The Mars Volta frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala has revealed that he used to spend $1,000 a week on marijuana.

Writing in Vulture, for the publication’s Stoner Week special, Bixler-Zavala said he has given up the drug as it turned him into a “total monster”.

Speaking about his relationship with the drug, he admitted: “I was a total monster. I was spending $1,000 a week on weed, and everyone I was in the band with at the time smoked as much as I did. There’s so much stupid behaviour caused by weed, but I always had that cliché: I needed it for creativity.


“I’ve come to realise that at the end of the day, it’s only you yourself that creativity comes from. It doesn’t come from weed. In this day and age, the stuff people are smoking is not necessarily even naturally grown from the ground, anyway; it’s basically been altered to fuck you up and fuck you up royally.”

Bixler-Zavala went on to add: “It’s so easy to get now, you can go to stores and buy it. I feel bad because I was always going into the stores to buy and I’d actually see AIDS patients and cancer patients there — and here I am buying in bulk but I didn’t really need it. I just thought I did. I was using it to form this stoned bubble that helped me justify not wanting to interact with people.”

Sebastian Artz The Mars Volta

He concluded by claiming that he is now able to have a healthier relationship with his fans as a result of kicking marijuana. “Personally — and not just musically — there are benefits to not smoking anymore,” he said. “I’m better off socially. I talk to fans. I’m cool with taking pictures. I’ll sign whatever they want me to sign. That wasn’t me when I was smoking weed. There’s some stoners out there who can appreciate their audience and actually function when they’re high. I couldn’t.”

Earlier this month, Bixler-Zavala denied rumours that The Mars Volta were gearing up for a reunion and insisted that he was focused on his new band Antemasque. The Mars Volta split in 2013 after Bixler-Zavala posted a letter to fans accusing fellow group member Omar Rodriguez-Lopez of not being committed enough.

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