Zechs Marquise

Zechs Marquise - April 12, 2011, Great American Music Hall, San FranciscoCheck out more photos and video on FLABmag’s FLickr PageThe Omar Rodriguez-Lopez group played the GAMH along with opening act, Zechs Marquise, a band that is comprised primarily of Rodriguez-Lopez men. Marfred, Marcel and Rico, along with El Paso friends, Marcos and Matt took the stage to an outpouring of genial enthusiasm – save for the fanboy stage left who intermittently screamed, “Marfred makes me cream my panties!” (I swear to god, no joke.) His enthusiasm was most unctuous, but truth be told, highly warranted.

The stage presence of the gentlemen of Zechs can be best described as mild mannered. However, their musical chops are on par with the very best of experimental Prog Rock (read: they give their brother’s band a run for their money – even without a demon possessed lead singer).  Marfred mumbled into a microphone here and there barely audible but equally as genial as the audience. The big surprise of the night was that his brother Marcel turned out to be quite an accomplished drummer. He held down the groove throughout leading audience members to speculate whether or not he wasn’t the band leader or a “mini-Omar” as one guy put it. Whether he is or not, it is apparent the band is one that is comfortable with musical explorations, each other and any crowd that might be interested in hearing them play.

I had the opportunity to chat with Marfred after the show where he was much more audible and quite articulate. 

FLABmag: O.K. So Marfred, it’s been like two years since the last album (Our Delicate Stranded Nightmare, Sargent House) came out.

 Marfred Rodriguez Lopez: Yeah, just about that long.

FLABmag: Why so long a wait for another?

Marfred: A lot of things, technical difficulties. First our studio witnessed a bit of fire damage.

FLABmag: Where’s the studio located? 

Marfred: El Paso, Texas. It’s called Castle Greyskull but some of it caught fire so we had to move everything over to me and my brother’s house, and then that took so long getting everything set up again and then when we started recording the computer crashed. We sent it out to get fixed and now we just started recording and we’re ready to go. So hopefully…well not hopefully, they’re saying it’s going to be ready by fall.

FLABmag: We have to wait that long?!

Marfred: Yeah, unfortunately.

FLABmag: What’s it going to be called? 

Marfred: “Getting Paid.”

FLAbmag: (laughs) O.K. Well tell us about the last album. So it was constructed as songs to compliment films you were interested in?

 Marfred: Yeah that’s it essentially it. Originally we were just gonna do an ambient EP, just five songs of ambient music but expanded from there. The major influence for us, going into making the record, was to make a soundtrack to a movie, to a bunch of different films that we were inspired by.

FLABMag: Which ones?

Marfred: Well, old Spaghetti Westerns, specifically by Sergio Leone, and lots of Blaxploitation movies we were watching at the time…

FLABmag: Oh yeah, which ones?

Marfred: Foxy Brown, Superfly…

FLABMag: Blackula?

Marfred: (laughs) Uhhh 

FLABmag: Come on, it’s a good one right?

Marfred: (laughing) Yeah it’s a good one. But it was just basically us going in recording a lot, then thinking alright we got a few songs down and that ended up being a lot of material. So instead of 3 to 5 songs it ended up being 15 stretched out to an hour.

FLABmag: Was it always you on bass with Marcel on drums and your other friends from El Paso on guitars? 

Marfred: No actually we had another drummer on that album. Marcel played keyboard and did all the synthesizers but he did do drum sequencing on one of the songs. Then we had Matt and Marcos on guitars. My little brother Rico played trumpet and Adrian Terrazas played some saxophone and clarinet on the record.

FLABMag: My favorite song is “Attack of the 40Ft Wave” where did that one come from?

Marfred: Oh that track we originally played for 12 to 15 minutes. 

FLABmag: Yeah it’s a good lengthy one at 8 plus minutes..

Marfred: Well we kept trying to cut it down, it’s 8 and a half minutes long actually, and we were thinking to cut out more parts but we liked the progression of it so…it was basically just us experimenting with all the instruments we had in the studio and we liked how it turned out.

FLABmag: Yeah, it’s memorable. So now you have yet another Rodriguez-Lopez family member in the band, is that right? 

Marfred: Yeah my little brother Rico.

