Zechs Marquise - History

History

The band was formed in the fall of 2003 by two Rodriguez-Lopez brothers, Marcel on keyboards/percussion and Marfred on bass, as well as their childhood friends Marcos Smith and Matthew Wilkson on guitars and Michael Farraro on drums. Originally going by the name of Monolith, they later decided to take the name Zechs Marquise from the main antagonist of the anime series Gundam Wing. Zechs Marquise has quickly created a stir in their hometown and has built a solid fan base within the southwest cities that they have visited on the road. During the late summer months of 2004 the band hit the studio to record its first album. That studio effort was later scrapped and instead in June 2006 the band released 34:26 EP, a live improvised set culled from their frequent west coast tours. By fall of 2006, Zechs was touring the west coast consistently, sharing the stage with such eclectic acts as Daedelus, Busdriver, The Album Leaf, DJ Nobody, Daddy Kev, The Gaslamp Killer, and Totimoshi.

July 2007 saw the band return to the recording studio. Having learned from the difficulties of their first attempt, the quintet decided to keep all of the recording in house, purchasing a mixing board, microphones, and Pro Tools in order to track all of the recordings themselves. After a few days in their studios, dubbed Castle Greyskull and El Morro, the members realized they had enough material for a full length album. The record, Our Delicate Stranded Nightmare, was completed in February 2008. This became band's last release to feature Farraro, who left the band soon after recording, which led to Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez switching to drums. In March 2009, the band made its first adventure overseas to Europe, opening for Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group, in which Marcel was also a member. In May Zechs Marquise signed on to the management roster at Sargent House and released Our Delicate Stranded Nightmare on LP/CD/digital in August of that year through Rodriguez-Lopez Productions.

In the years since their debut album, Zechs Marquise toured extensively throughout the U.S., proving to be a formidable live act supporting Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group and RX Bandits as well as leading their own headlining tours. In 2010 they started working on their second full-length album. Considering the hectic tour schedules of both Zechs Marquise and The Mars Volta (in which Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez plays keyboards and percussion), the band was forced to work on the album over an extended period of time in between both band's tours. Marfred Rodriguez-Lopez said, "It gave us a lot of time to get perspective on the songs. We're really happy with and proud of this record.". The album, titled Getting Paid, was finally released on September 27, 2011. The album was entirely produced and engineered by Marcel. "We started off recording percussion to sequencers and loops. I chopped those sounds up and arranged them. From there, were wrote the album with each of us coming in and playing on top of it. Kind of like a hip-hop song." Once all parts were composed using the studio as a tool, the band re-recorded the album live to represent their live energy. Getting Paid for the first time featured vocals on select songs, including guest performances by vocalist/guitarist Matt Embree (RX Bandits, The Sound Of Animals Fighting) and El Paso singer Sonny Baker. 2011 saw Rikardo Rodriguez-Lopez (the youngest of Rodriguez-Lopez brothers) joining the band on keyboards.