Multi-instrumentalist and producer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez has had a rather procreative career. Picking up the guitar in his hometown of El Paso, TX at the age of 15, after deciding that the bass simply didn't have enough strings, Rodriguez-Lopez began playing in various local bands, ultimately developing a narcotics addiction by the age of 17. He cleaned up his act to play in the post-hardcore band At the Drive-In, eventually branching off with Cedric Bixler-Zavala to form the dub-reggae band De Facto, which morphed into Rodriguez-Lopez's most popular project The Mars Volta. After a huge amount of success with The Mars Volta, Rodriguez-Lopez moved to Amsterdam and began recording solo albums, one with the Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Quintet and one with the spoken word poet Lydia Lunch. Though his repertoire is impressively diverse, he is most known for his experimental progressive rock influenced by electronica and psyche.
