Top 66 Quotes & Sayings by Cedric Bixler-Zavala
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Cedric Bixler-Zavala.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
You know Bad News, 'The Young Ones?' I learned not to spend a buttload of money on a sixth member.
The only time we actually even think about our music is in interviews. We have to explain why we do what we do, even though it seems pointless to us to explain it. The rest of the time we just do what we do and don't worry about it.
I'd hate to think that the stereotypical American is someone who just says 'Hi - bye' in conversation. That's how Europeans see us. And I'd like to think that not all of us are like that.
You want to embrace what the idea of pop music is. Not necessarily the stereotype of pop music; there was a time when you'd say 'pop music' and conjure up images of the Sweet, or Marc Bolan. That, to me, can be avant-garde still.
I've come to realize that at the end of the day, it's only you yourself that creativity comes from.
If I speak my version of Spanish in Spain, they laugh. Same with Mexico. It's an alien world to me.
It's too bad that the idea of witchcraft and sorcery is a taboo subject matter.
But if you work in the rock industry, you should realize that the most important bands are the troublemakers.
Growing up, everyone around me in El Paso, Texas, was all about watching 'The Wall' and, you know, 'Money' and 'Dark Side of the Moon,' which are fantastic records, of course.
I would feel weird if I wasn't able to be longwinded, or have information-overload on our songs.
I personally never trusted the audience.
It's inspiring to see Black Flag looking like Vietnamese farmers with big beards and those kind of Vietnamese farming hats showing up at a Mohawk-mania club in England and being spat at because they don't sound or look like Exploited; they sound more like Black Sabbath than Black Flag. I love that.
Rock bands are not exactly magnets of functional people.
As corny as it sounds, and not to sound like a hippie, I think there are these spirit forces in nature, and we have to be careful not to offend them.
To me, prog-rock is ELP. And for me personally, that stuff is really boring.
In my high school the Mexican cowboys, the chilangos and rancheros, didn't like the punk rockers.
I wanted to be Paul Stanley or Gene Simmons.
It makes us feel normal when people think we're being too arty or whatever.
That romantic notion of a band being a total democracy is just like lying to yourself in the mirror.
The 20-year-old version of me had all this energy, and wanted to be obnoxious with his art and wanted to communicate even though he didn't know what he wanted to communicate.
To be involved in the subculture of punk rock puts you in a minority.
When you're just a breath away from North Korea, it boggles your mind that that exists, or that something like the Khmer Rouge ever existed. You wonder how we allow that to happen as human beings; how we allow the human condition to get so depraved and desperate.
Paranoia can be such a powerful hallucinogen if you're not careful - but it's great to kind of recognize it as that.
I'm a huge Tchad Blake fan.
I've said this many times: Rock 'n' roll is this magnet for dysfunctional people who only know how to communicate through the medium of a live show.
To me, religion is the reason there is so much conflict in this world, and I think it's just so unnecessary to believe in this blue-eyed, white-bearded, white-haired God.
I like to think I take care of my body a little bit more, I'm not screaming as much.
The story of my life is the Chicano experience personified.
Mars Volta was always about embracing what 'too much' was and the excess of it. I never thought there would be an audience for it.
I constantly ask why one of my kids has the tantrums that he does, and it's not because he sees videos of me acting like that onstage but because we're bound by blood.
Who is anyone to say who doesn't deserve to come to this country? I'm a mutt, we're all mutts. Immigrants from whatever country are humans, we have to help each other.
I think other people's interpretations of what I've written are a lot better than what I have, because I don't understand a lot of what I write.
I gravitated towards Jim Ward, because I knew he was totally into the work aspect of being in a band.
All I can do is move forward with my music and just be happy that Mars Volta ever happened at all.
It's only a matter of time before machinery becomes sentient. It's going to happen because we're already slaves to all of it.
But although I appreciate our audience, we don't do things for them. It's all for us - we play really self-indulgent music.
I have definitely had a big impactful change since 2010, and it's rough to look in the mirror, but it's such an important thing to do that.
The kid in me has ADD.
Our music would probably be a really dark ocean, so you may not know where you are. It's not so literal. It's like a David Lynch movie.
I'm a video store guy. I like thumbing through things and holding them.
At the Drive-In was very meat and potatoes - a one-trick pony. Everyone was attracted to us because we put on a good live show.
I've still got a lot of tantrums to throw.
I do have a sense of spirituality.
Rock 'n' roll says, 'Hey, man, this is where you can be normal,' and then after a while you grow up and you go, 'Wait a minute. Oh, by the way, I learned how to do these cool things, but I never learned how to speak my mind. I never learned how to express myself emotionally. I should have been paying attention more.'
We have the ability to attract and repel at the same time, which I think you should embrace. Otherwise, you're just going to be, like, this Neil Diamond act.
There's this whole list of old personalities that I can act, as corny as that sounds, or as method actor as that sounds.
I have cancelled shows before for knowing full well that my heart was not in it at that moment. Why? Because its an insult to the audience.
Growing up, I learned the value of sticking up for my brown-skinned friends amongst my white-skinned friends.
It all started in a local park in El Paso called Madeleine Park. At a ditch, a very small ditch, that everybody used to go skateboarding in. It was me and Jim Ward and an acoustic guitar. He and I constructed the very first phases of At The Drive In.
I think a lot of people could do with buying a Flying Burrito Brothers record - it does wonders for you.
I was in dire need of a band that was serious about getting out of El Paso.
I had 8-tracks when I was a kid.
You come to a point in your life where you don't want to just keep repeating yourself.
At The Drive In came out in a period of time when Stereophonics and Limp Bizkit were huge. And there was this dark grey void - I'm not saying we filled it - but we were just a different colour at the time.
Most people like to backpack through Europe; I think the States is big enough for you to have an adventure in.
In the information age, you can study all you want and discover the past in order to rediscover the future.
You don't understand what you're angry about as a young man. You have those young man blues.
I think that's what propelled our band, the fact that we put on something that was visibly attractive to people and then maybe the music comes later. I don't know what it is that people really like about us but that's part of the equation.
I want to be known as someone who grew up a little.
Sometimes 'Frances' can be about finding the missing piece, trying to look for biological family as opposed to maybe realizing your family is whoever is around you at the time.
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