It doesn’t matter what you did Saturday, or who you were with, or how much fun you had. If you weren’t at the Barrymore Theatre to see the sold-out Mars Volta show, you missed out on a most energized and entertaining spectacle of music. Mars Volta’s cosmic style is compelling in a decidedly cryptic way. The band is a prodigious talent whose music is unlike anything out right now. Omar Rodriguez (ex-member of At The Drive-In and co-founder of Mars Volta) spoke to the Herald about his band, their influences and his feelings about life in general.

The Badger Herald: How would you describe your sound, because I’ve heard people call your band anything from space-rock to progressive to atmospheric; is it even possible to describe?

Omar Rodriguez: No, I try not to. I’m way too close to it to know what we sound like, and I feel like if I was able to define what we sounded like the band would be over.

BH: I understand that a lot of your influences are nonmusical. Which films and artists are particularly influencing?

OR: A really big inspiration is the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky or the films of Luis Bunuel, or Elijah P. Lovejoy, who started the first abolitionist newspaper. It just really comes down to the people who had ideas that were outside their time frame.

BH: Does it ever get monotonous to constantly read reviews that are gushing with praise about your recently released album De-Loused in the Comatorium?

OR: I don’t read our reviews. I just do interviews and then wherever they go after that is their own thing. It has nothing to do with me.

BH: Are you getting sick of constantly having to explain your decisions related to your former band, At The Drive-In?

OR: No. [But] I have faith that [people eventually will] … I understand being a fan of music or of movements in art. I understand that our past is relevant to a lot of other people. It’s kind of like being on your first date over and over again. It’s kind of like when you share with a person your past and the things you’ve been through, like everyone’s just kind of searching for what happened with the past in order to understand the present. Sometimes it gets old, but I don’t have a problem with it because I understand where people are coming from, so I understand the curiosity.

BH: Having said that, mind if I satiate my curiosity? How are your Mars Volta fans different from your At The Drive-In fans?

OR: We have way less hardcore fans now. It seems we have way less macho people coming to the show and way less aggressive people and way more thinkers coming. The age spectrum is getting much wider. There are much older people. You have people in their fifties coming to a show, as well as teenagers coming to our shows, so the frame of reference is all over the place, and it’s people who listen to hip-hop, or people who like rock ‘n’ roll or people who only like punk rock … ATDI had a lot of cross-breeding, but this band has a lot more of it.

BH: How do you react to the fans that feel that the break-up of ATDI was a good move on your part because it allowed for the creation of Mars Volta?

OR: It’s closer to my own feelings. I have no regrets. I knew it was something that had to happen. I’m happy that I left ATDI and broke the band up because I had to do this, what I’m doing now. So if I meet someone that says something like that, immediately it’s closer to my own point of understanding my life.

BH: Do you have any idea what your future holds past Mars Volta?

OR: No, I try not to focus on those things. It’s really easy to get lost when you’re making plans and what-ifs. Things come together more when you worry about right now. Things unfold and it’s a lot more exciting that way. I think it’s a little easier to grow older really quickly when you’re worried about the what-ifs in life.

I couldn’t have said it any more eloquently than that. Mars Volta is more than a band — its members are visionaries, they are their own art form. At The Drive-In was unquestioningly influential in the rock circuit. However, Mars Volta proves its worth on numerous levels, reinventing the structure of music as we know it.