How to End a Twitter Feud With Cedric From At the Drive-In

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The "celebrity phone interview" is a very strange, very soulless aspect of being a journalist. For those who've never had the pleasure, basically, you get patched into a call with said famous person (the reception will, without fail, always be terrible) and you try to ignore the fact you can clearly hear their manager, publicist, assistant, and tour promoter all breathing on the line.

In the five to 15 minutes you've been allotted, you rush through all of your carefully prepared questions. But they've been doing this all morning—call after call of the same inane questions, and they are tired. You are boring them. They are "so excited to come to [insert city here]." And they "love [insert city here]."

I always thought trying to yield any "real" moment from a celeb phoner was pointless. But that was before I got offered an interview with Cedric Bixler-Zavala. Back when I was bitter and jaded.

See, beyond being a very successful musician—co-founding At the Drive-In, the Mars Volta, and about a million other bands—Bixler-Zavala was also my first ever Famous Twitter Feud. I'd made some throwaway comment about the Mars Volta in an article and, because of the weird levelling force of the internet, the piece somehow made it back to this very famous, well-loved musician. And he was not happy.

When VICE got offered an interview with Bixler-Zavala about At the Drive-In's newest album, my editor thought it would be a great opportunity to confront him about our feud. To create a "real" moment. Content!

I, on the other hand, was genuinely terrified. You can tell I'm nervous because I opened our interview with some inane chatter about the weather, which breaks literally the first rule of interviewing 101: Don't be a fucking idiot who can't hold a normal conversation.

And also because "eagerly awaiting your album/tour cycles" is a burn so good I have no doubt it would make Tim Berners-Lee feel happy, for a moment at least, that he invented the internet. I thought I was in for a scolding. I did not imagine for a second the two of us would end up being a glimmer of hope in the toxic cesspool that is Twitter—proof that if enemies actually talk they can understand one another. And maybe even become… friends?

VICE: Hey Cedric, how are you doing?
Cedric Bixler-Zavala: I'm doing good. How are you?

Yeah, I'm pretty good. It's sunny here in Sydney today, one of those nice sunny winter days… Nice change from the cold. Umm… what's the weather like where you're at? You're in Austin?
Yeah. It's really humid up here.

Cool. So, I guess, first thing: the new record. It's been 17 years since At the Drive-In's last album. Has this latest album, in•ter a•li•a , been 17 years in the making?
Maybe it has been 17 years in the making… all those moments away from each other were moments we needed to grow up on our own terms, really. And make shit on our own terms, away from each other—because we'd been together for a really long time. [At the Drive-In is] what I called kind of a "high school gang band," you know? Maybe it was 17 years in the making because of all the decompression, time away, shit talking, and apologising, and coming back together. I couldn't tell you for sure though—it's the first time I've kind of considered that as an option.

Obviously you've spent a lot of that time working on about a million other music projects. Do you feel like working with different people is important for inspiration and creativity? By my count you're in, like, five bands at once.
I guess you just need to work with different people as you get older but I think everyone goes through that process, you know? It's a strange relationship being in a band… You're so close to each other, in close quarters all the time. I think it's really easy for people to see it as something simple to handle but I think it's the opposite… it's a strange alchemical type of science.

But, sometimes, when you spend enough time away from somebody, you come back and you've grown up some. You realise a lot of that was sort of hormones, really, going crazy. Even in your 20s! Like, one of my favourite rock songs is by this band the Raspberries, and I think they sum up what a young man feels at 20. The lyric is: "I don't know what I want, but I want it now." That, to me, has always been the ultimate cliched stereotype rock young man lyric. And it's like that for a reason. But then you grow older and life hits you, and life hands you stuff… You've just got to get over it. You've got to be able to prove to yourself that you can be a person who can function in this society, or even in a rock band.

There's gotta be a level of trust there, that after five years, 10 years, you don't just pack it in. Was there ever a moment you thought you might not make another album?
We had two people in our group that were unwavering in their faithfulness of what would happen, and that being that we made a record. And those two people are Tony and Paul. Those guys were romantically relentless in thinking it could happen. I mean, I just owe every debt of gratitude, and every day I now have in front of me to those guys for letting, especially me, do what I needed to do in order to get my shit together.

You've got a kid now too, right?
I have twin boys. So I've been out of commission for four years now.

Was that around the same time you stopped smoking weed? I remember reading you hadn't smoked weed in a really long time.
Yeah, I haven't touched that stuff since 2009. And it's really… it's not so much that I think that that's the drug. It's really just a comment about me personally and how I have an addictive personality, and how I couldn't trust myself around anything like that without going overboard. So… that's really the gist of me not smoking weed, is that I'll probably abuse anything if I'm not careful. And I couldn't trust myself…

I feel everyone has their social crutch. Some people drink, some people smoke weed. It's just important that you have the self-awareness to know what yours is.
Yeah, I can definitely identify with that. It's good for me to be able to be around people who do it a lot, and people who do it around me. That way I know I can have that control. You know? I just kind of dealt with this recently. I was trying to get some oil that has weed in it, but it was something for actual like… physical use: to rub on sore muscles, or something. And I was asking the person to try and get some for me because I'm so out of the game. They ended up buying me a pan, and some weed. And I was like, "Oh, no no no. Not like that." I'm not there yet but I'm definitely glad I'm at the point where I can say that out loud. Instead of being like my old self. I would've been like, "Oh shit. I'm just going to take this pan, smoke a little weed, and I'll see you guys later."

