Former frontman of the now-defunct Mars Volta, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, has revealed that he used to spend a whopping $1,000 a week to fund his marijuana habit.
The singer, who visited Australia earlier this year for Soundwave at the helm of supergroup Antemasque, has penned a memoir for Vulture magazine’s ‘Stoner Week special’, claiming that his penchant for the wacky tobaccy turned him into a “total monster”.
“I was spending $1,000 a week on pot because I thought smoking made my music better. I was wrong,” he admitted, revealing that all the other members of Volta also smoked as much as he did. According to Metal Injection‘s calculations, $1K a week amounts to 4.3 ounces or 122 grams of reefer on the reg. Maaaaate.
“There’s so much stupid behavior caused by weed, but I always had that cliché: I needed it for creativity,” Bixler-Zavala admitted.
“I’ve come to realize that at the end of the day, it’s only you yourself that creativity comes from,” he continued. “It doesn’t come from weed. In this day and age, the stuff people are smoking is not necessarily even naturally grown from the ground, anyway; it’s basically been altered to fuck you up and fuck you up royally.”
The singer went on to confess: “I feel bad because I was always going into the stores to buy and I’d actually see AIDS patients and cancer patients there — and here I am buying in bulk but I didn’t really need it. I just thought I did. I was using it to form this stoned bubble that helped me justify not wanting to interact with people.”
“Personally — and not just musically — there are benefits to not smoking anymore,” he concluded. “I’m better off socially. I talk to fans. I’m cool with taking pictures. I’ll sign whatever they want me to sign. That wasn’t me when I was smoking weed. There’s some stoners out there who can appreciate their audience and actually function when they’re high. I couldn’t.
“Now I can look at my audience and be like, Jesus Christ, thank you so much. It’s a nice thing to be clearheaded and make music.”
Bixler-Zavala wasn’t so clearheaded when he suddenly chose to hurl a kettle of boiling water at a group of fans during a post-Soundwave New Zealand festival performance earlier this year. Then again, he never specified when he kicked the drug habit. Let’s assume it was sometime after the kettle-throwing incident.
Bixler-Zavala has also denied rumours that The Mars Volta are gearing up for a reunion, stating that he’s currently focused on his work with Antemasque.
Volta officially tweeted it quits back in 2013.
Gallery: Antemasque @ Soundwave 2015, Melbourne / Photos By Brett Schewitz
Watch: The Mars Volta – Inertiatic ESP
Antemasque - Soundwave 2015, Melbourne 22/02/15
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