Friday, February 24th 2012
News: At The Drive-In
Omar Rodríguez-López: At The Drive-In Reunion Is For Nostalgia/Cash
When At The Drive-In announced their reunion last month, the occasion seemed about as unlikely and unpredictable as a Refused reunion (which was shockingly confirmed later the same day). The musicians, who split into two separate groups, The Mars Volta and Sparta, publicly denied possibilities of an ATDI reunion for a decade. With the group back together, some obvious questions were raised, regarding the motive behind the move. Guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López has answered them with an alarming honesty.
In an interview with NME, Omar Rodríguez-López addressed concerns that ATDI were back merely for the money. Instead of attempting to avoid the subject altogether (as is mostly common when bands reunite), he stated matter-of-factly: ”We’re not getting any younger and there’s been an offer of money every year. You can’t avoid that. You’d be a fool and a politician to pretend that wasn’t part of it.” His statement, while infuriating to fans who would prefer the band reunited for “honorable” reasons, is certainly refreshing, seeing as money is always a huge influence for any defunct act to become active again, but is rarely admitted or even mentioned by the parts involved.
Regarding how uncomfortable it can be to get back with his old bandmates, he said: ”Obviously it’s going to be weird. It’s like getting back with your ex-wife, only in this case there are four ex-wives!” In an interview with Kerrang, he also assured (with a nearly blunt honesty) that ATDI are only back to play their old material, with no intention of staying together after a few shows: “Will there be a new album? No, no, no. At The Drive-In is more of a nostalgia thing – it’s songs we wrote when we were all in our 20s and we’re doing a couple of shows. It’s an old T-shirt that doesn’t fit me any more, but when you put it on again, it feels nice. It’s as simple as that.” Regarding the unpredictability of the reunion, he added: ”For the rest of the world, [the reformation] seemed to be out of nowhere, but we’ve been hanging out for the past four years. We patched up our differences a while ago.”
Before At The Drive-In’s reunion at Coachella in April, Omar Rodríguez-López’s main act The Mars Volta will release their sixth record Noctourniquet on March 27th. Listen to first single The Malkin Jewel here.
Jesus Christ, I bet if Omar set fire to an orphanage you guys would find a way to defend it as “uncompromising” or “refreshingly bold” or some shit
For the record – Rob Schneider kicks ass. Not for his acting skills, but because he is a diehard San Francisco Giants fan.
Orphanage fires *are* refreshingly bold. So yeah.
It’s not even that they’re doing it for money. That I can handle. It’s that they’re doing it RELUCTANTLY for money.
Enjoy some half-rate phoned in performances, guys.
You can’t just say its reluctant then give them shit about it. Nowhere does he intimate that he doesn’t want to, you’re just trying to find flaws.
” It’s an old T-shirt that doesn’t fit me any more, but when you put it on again, it feels nice.” and “we’ve been hanging out for the past four years. We patched up our differences a while ago.” Sounds like they’re fine with it
I guess you have a point. It still reeks of “novelty act”.
I’ve never understood the “just for the money” gripe. Playing guitar is kind of his job. Screw all of you who go to work just to get a paycheck.
Why would he want to do anything with that band? The Mars Volta is far and away light years better then anything ATDI ever did, Cedric sings for one and Omar’s guitar work is much better in the Volta.
I should clarify, Cedric sings not screams like he does in ATDI..
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