Interview: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez of Vato Negro

ARTICLE BY JAMIE SKOWRON
PHOTO BY VERONICA MUNOZ

On short notice, I was able to sit backstage and speak with two of the most intimate, prolific and passionate players of our time—Vato Negro, which is Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Juan Alderete and Deantoni Parks. The set times were running way behind, but these extremely humble artists were still willing to give an interview five minutes before downbeat.

SS: Vato Negro was supposed to perform at the One Day as a Lion show at Eagle Rock at the Center for the Arts, but there was a last-minute cancellation. Do you have a previous relationship or connection to Zach De La Rocha and One Day as a Lion, besides Jon Theodore (former drummer of The Mars Volta)?
Omar: Yeah, we’re friends. I’ve known him since the At the Drive-In days. Zach took us on tour. And [Juan] has known him.
Juan: Yeah, I’ve known Zach since I saw them at Roggie’s, before they had the record deal. Jon was in the band, and Joey from The Locust (keyboards and synthesizers for One Day as a Lion) is on Omar’s label, Gold Standard Laboratories.

SS: To me, music is a very spiritual thing and can create a trance-like window into the spiritual world. Music accomplishes the feeling that religion strives to, even being dependent on it to evoke the otherworldly state. I’ve read a book by a jazz piano player, and he talks of getting to an inner heaven during his improvisational playing. He believes God is speaking through his instrument and music is the purist form of religion. What are your thoughts on how this relates to your live performances and your writing process?
Omar: Fuck, that’s a big-ass question.
Juan: I say we pass that one on to Dee [Deantoni Parks, Vato Negro drummer). Ha ha. Who was the piano player?

SS: Ken Werner, a piano player who wrote Effortless Mastery.
Omar: I think that anyone who plays music will tell you that there’s no greater high than playing music, know what I mean? You can see it in Coltrane, where he gets off drugs and his music gets even further and further out. I think any musician, any artist describes playing music as reaching some sort of nirvana or a type of meditation or your “zone.” There are a million different words for it. But as general as it is, it’s also individual to every person.

SS: I completely understand. Some people might not pull that same experience.
Omar: It’s connected to spirituality, because music exists whether we play it or not, that’s what people don’t understand. What we do is we carve a rock that exists, like a sculptor who sees the statue that has to come out of it. That’s all we are doing…training ourselves to always see the music that’s in the air, and we pull it out of there. So really we’re not authors of anything and nothing belongs to us, because it’s already written and already exists.

SS: Exactly. To me, music is the most primitive and universal form of a language or communication.
Omar: You mentioned going to music school, and that’s why people waste too much time on music theory and not about the basic concepts or the spirituality of it with the approach. Deantoni taught at Berklee College of Music [in Boston] and tried to do just that. Of course that didn’t last too long because that’s just not how people want things run. But I think that if you went to music school and before you play a note, you have to watch Man on Wire, watch Fellini Satyricon, you have to go look at Marcel Duchamp’s work, and if they took that approach, more people would see the sculpture inside of the rock. Instead, people are looking in text, which really doesn’t teach you anything. You can read about it all you want.

SS: Definitely. Academia opposed to practicality.
Omar: Yeah, it just ends up producing faceless musicians.

SS: Do you guys have any rituals before you play?
Omar: We usually hang out together. That’s a ritual, or sometimes we warm up together. Laughter is a ritual—we make each other laugh, listen to music. I think that anything you do is a ritual, whether you know it or not. If you look back at things that you do before you play, you realize the pattern, even if the pattern wasn’t intentional. Then there are intentional patterns, like I said. The Mars Volta, we always warm up together.
Juan: Shots will go.
Omar: People who drink will have a toast, things like that. There are conscious rituals and then there are unconscious rituals that spring from togetherness and wanting to do this music.

SS: Juan, you were a member of Racer X. What are the similarities and differences of playing with Omar and Paul Gilbert in which there are two completely different styles of music?
Juan: That’s like apples and oranges, you know, like jazz and country. Ha ha. It’s hard, but it is all music. And that was so long ago, at least the spirit of what it was back then. I think the common thread is that every time you play, it’s heavy and very demanding. Your effort makes a huge impact on all the other dudes and vice versa. And I’ve played in other bands where it wasn’t like that, so if there are any similarities it’s that.

SS: And now for a nerdy question. Can you explain the collaboration between you, Cedric [Bixler-Zavala], RZA and MF Doom on the Handsome Boy Modeling School song “White People”? Was that intentional or a mere coincidence with Handsome Boy Modeling School as a middle man?
Omar: All of the above. I’ve been a fan of RZA, Handsome Boy Modeling School and Dan the Automator, so as far as intentional, sure, I have sat in my room and thought, “Man, it would be cool to do something with them.” And coincidence, sure, everything just happens, maybe I wheeled them to me. I have no idea. But the fact is somehow it happened, and one day the phone rings with a number I don’t know and they leave a message. It’s Dan the Automator, and he says, “I want you to do this track. Can you bring Cedric?” Yes, we make the track and then are on the record. We go listen to it and then say, “Oh my god. This is crazy. Remember we used to listen to the first record all the time when we lived in Long Beach? So we probably ask ourselves the same question.
Juan: [to Omar] Remember he called me and said, “Can Omar and Cedric help out on a track?” Yeah, here are their numbers. I just know him from the Bay.

SS: Omar, you are producing the upcoming Le Butcherettes full-length release Sin Sin Sin. She told me about how you met at a concert in Mexico City. How is producing Le Butcherettes different than your personal production endeavors?
Omar: I don’t control it. I have to let go and realize that somebody else is my boss. That’s the big difference, and I have to serve their music, because I might have my own concept of what their music is gonna be, but just like with music or making something, you can’t make anyone learn a lesson. You can’t make anyone see something you are seeing, and you can’t force a situation. You take what’s there and where that thing is at the time, and you give your best to the project to make it what it needs to be, not what you want it to be.

SS: When will your upcoming movie, The Sentimental Engine Slayer, become publicly available?
Omar: Right now it’s in Europe doing all the festivals, and it’ll probably play in some theaters here, but as you know, independent cinema is a joke, and it’s disappearing. People only care about films if it’s an event film or a 3-D film, which my film is not. Most likely we will have a limited run and then put it out on DVD, but this does not mean that we do not make films. I’ve made three films since and will continue to make things even in the face of other’s diversions, which is the other cinema that is available to us.

Omar Rodriguez Lopez of Vato Negro will perform as the Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group as part of a recently announced tour. The band will perform a sold-out show at the Troubadour on Tuesday, Sept. 14, with Le Bucherettes.

September 14th: Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group w/ Le Bucherettes at the Troubadour

Comments

[Francesco Foresti]

try to look on wiki for juan alderete

[Debbie Dickerson]

Jamie,

Once again you bring such a fresh, honest vibe to journalism! I love reading your articles/interviews!

Great job!