:
https://twitter.com/#!/AtTheDriveIn_/status/156440488881307648
The reformation of the band has been a hot topic for years since the the band split under acrimonious circumstances in 2001 when frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala felt that some of the other members were holding him back creatively. Cedric and other member Omar Rodriguez-Lopez both left and went on to form The Mars Volta, while the remaining three members of the group formed the band Sparta.
In an interview with Drowned in Sound in 2009, Cedric hinted at a possible reconciliation with his former bandmates saying “We’ve been making amends with a lot of the members and having some really good talks with them. We just have to iron out a lot of personal things. A lot of it we’ve dealt with already and I’ve apologized for a lot of things I’ve said and the way it ended. We’ll see what happens.”
Original At The Drive-In members Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Jim Ward were both just in Australia separately touring their solo work. We caught up with Ward who gave us his insight into the pros and cons of pursuing solo work saying “Doing a solo record leaves a big door open for your friends to come and contribute on. Theres not so many voices and so many opinions in the room saying what should happen.”
“There’s a lot more room for input because there isn’t a band, you know,” he continued. “…which I like sometimes, and I then I also other times really don’t, so that’s why I flip between both worlds quite often.”
Ward was forced to cut his tour short due to the murder of a close friend back home in Texas, so the timing of the reformation is definitely odd. We wouldn’t announced the reformation of our old band while we were dealing with the violent death of a close friend.
But if the reformation of At The Drive-In is true then we can only hope they’ll all return to Australian shores in the not-to-distant future. Last time they were here they ended up storming off stage at the Big Day Out after Cedric got frustrated with the moshing crowd yelling at them You’re a robot, you’re a sheep!”
UPDATE: At The Drive-In have now been confirmed as headliners at Coachella festival in the US so the reunion is official.
You can relive that classic moment below
