During 2001 Eva Gardner joined the members of De Facto on bass, and they recorded two songs with drummer Blake Fleming and producer Alex Newport, which became the first demo by The Mars Volta.

The lineup for their first public show at Chain Reaction in Anaheim, California was Rodríguez-López, Bixler-Zavala, Owens, Gardner, Ward, and drummer Jon Theodore.

[7] Following Tremulant, The Mars Volta continued touring with a fluid line-up while preparing to record their debut full-length album De-Loused in the Comatorium, produced with Rick Rubin and released on June 24, 2003.

Whereas Tremulant had no general theme (except the prophetic mentioning) De-Loused was a unified work of speculative fiction telling the first-person story of someone in a drug-induced coma, battling the evil side of his mind.

Though lyrically obscure, The Mars Volta stated in interviews that the album's protagonist is based on their late friend Julio Venegas, or "Cerpin Taxt", an El Paso poet and artist who went into a coma for several years after a deliberate drug overdose, recovered and later committed suicide.

The story given by the band on the album's concept concerns a diary that had been found in a repossessed car by late sound technician Jeremy Ward, while working as a repo-man.

In keeping with The Mars Volta's tradition of testing and developing new work live, parts of "Abortion" later appeared on "Population Council's Wet Dream" from Rodríguez-López's 2009 album Old Money.

During this time Rodríguez-López also composed the score to the film El Búfalo de la Noche, which was written and directed by Guillermo Arriaga and Jorge Hernandez Aldana respectively.

"[citation needed] On July 28, 2006, the drummer's spot was filled by Blake Fleming, formerly of Laddio Bolocko, Dazzling Killmen, and the very first Mars Volta demos.

A new song titled "Rapid Fire Tollbooth" was debuted live on September 22, 2006, in Chicago, Illinois, as reported by fans and attendees of the show who had received set lists from the stage.

On October 31, 2006, in Cleveland, Ohio, as Parks could not perform, The Mars Volta played an approximately 40-minute improvisation set as a rehearsal for another drummer, Thomas Pridgen.

Pridgen's first full-time appearance was at the March 12 show in New Zealand, where the band debuted the song "Idle Tooth" which was later renamed "Wax Simulacra" for the forthcoming album.

After shows in New Zealand and Australia, The Mars Volta toured a few West Coast venues as the headliner, then entered the studio to record their fourth LP, The Bedlam in Goliath.

[15] Despite finding a permanent drummer and getting the band back on track, the recording and production of the album was reportedly plagued by difficulties related to a bad experience with a Ouija board purchased in a curio shop in Jerusalem.

[16] According to Rodríguez-López, their original engineer experienced a nervous breakdown, his studio flooded twice, and both he and mixer Rich Costey claimed that various tracks would disappear at random.

The band kicked off their supporting tour with a December 29, 2007 "secret show" at the Echoplex in Los Angeles, California, followed by a special New Year's Eve performance at San Francisco's Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.

The band then departed on a club tour of the U.S. east coast throughout January, with an album release show at San Diego's Soma, followed by another month's worth of European dates from mid-February to mid-March.

On January 22, they made a surprise appearance at Toronto, Ontario, Canada's MTV Live studios, where they performed "Wax Simulacra" and an extended version of "Goliath".

[21] The band members thanked their families and Bixler urged people not to forget the memories of the recently departed Lux Interior and Ron Asheton.

[22][26] In the spirit of distillation of the band's sound, Rodríguez-López asked woodwind player/percussionist Adrián Terrazas-González and live rhythm guitarist/sound manipulator Paul Hinojos to leave.

In 2011, Rodríguez-López spoke about the band's new album in several interviews, saying that it would feature thirteen songs which, "[are] a simplified version of what we've done before",[36] and would be released "Whenever the record label decides to put it out".

The Group continued to tour throughout April with the same lineup of Bixler-Zavala, Omar and Marcel Rodríguez-López, Juan Alderete, Deantoni Parks and (previously offstage) keyboardist/sound manipulator Lars Stalfors.

[46] After the conclusion of the Noctourniquet tour, Omar Rodríguez-López decided to put The Mars Volta on hold to fully concentrate on his new project, Bosnian Rainbows, which also features Deantoni Parks.

He stated shortly after that he was "currently not on speaking terms" with Rodríguez-López and that "the falling out had been four years in the making, so the final announcement on my part was really just to let the children know that Mom and Dad were splitting up".

[48] Rodríguez-López, meanwhile, did not rule out the possibility of The Mars Volta reuniting in the future: "Because of all my anger and how I dealt with people, I spent so much of my life just closing doors left and right.

[51] In February 2014, several posts on the Comatorium message board by sources close to the band revealed that Bixler-Zavala and Rodríguez-López had been meeting and speaking again, hinting at a possible Mars Volta reunion.

[citation needed] The rumors were further fueled when Bixler-Zavala's wife Chrissie posted a picture on Instagram of her husband and Rodríguez-López holding Bixler's twin boys at a California beach.

On March 4, 2021, Clouds Hill posted a video on Twitter[59] titled 'Coming Soon', featuring audio from De-Loused in the Comatorium, as well as alternate artwork of the album cover.

[74] Many artists and bands have cited The Mars Volta as an influence, including Mastodon,[75] Lizzo,[76] Protest the Hero,[77][78] Nick Hipa of As I Lay Dying,[79] The Fall of Troy,[80] Danny Marino of The Agonist,[81] Tor Oddmund Suhrke of Leprous,[82] Jonathan Nido of The Ocean,[83][84] Mutiny on the Bounty,[85] The Old Dead Tree,[86] Canvas Solaris[87][88] and Syriak of Unexpect.

[89] A number of other artists have been quoted expressing admiration for their work such as Neil Peart of Rush,[90] Tool,[91] Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree,[92] James Hetfield of Metallica,[93] Holger Czukay of Can[94] Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater,[95] and Kanye West.