Jeremy Michael Ward

Born: May 5, 1976, in El Paso, Texas
Died: May 25, 2003, in Los Angeles, California
Bands: De Facto, The Mars Volta

Ward piped De Facto’s dub and The Mars Volta’s sonic output through an assortment of guitar effects, sculpting the sound of these two highly original bands in real-time.

He died of a heroin overdose aged 27 less than a month before The Mars Volta’s debut De-loused in the Comatorium was released, but his influence on the band and its members linger. While working as a repo-man, Jeremy found a journal that became the main inspiration for Frances the Mute, and he also coined the term “amputechture,” the title for the band’s third LP. After his fatal overdose, band mates Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez swore off hard drugs for good.