FLABmag: How much younger is he? I ask cause he looks like he’s 12.

Marfred: Oh yeah, well he’s actually 20 

FLABmag: Really, cause he looks so young I was concerned child labors laws were being violated. 

Marfred: No, no, he’s twenty but he does look young that’s true.

FLABmag: (Rico walks by) Yeah actually he looks 11 now that’s I’m looking at him again.

Marfred: Haha no well he’s 20 so the only thing is he can’t drink yet.

FLABmag: But he does anyway ‘cause he’s Puerto Rican, right?

Marfred: (laughs) Well not at the club at least. We can’t have that! But he played on the last record and is now playing keyboards on this tour but on the new record, “Getting Paid,” Marcel did all the keyboards and drums.

FLABmag: Oh yeah I didn’t realize Marcel was such an accomplished drummer!

Marfred: He started off playing drums actually. It was his first instrument. Then he graduated to percussion: congas, etc. But even back then he used to mess around with keyboards and as his love for keyboards grew he learned more and more and that’s it.

FLABmag: You know some people upstairs where I was mentioned it seemed like he was the bandleader. You guys seemed to take his cue. Is that right? 

Marfred: Well no it’s very much a Democratic band, and I know a lot of people say that, but in our case that’s true. But you know it’s easier to turn to the drummer for cues, you have to really, but for some of the songs I give the cue. But for the most part, he does because we have to know when he’s ready and that no one is jumping ahead, especially the type of songs we play. It’s important for him to be ready.

FLABmag: Well anyway don’t you feel that the drums and bass are the foundation of a song and if it’s not tight there the others can’t do what they do? 

Marfred: Yeah, the way I view it that they are the heartbeat and soul of the music. The bass is the soul and the drums are the heartbeat. And realistically the drums and the bass is what make you tap your toes and dance. It’s what you’re feeling first and the guitars and melodies are the voice of the music but what brings a song to life is that underneath rhythm.

FLABmag: They can’t do what they do without you holding down the foundation.

Marfred: Yeah and that is why I love playing with my brother because we’ve been playing music together for so long and because we’re brothers, we can stay in that pocket together and let the others build and regardless if what we’re doing is the same throughout it doesn’t matter.

FLABmag: Well that’s cool because I wanted to ask you about family ties and art practice because I have an older sister who is a writer as am I and at times she will read my stuff and be like, “Oh you missed a comma.” You know? And I saw Omar out here watching you guys play and it made me wonder if you guys ever get nervous or worried that you’ll miss some notes and he might bring it up later?

Marfred: (laughs) It used to be that way but.. (pauses) and younger sibling, or in any family you, (pauses) for the most part, the younger sibling looks up to their older brother or sister…

FLABmag: You want their approval, right? I know it is that way for me.

Marfred: Exactly. You do but you come to an understanding where you think, “Well yeah he’s my brother and he’s there (Omar)…” but you warm up to the idea (that he’s watching) and accept that maybe you might mess up and he’ll hear it. Then again, in this family, you will hear it! (Laughs) They never let you forget it but it’s not just with music. It can be anything and they’re always there when you fuck up and then they’ll make that joke, “Remember when…?” So I keep that in the back of my mind but then it’s good to have that support of my brother there watching us and wanting us to do well at what we’re doing.

FLABmag: Ok one last question: Are you going to tour some more this summer or take a break to do post production on the new record?

Marfred: No actually the new record is already mixed. It just has to be mastered. So we’re going to tour some more this summer then we will be working on the next record.

FLABmag: O.k. wait I have one additional question. I wish Marcel were here because this is a question for him but I’ll ask you. How weird was it when Omar was like, “Hey Marcel why don’t you dress up like a drag queen and let me rape and beat you to death in my movie.”?

Marfred: (laughing) I can definitely say he didn’t like the idea all that much.

FLABmag: Really?! ‘Cause he did such a great job! I was blown away.

Marfred: Omar actually got him to shave his eyebrows and paint on those high ones. He wasn’t happy about that.

FLABmag: Marcel is the ugliest woman!

Marfred: (Laughing) Yeah he is, we know.

FLABmag: Well thank you for speaking with us 

Marfred: Thank you for your interest in our music.