Julio Venegas

Julio Venegas (3 April 1972, El Paso, Texas — 15 February 1996, ibid.) was an American musician, bassist, visual artist, and illustrator, best known as the close friend and early collaborator of Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. (See Julio (left) with Cedric in the 2nd photo). He committed suicide at 24, which profoundly impacted both artists. They dedicated most of the At The Drive-In's 1997 album Acrobatic Tenement, particularly the song "Ebroglio," as well as The Mars Volta's Tremulant EP (2002) and the critically acclaimed debut album, De-Loused In The Comatorium (2003), to the life and death of Venegas. Most recently, in August 2016, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez used one of his drawings as the front cover of his Arañas En La Sombra album. Venegas was born to a single mother, Maria Guadalupe Venegas (1926—1989), and grew up in El Paso, Texas, leading a tumultuous lifestyle since childhood. When his mother died, 17-year-old Julio made his first suicide attempt by overdosing on morphine; Venegas went into a coma instead, with his right side paralyzed after he woke up. Julio re-learned how to walk during the lengthy recovery, later again incapacitating his arm by further attempts to inject various chemical mixtures; Omar and Cedric jokingly called their friend "Frankenstein" for multiple scars over his body. Venegas introduced them to other genres besides punk and hardcore, with bands and artists like Fela Kuti, Magma (6), and Can; he played bass in Cedric Bixler's band Dregtones while the co-founder and core bassist Jimmy Hernandez was away at school. Julio Venegas also drew the artwork for the group's demo tape 5 Song Alibi in 1994. (Dregtones dissolved later the same year after Hernandez died of cancer.) The exact circumstances of Julio's suicide are unclear; many sources claimed he jumped off a freeway overpass into the busy afternoon traffic, while others report Venegas took his life at home. According to subsequent interviews with Cedric and Omar, one of the main reasons behind Julio's tragic decision was bullying and tormenting from Ben Rodriguez, a temporary guitarist and backing vocalist with At The Drive-In in 1996–97 (who briefly replaced Jim Ward on El Gran Orgo EP, the first record where Omar Rodriguez-Lopez switched to guitar and new members Paul Hinojos and Tony Hajjar joined). Bixler-Zavala and Omar-Rodriguez described Ben as a "sociopath," and he was kicked out of the band shortly after. In 2002, when Omar and Cedric released the Tremulant EP, a debut release by their new band The Mars Volta, one of the songs, "Concertina," revisited these tragic events. The group's debut full-length album, De-Loused In The Comatorium, which came out in June 2003, was based on a "Cerpin Taxt" short story by Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Jeremy M. Ward — a fictionalized and dramatized version of Julio Venegas life and tragic demise. (Ward died from a heroin overdose in May 2003, weeks before the album's release.)