I'm told you're going to be down in Australia touring this album for the first time in September.
I can't wait to play, it'll be a lot of fun. I mean, we just came back and we just did shows with Bad // Dreems, which is great. They are a really great band. I think we've always just had this soft spot for Australia because that was one of the indications to us that we were actually… you know when someone says, "Oh you've made it!" The first time I ever had a hotel room was in Australia. So anytime I go back there it's a reminder to me of what it was like to be a kid, to have moderate success.

You guys have come a long way since that first hotel room.
I'm very lucky that I have likeminded people who wanted to get out of our small town.

I've got another question, which I am actually pretty nervous to ask. But here goes… Do you remember tweeting at me a couple months ago? About that Lynch article?
Oh… was that you?

[Dying inside] yeah… it was.
Yeah well, you know, it's not exactly fun to be, I guess, digitally told that your record is going to be…

I honestly feel awful about it. Because I realise now it was really just this throwaway line in my story, but it was your life's work.
Tell me about it…

I've been thinking about it a bit, and it's just like, the internet, and Twitter, and celebrity… they make us not see people as people, we see them as punchlines. Also though, that burn: "Maybe you wasted your youth trying to impress guys." Spot on, that's 100 percent correct.
Well, hopefully you're not in a situation where you're trying to impress someone that you like with a record. I just hope that you like a record on your own. Isn't that what's amazing about life? Like… if you don't like a record that's totally fine, but like it for yourself. And I do have to say, I don't think stuff like Lynch is meant for, I mean… yeah you have the entire world creating these online discussions about what it means, the fact that there's a voice even speaking in such a nonsensical way is such a great relief amongst all the Netflix, all the Hulu, all the Amazon TV shows, all the NBC, all that kind of stuff.

For sure.
Here's this guy, just one big middle finger going out with a big blast and yet all of us are still talking about it, trying to make sense of it. I'm just going along for the ride, loving everything that he does. Not because I'm like here to worship Lynch. I'm just like, "Wow that's the one guy who did not listen to the teacher, did not listen to the peer pressure. And just did what his heart said, and now look where he is." You know, I don't think anyone can sit through Eraserhead but god bless it as an amazing statement of like Fuck you, you're going to talk about it either way. He proves to me that even an old man like that is hipper than the youngest kid. Just because his vision is untouchable, you know? And you do ask questions, and you do try and make sense of it, and the end of the day it's exactly like life: it's kind of just left for people to want to write about it, whereas some of us just want to embrace it and enjoy it for what it is. I mean, I watched two episodes ago when people were completely transfixed—some of the comments I read about it were, "Well that's an hour of my life I can't get back."

Yeah, that sucks.
I felt like a kid watching Fantasia for the first time! I think it was episode eight. I couldn't get my head around it, I was on the edge of my seat. Because there was nothing else like that out there right now being placed in the mainstream eye. So god bless that. We need that, children need that, people need to see the example of life not colouring in the lines. You know? Not being grammatically correct, not singing pitch perfect, it's making up your rules as you go along. Because we're never going to advance ourselves with art, or it's always going to be: verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, out.

when we were doing a show for Mars Volta and she came and I thought: This is great! Because I listened to "Pretty on the Inside" as a kid. And listening to songs like "Teenage Whore" and then even with "Celebrity Skin" I would listen to that stuff and I would think: This is great. And then I met her and she told me, "You have a generational responsibility for verse, chorus, verse." And I just thought: Great, I met another fucking art school teacher . And that's why I love Lynch.

Because people need to feel uncomfortable sometimes.
Very much so. And, you know, when I tweeted at you and I said, "Eagerly awaiting your tour" I honestly mean that. I think you should be making music, you know? You should be going for it. Because you're going to upset someone in the future, and that means you're doing something good. As millennials say now:

They do say that, that's true.
They do. They do. And I hope everyone sticks to their guns that way, because there's a lot of hate in this world, and a lot of people trying to keep you down. And they teach you that in high school. And, god, that's one of the biggest cancers eating people today is that invalidation and, yeah, I hope people can listen to our records and instead of going like, "Oh he's just being difficult with these words." And it's like: No I'm just colouring outside of the box, because like I made a career out of colouring outside of the box.

I'm glad we got a chance to bury the hatchet. I definitely don't want to be a part of the hate in the world.
You're alright. You're alright.

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At the Drive-In will be touring Australia in September. They'll be appearing at the Yours and Owls festival in Wollongong, as well as other dates here.

Ed. note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.