Clashing with Scientology
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Whatever gaps the film presents it makes up for by shedding light on the darkest part of The Mars Volta: Bixer-Zavala’s joining the Church of Scientology, which ultimately alienated those dearest to him.
It’s what drove the band’s break-up in 2013, stunning both fans and Rodríguez-López, who learnt the news on Twitter. He described it as a cruel betrayal but “I just chose to love him”.
In order to rescue his “lifelong best friend”, Rodríguez-López agreed to begin initiating himself into Scientology and for three weeks, was allegedly “pumped full of vitamins and pills … indoctrination, conditioning”.
After a tearful reconciliation with his estranged friend, Bixler-Zavala decided to withdraw from the church.
“All those f**king venomous whispers in my ear just disappeared. [It] haunts me every f**king day. It’s the shittiest thing I’ve ever been a part of,” he said.
Davies says Bixler-Zavala leaving Scientology got “so much darker than we were able to tell… [But] if we put that in the film we’d still be in some sort of trouble [and] litigation. That’s disappointing because [Omar and Cedric] want to be honest”.
Bixler-Zavala was introduced to the Church of Scientology in 2009 by his wife, Chrissie Carnell Bixler. In 2017, she was one of four women who accused Danny Masterson — her former boyfriend, co-star of US sitcom That ’70s Show and a Scientologist – of raping them in the early 00s.
The timeline is complex but the whole ordeal brought Rodríguez-López and Bixler-Zavala together, and they eventually reunited as The Mars Volta and released a self-titled album in 2022 – their first music together in a decade.
Content retrieved from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-21/omar-and-cedric-documentary-at-the-drive-in-mars-volta/104251232.
