The Mars Volta’s Cedric Bixler-Zavala Recalls Refusing Metallica’s Wish To Play Them A Song

Mars Volta‘s Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodríguez-López recently sat down for an interview with Apple Music 1, and Bixler-Zavala recalled when they didn’t play the song that a Metallica member requested.

Formed in 2001, Mars Volta has released seven albums so far, and they have left their mark in the music world. ‘De-Loused in the Comatorium,’ released in 2003, was Mars Volta’s first studio album, and it quickly rose to prominence. One song in this album caught the attention of a Metallica member.

The song in question was ‘Inertiatic ESP.’ It is about the experiences of a fictional character named Cerpin Taxt, featured in the short story written by the band’s initial members Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Jeremy Ward. As it turns out, Lars Ulrich and his father, Torben Ulrich, liked this song very much, and when they attended one of Mars Volta’s shows in New Zealand, they made a special request to Volta’s members to play this song.

In a recent interview with Apple Music 1, Cedric Bixler-Zavala recalled this moment and revealed how they turned down this request. Bixler-Zavala said that when Metallica members asked if they would play this song, he and his bandmates said no because they were stubborn and selfish back then. He also stated that even though they didn’t reply to their request, meeting a Metallica member was a fantastic experience for them.

Here’s what Cedric said during the conversation about meeting Metallica’s members:

“We met them in New Zealand. They came to our show, and they were like, ‘Are you going to play this song?’ We’re like, ‘No, we don’t play that anymore. Sorry.’ And he’s there. I’m like, ‘God, we should play it for him at least.’ We didn’t play it. We were very stubborn about where we were. It was something from the first records. We were like, ‘we’re here now.’ We understand people really love that, but we’re very selfish like that. But it was cool to meet them. It was like, wow.”

On September 16, they released their long-awaited new self-titled studio album. Their latest record before that had come out in 2012, and the members had announced their disbandment in the following period. However, they reunited in 2019 and continue to perform together. The North America tour they started to promote their new album is still going on and will last through November.

You can watch the full interview on Youtube below.