Day After Day #239: One Armed Scissor

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

One Armed Scissor (2000)

Is it possible for a band to have too much energy? Probably not, but if you ever saw an At the Drive-In performance, you might wonder. I've only seen footage of them on YouTube, but man, they went all out all the time on stage. Just off the charts insanity and awesomeness.

In 2000, the music scene was pretty strange. Napster was blowing up, the recording industry was filing lawsuits to stop file-sharing sites like Napster, nu metal acts like Limp Bizkit were all the rage and pop and hip hop were also thriving. 

By this point, post-hardcore act At the Drive-In had been together for six years, formed in El Paso by guitarist Jim Ward and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala, with Omar Rodriguez-Lopez joining in 1995 as bassist. The band released their debut album, Acrobatic Tenement, on Flipside in 1996. Shortly after recording that album, ATDI added Tony Hajjar on drums and Paul Hinojos on bass, with Rodriguez-Lopez switching to guitar. After switching labels to Fearless Records, the band released In/Casino/Out in August 1998. 

Buzz had been building about ATDI's incendiary live performances and eventually the group signed with G.A.S. Entertainment, a label founded by record company exec Gary Gersh and artist manager John Silva. But while the band was recording its third album, Relationship of Command with producer Ross Robinson, G.A.S.'s parent company, Digital Entertainment Network, dissolved and Gersh and Silva merged their label with Grand Royal (founded by the Beastie Boys in conjunction with Capitol Records). 

Any fears that ATDI would water down their sound after signing to a major were unfounded. Relationship of Command came out in September 2000 and was a ripper of an album, cementing the band as the premier "screamo" act of the moment. I was working for Webnoize and we attended South by Southwest in March 2000, where ATDI played a hot set; unfortunately, I was unaware of it and missed it. But thanks to our office "research" on Napster, I was able to hear some of the new stuff early and picked up the CD when it came out. "Pattern Against User," "Arcarsenal" and "Rolodex Propaganda" (featuring Iggy Pop) are all standouts. The energy is palpable, with Bixler-Zavala screaming while Ward and Rodriguez-Lopez riff furiously and the rhythm section thunders along. 

"One Armed Scissor" was an early favorite, although I have to admit I didn't know what the hell they were singing about most of the time. According to the Wikipedia page for the song, the band said in an interview that a one-armed scissor is a mixture of Red Bull and vodka, and that the song is about their tours told from the point of view of "an omniscient character named the one-armed scissor who sees their hardships they deal with while on tour." Okay, that still doesn't make much sense. But neither do these lyrics, which center on something bad happening on a spaceship (I think).

"Yes, this is the campaign/Slithered entrails in the cargo bay/Neutered is the vastness/They hibernate, but have they kissed the ground?/Pucker up and kiss the asphalt now/Tease this amputation/Splintered larynx, it has access now/Cut away, cut away/Send transmission to the one-armed scissor/Cut away, cut away/Send transmission from the one-armed scissor/Cut away, cut away/Send transmission to the one-armed scissor/Cut away, cut away."

The song began getting play on college radio stations like WMBR, which we were listening to in our Cambridge office at the time, but also on more mainstream rock stations. And the band was going on talk shows like the Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O'Brien and just exploding on the stage, with Bixler-Zavala throwing himself into instruments and even Conan's guest couch (according to a YouTube viewer who was in the audience) while the band thrashed away. 

"Dissect a trillion sighs away/Will you get this letter? Jagged pulp sliced in my veins/I write to remember/'Cause I'm a million miles away/Will you get this letter?/Jagged pulp sliced in my veins/I write to remember/I write to remember/I write to remember."

So maybe the space station is a metaphor for life on the road, perhaps. That life was taking a toll on the band, for sure. In November 2000, ATDI's touring van skidded on ice and flipped onto its roof; the band escaped with only minor injuries to Hajjar and Bixler-Zavala. In January 2001, the band was playing the Big Day Out festival in Australia when the band grew upset at the crowd's moshing and left the stage after playing three songs. Two months later, about to begin a U.S. tour and at the peak of their popularity, ATDI split up. While exhaustion was given as a reason, both Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez were dealing with drug habits and the band members had different ideas about musical direction. 

Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez wanted to move into a prog-rock vein and formed the Mars Volta, while Ward, Hinojos and Hajjar formed the ATDI-adjacent Sparta. Both acts released albums that performed well. Hinojos left Sparta and joined the Mars Volta from 2005-2009. ATDI reunited in 2011 and played some festival shows the following year. The Mars Volta split up in 2013 and Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez stopped talking for a while before resolving their issues the following year.

ATDI reformed to make a new album in 2016, although Ward left after a few rehearsals and was replaced by former Sparta guitarist Keeley Davis. The album, in*ter*a*li*a, came out in 2017 and was pretty good. The band toured behind the album, but in November 2018 announced another hiatus. 

I still love watching those old videos of At the Drive-In, which remind me of similarly kickass acts like Fugazi, Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes and the Nation of Ulysses, all of which ATDI has cited as influences. Whether they're singing about spaceships, booze or scissors, ATDI was the real deal, man.