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Members of the band, At the Drive-In, Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez were in DeFacto with audio technician Jeremy Michael Ward since the mid 90's. DeFacto included Cedric on drums, Omar on bass, and Jeremy with loop/vocal/sound/distortion effects and was a composite of sounds, hinging squarely on tripped-out, instrumental dub. Though DeFacto started as a local band with more of a rock sound, they were rooted within the realm of dub reggae pioneers like Lee Perry and Dr. Alimantado, the group also dabbled in electronica, Latin/salsa, and jazz, which gave their sound a distinct, timeless quality. The band played local shows around their home town, El Paso, TX, and released their first album How do you dub? You Fight for Dub. You plug Dub in. Eventually moving to Long Beach, California in 2000 the band met up with keyboardist Isaiah "Ikey" Owens. Ikey added a distinct new tone to DeFacto and brought forth a new popularity that they had not yet received. In 2001, DeFacto released their second album, Megaton Shotblast on Gold Standard Laboratories, and received instant success. Eventually, At The Drive-In began to collapse, and the band had more time to experiment with new sounds. After the indefinite hiatus of At the Drive-In, Omar and Cedric decided to branch out, and joined Eva Gardner's band, which became what is now The Mars Volta, a new project they envisioned would fulfill their creative desires. The initial lineup that was seen at their first public show at Chain Reaction in Anaheim, CA was DeFacto plus Eva Gardner and Jon Theodore. Also during 2001, the band recorded two songs with Alex Newport, which became their first demo. Shortly after, they recorded three more tracks once again with Alex Newport, which would then become the Tremulant EP, which was sparsely released in early 2002. Tremulant was a collection of three songs - Cut that City, Concertina, (a condemnation of a former ATDI member), and Eunuch Provocateur, (whose lyrics contain the name of their next full length album). The EP was a fusion of prog rock, salsa, free and avant-garde.
Following the EP, The Mars Volta continued to tour with many member changes, while preparing for their next release, De-Loused in the Comatorium. Whereas Tremulant was a record with no general theme, except the prophetic mentioning of its follow-up album, De-Loused in the Comatorium was a unified work of speculative fiction that told the story, from the first person perspective, of someone in a drug induced coma. Though lyrically obtuse, The Mars Volta have stated in interviews that the protagonist of the album is based on a friend of theirs, Julio Venegas, or "Cerpin Taxt", as mentioned in the story, who several years prior was in a coma himself. Sometime after awakening, he jumped off of the Mesa Street overpass onto Interstate 10 in El Paso during afternoon rush-hour traffic. He was pronounced dead at Thomason Hospital. Venegas's death was also referenced in the At the Drive-In song "Embroglio" from their album "Acrobatic Tenement".
At the time of the recording the band did not have a bass player. Flea (renowned bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) played bass on nine of the ten songs on the LP. Deloused... would become their biggest hit yet, both critically and commercially, eventually selling in excess of 500,000 copies and featuring on several critics' fl"Best of the Year" lists. The band would later release a limited edition storybook version of the album, currently available to download from Gold Standard Laboratories. The book speaks of Cerpin Taxt (sometimes referred to as the album/story's "hero"), and his suicide.
While on tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in support of their album, The Mars Volta's sound manipulator and contributing lyricist, Jeremy Ward, was found dead of an apparent drug overdose. The second leg of the tour was cancelled, and the first single from De-Loused would later be dedicated to Ward, WORD.
