Jeremy Michael Ward (May 5, 1976 – May 25, 2003) was an American musician, best known as the sound technician and vocal operator for
The Mars Volta
The Mars Volta is an American Rock music, rock band formed in 2001. The band's only constant members are Omar Rodríguez-López (guitar, producer, direction) and Cedric Bixler-Zavala (vocals, lyrics), whose partnership forms the core of the ban ...
and
De Facto.
Biography
Jeremy Ward was born in
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...
and later moved to
El Paso
El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...
. He was a cousin of
Jim Ward and was loosely associated with Jim's band
At the Drive-In
At the Drive-In was an American post-hardcore band from El Paso, Texas, formed in 1994. The band's most recent line-up consisted of Cedric Bixler-Zavala (vocals), Omar Rodríguez-López (guitar, vocals), Paul Hinojos (bass), Tony Hajjar (drums ...
since its formation in 1994. After that band split for the first time in 2001, members
Cedric Bixler-Zavala and
Omar Rodríguez-López invited Ward to contribute vocals and electronic effects to their interim project
De Facto, and then their more permanent band
The Mars Volta
The Mars Volta is an American Rock music, rock band formed in 2001. The band's only constant members are Omar Rodríguez-López (guitar, producer, direction) and Cedric Bixler-Zavala (vocals, lyrics), whose partnership forms the core of the ban ...
.
He contributed to that group's debut album ''
De-Loused in the Comatorium'', and his experimental sound manipulations have been cited as integral to that album's sound.
Less than a month before the album was released, Ward was found dead of an apparent
heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a morphinan opioid substance synthesized from the Opium, dried latex of the Papaver somniferum, opium poppy; it is mainly used as a recreational drug for its eupho ...
overdose on May 25, 2003,
aged 27.
Bixler-Zavala and Rodríguez-López have stated that Ward's death inspired them to kick their own addictions.
Ward had also worked as a
repo man, and an anonymous diary that he had found while repossessing a car became the basis for the lyrics in the next Mars Volta album, ''
Frances the Mute''. Some of Ward's experimental recordings were used posthumously on later albums by The Mars Volta and Omar Rodríguez-López, and Lopez created the full-length album ''
Omar Rodriguez Lopez & Jeremy Michael Ward'' from such compositions in 2008.
Discography
With At the Drive-In
* ''
In/Casino/Out'' (1998)
With De Facto
* ''
How Do You Dub? You Fight for Dub, You Plug Dub In'' (1999/2001)
* ''
456132015'' (2001)
* ''
Megaton Shotblast'' (2001)
* ''
Légende du Scorpion à Quatre Queues'' (2001)
With The Mars Volta
* ''
Tremulant'' (2002)
* ''
De-Loused in the Comatorium'' (2003)
* ''
Octahedron
In geometry, an octahedron (: octahedra or octahedrons) is any polyhedron with eight faces. One special case is the regular octahedron, a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at each vertex. Many types of i ...
'' (2009)
With Omar Rodríguez-López
* ''
A Manual Dexterity: Soundtrack Volume 1'' (2004)
* ''
Omar Rodriguez Lopez & Jeremy Michael Ward'' (2008)
* ''
Minor Cuts and Scrapes in the Bushes Ahead'' (2008)
* ''
Telesterion
The Telesterion ("Initiation Hall" from Gr. τελείω, "to complete, to fulfill, to consecrate, to initiate") was a great hall and sanctuary in Eleusis, one of the primary centers of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The hall had a fifty-five yard s ...
'' (2011)
Equipment
With De Facto
* Yamaha QY100
* Electro-Harmonix Frequency Analyzer
* Digitech Multi chorus
*
Guyatone MD-3 Digital delay
* Ibanez DE-7 delay/Echo
* Boss DD-6 delay
* Boss HR-2 Harmonist
* Maxon Rotary phaser
* Korg KP2 Kaoss pad
* Voodoo Lab Pedal Power
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ward, Jeremy Michael
1976 births
2003 deaths
Deaths by heroin overdose in California
20th-century American guitarists
Guitarists from Texas
American male guitarists
The Mars Volta members
20th-century American male musicians
De Facto (band) members