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In Part One of our interview with The Mars Volta's Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, the guitarist told us a harrowing tale of a Ouija board's influence on the group's latest album.

But the madness didn't end there. In part two...

MP3.com: Stylistically, how does Bedlam in Goliath differ from Amputechture, Frances the Mute and Deloused in the Comatorium? Omar Rodriguez-Lopez: I know I set out to have something that was much more--I hate to use the word--aggressive, but I'll just say something that was in your face or something with more vitality to it. The challenge when we make a record [to] make it sound completely different than the last thing we did. The biggest mistake is to repeat yourself and to make another Deloused or a Frances or an Amputechture.

When you make a record, it's always an opportunity to get as far away from your past as you can, and that's a challenge because we're locked into a sound. I write all the parts, so it's coming from me so it's going to sound a certain way. Cedric writes all the lyrics. His voice is very particular. So we're already locked into a very definite sound. I have to make some sort of a hurdle or some sort of roadblock for myself, so that it forces me to think differently, and this time was just stripping myself of things that I'm used to. And I cut these things out.

This was sort of the beginning, musically, of The Bedlam. I didn't succeed and I never accomplished the one-minute song [I wanted to make]. But I did come close. I made a 2.5-minute song, which was pretty cool and which was pretty challenging.

And so, these are the concepts and then what comes out, comes out. What it actually sounds like, is left up to the interpreter. I don't really know what it sounds like in the end. I'm too close to it. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground with Mars Volta. It seems to be either a band that you get and love or you don't get and hate. What's your take on that? Oh, it's wonderful. I would think that there was something wrong if the audience wasn't polarized. I think polarization is a true sign of when something is really happening and something is real, because you're forced to take sides. When something is not real and it's not really happening it's just, "Ha, there it is over there." You don't really care either way.

But with us, it's a very passionate response. My friends have told me if you say the name Mars Volta at a party, you get a passionate response in one way or the other, people going, "Oh, yeah!," blah, blah, blah and they want to get into it or people going, "I fucking hate that band. What's the deal with that. It's stupid and there's no," blah, blah, blah. And they have their whole argument about why we shouldn't exist.

Everything has to have its polar opposite in order to be true--the ying and the yang, the hot and the cold, however you want to look at it. Everything that is a truth needs its polar opposite in order to exist.

And it's great because, we spent years making music on our own and making records that nobody cared about and touring in a van and being broke and sleeping in parking lots. And if people are generating energy towards something that I've created, it's absolutely wonderful because this thing that is the Mars Volta, this thing we've created and this energy that gets thrown out of the universe, it's not just mental. When it hears the name "Mars Volta" being invoked, it's not deciding on whether it's a negative response or a positive response. It just hears the name being said. It's an incantation. You're saying the name out loud, you're just giving us more power.

What I find the best is, [the reviewers] don't like our band and they think we're nothing and they think we're sh** but they'll spend a whole page describing why they don't like our band and why we're sh** and it's wonderful. Let's talk about your latest drummer, Thomas Pridgen. I saw him play with you guys in Oakland, and he's just a beast on the drums. Yeah, he is. He's incredible. Like you said, he's a beast. He's the missing piece. He's everything we've ever wanted in a drummer and it's a breath of fresh air. People have been telling us since those shows, "I have never seen you guys smile before. This is great. You guys are smiling. You're having fun."

If you have a party and 20 people in your house and they're all having fun except one guy, that one guy ruins it for everybody and makes everybody not have as much fun. If [instead you get] a guy who's excited to be there, then all of a sudden the whole party goes to a whole new level because they're not aware and self-conscious about the one guy sitting in the corner with his arms crossed.

And that sort of sums up the whole experience, our past drummer and our past relationships. I still wonder why they were even here. What was the attraction? Because they didn't like anything, they didn't like the results of anything, they didn't like the parts they were being given, they didn't want to play or practice and they were indifferent to everything.

It's a completely different story to have someone who wants to be here and who has so much energy and they say, "Oh, this is what you want me to play. Yeah, I could play it like this. But what if I play it like this?" Then I have the opportunity to say, "Well fuck, let's use both." And we're able to get to a new place and the energy that's generated by this is just completely phenomenal. It's as simple as when you get out of a bad relationship with a woman, and you only realize how bad it was when you're out. You're like, "She didn't like my jokes, she didn't like this about me," and then you get the new woman who encourages you and thinks you're absolutely wonderful. In a nutshell that's Thomas. You love to do other artistic projects. How do you find time to get it all out? I've never thought of myself as a musician. I've always thought of myself as a good instigator. I'm good at driving a situation, at bringing a group of people together and just pushing us to do something.

I've been making short films since I was a kid as long as I've been doing music. And I used to paint a lot, a lot, a lot. And paint on tour. I stopped painting in about I think '98 or '99. And I think we all love doing other things. Thomas is also a painter.

It would be a shame to only have one outlet. I need to be able to put down the guitar because [some people think we are] in a room sitting and just practicing and practicing scales. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm not trying to intellectualize our music. I'm not trying to sit down and be a better guitarist all the time and rehearse. I'm just trying to get to the core of my feelings and the core of my ideas and to have some form of therapy. And music is one of those many outlets.

And intellectualizing what I'm doing is the complete enemy, and I have to constantly, like I said at the beginning of the interview, find devices to take that away from myself and to make myself insecure at every moment--humiliation is a big part of it. What's your take on stuff like album leaks, bootlegged shows and just the digital age in general? Oh, I absolutely love the digital age. I think the digital age is an incredible movement. I'm really excited that I could be a part of it. I come from the old school from before the Internet, buying records and putting them onto a cassette, you know. We come from a completely different mindset and to see an explosion of creativity and ideas is incredible. To me, a release isn't really a release unless it's on vinyl. So for me that's the true form. But I'm not a purist. I don't look down on digital releases and all that.

As far as leaks and everything like that, I think it's great. I don't care if people "steal" our music. You can't really steal our music because I'm making our music to be heard. If you can't afford to buy our music, by all means take it. It's more important that you listen to it than it is that we make money or that some corporation somewhere makes money off of it. There has to be a balance between business and just enjoyment.

The only thing that sucks is--I work really fucking hard on these records and spend a good portion of my life losing sleep over them and [it bugs me] to know that there are inferior versions that get out there, like on Frances. When Frances was getting ready to come out, they were playing it for interviewers and press people and somebody snuck into the room and recorded it on a little cassette tape from his pocket, and this is the version that leaked. And for how hard I worked to make it sound the way it does, to think that that's what people are listening to, it absolutely kills me. And it's something I have to let go of. So that's the only thing that bums me out.

But as far as people just downloading music and "stealing" music, it's not stealing. Take what you want. The people who are going to need the record, like you and me, the people who are going to want to hold the artwork and read the lyrics and look at every little liner note and understand what this thing is about, we're always going to exist, we're always going to be here. The people who don't need that stuff, it's music to them...it's just a number inside of their computer, they're always going to be that way.

So please, by all means, take our music and have it playing through your speakers and enjoy. We're not fascists. This isn't Nazism. We're not trying to convert everybody and say, "No. You should always enjoy music with the liner notes and with the lyrics and with the artwork because it's a part of it." You and I know that it's a part of it but that's our religion. We have our religion and they're going to practice something else over there and let them practice it. And if we can meet on one point, if we can agree on one thing, which is the music, then all the better, you know. Something positive is coming out of it. Thanks, Omar. No problem. Thank you.