FILM REVIEW: OMAR AND CEDRIC – IF THIS EVER GETS WEIRD
Melbourne International Film Festival
By Greg Phillips
History is replete with stories of childhood friendships and a shared love of music which have combined to create significant musical collaborations. Lennon/McCartney and Jagger/Richards are probably two of the strongest examples that come to mind. You can also add alt-rock champions Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Savala to the list.
In Omar and Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird, a 2023 documentary showing at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival, director Nicolas Jack Davies follows the lives of two misfit latino kids Omar and Cedric, from their formative years through to international stardom in at least two iconic rock bands, At The Drive In and The Mars Volta.
As the MIFF press release states: “Before Omar Rodríguez-López ever picked up a guitar, he had a video camera”. As a teenager in El Paso, he dreamed of becoming a director. Omar has documented much of his life and the roller coaster ride of every music project he’s ever been involved with. Consequently, Nicolas Jack Davies had a goldmine of material available to tell this story.
The young Omar Rodríguez-López, a Peurto Rican migrant who initially grew up in South Carolina, was surrounded by racism and other forms of prejudice before his family packed up and moved to the more latino-friendly El Paso, Texas. It’s there that Omar discovered punk rock and met his soul mate and fellow maverick Cedric Bixler-Savala. Musically, Omar drew comparisons between salsa music and punk rock and the only person that understood that was Cedric. Not that salsa music was ever prevalent in their music but certainly a latino cultural expression was always present in their art.
The developmental years of At The Drive In were a struggle. For most of the early years, prior to the recording of their acclaimed 2000 album Relationship of Command, the band was living in poverty, living off $2 a day between them. Physical health and mental well being were never a priority for Omar and Cedric. It’s a scourge that followed them and their band mates though many of their musical enterprises. As outlined in the film, heroin was cheaper than a joint and for Jeremy Ward, Mars Volta collaborator and cousin of At The Drive In member Jim Ward, it was an addiction he never escaped from. His death hit Omar particularly hard as at one point, he and Jeremy had been romantically involved as well as being prolific music collaborators in their dub side project De Facto.
The film depicts At The Drive In’s 2001 tour of Australia and performances at Big Day Out, where they were promoted as the next Nirvana, a tag which didn’t sit kindly with the band. They also found it tough dealing with the toxic masculinity of the audience they were attracting to their BDO stage, slam dancing Mudvayne fans, who were getting off on the band’s energy but never truly understanding the band’s intentions.
Of course, all of these experiences are captured with footage from Omar’s treasured archives, in addition to several other sources. The downfall of many a documentary is the lack of archival material and the need to tell a story through other cinematic devices. This film however, is a classic fly on the wall situation. From the moments when Omar and Cedric performed on stage in their first groups, to the drug fueled days of their latter bands, to losing band members and close friends and family, in most cases there was a clip recorded at that time which perfectly expresses the emotion of the moment.
On a side note, Australian Musician magazine too has contributed to Omar’s extensive archive. After one of a couple of interviews we’ve conducted with Omar Rodríguez-López and his friend and music collaborator Teri Gender Bender in the past, he courteously requested to have a copy of the interview and concert footage that we’d taken. In fact, it’s possible that one frame we noticed in this movie may have been from our collection. The whole movie is wonderfully pieced together by British director Nicolas Jack Davies, who has previously profiled Gorillaz and Mumford & Sons. The feel of the film has a lo-fi, super 8 vibe, painted often with grainy images, utilised erratically and energetically, much like the band’s music and a perfect canvas for Omar and Cedric’s candid narration.
While the film captures the growth and development of Omar and Cedric’s music from At The Drive In, The Mars Volta, Antemasque, De Facto, to Omar’s Bosnian Rainbows project with Teri Gender Bender and their constant need to create something new and exciting, the film is primarily about Omar and Cedric’s friendship. While many factors tried to divide them, ultimately the strength of friendship won through.
Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s willingness to be open to ideas, particularly from his Church of Scientology partner Chrissie Carnell, led to his own involvement in Scientology. During this time, word got to Omar that Cedric was requesting the reformation of At The Drive In in order to battle financial hardship. However, the reformation of the band was conditional on Omar first complying with a Church of Scientology screening test. So strong was their friendship bond, that Omar agreed, met the church’s eligibility scores and paved the way for the pair to tour together again. All parties have since renounced their allegiance to the church, particularly after Cedric’s wife Chrissie had accused fellow Scientology member, ‘That ‘70s Show’ actor Danny Masterson of rape, along with several other rape victims. Masterson has since been sentenced to thirty years in jail for rape.
Omar and Cedric also felt they owed it to original members drummer Tony Hajjar and bass player Paul Hinojos, to revive the band and share in the spoils of the success. Guitarist/singer Jim Ward however was problematic. The film portrays Jim Ward as a constant thorn in the side of the band, constantly late to commitments and not being true to the bigger picture. The documentary title ‘If This Ever Gets Weird’ relates to a rule the pair agreed upon from the start that if anything ever came between their friendship, that they would stop and at least take a six month breather to think things through. It’s a credo which worked well until Jim Ward broke the bond by forcing the band’s reformation through management, making them come together much earlier than the six month curfew. As a result, Ward was sacked by Cedric before the 2016 reunion tour.
Omar and Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird is a tale of a beautiful, unbreakable friendship. As Cedric says of Omar near the end of the film,”He is the air that I breathe.” For Omar, someone who was obsessed with documenting everything in his life via film, with the logging of this story, he now feels compelled to let it all go and move on.
Director Nicolas Jack Davies
Producer Johann Scheerer
Editor Gary Forrester, David Atkinson
Featured Subjects Omar Rodríguez-Lopez, Cedric Bixler-Zavala