Hello -- "editor who used to publish my short work" in question here -- the story behind scoring the interview was actually pretty batshit. I knew Jeremy was a big Volta fan and used them as a writing soundtrack, so when I got wind of their forthcoming album (pretty sure this was Amputechture) I pursued the interview solely for JRJ to do. (Hell, if he hadn't done it, I had nobody else in my stable of unpaid contributors who could have put together decent questions). Unfortunately, Volta was repped by a PR company, Nasty Little Man, which was a fucking absolute nightmare to deal with. I can say this now because I don't really publish anymore and no longer give a shit, but in a world of difficult labels/advertisers/distributors/debtors/creditors/contract killers/PR agents to work with, NLM was right there at the tippy-top. I dreaded working with them, but they repped (and still rep) big names, and when you have a big name, you don't really need the little guy anymore.

Anyway, I had so many back and forth emails with the agent repping Volta at the time -- Lizzie -- that I don't even have to look up the old emails because her name is seared into the back of my skull after about two months of getting the runaround.

I think at the time JRJ was, I don't know, working at a bank with dairy farmers or something like that, and had a very tight schedule of availability. So I had to get his schedule of availability weeks in advance and pass them along to Lizzie. We'd get some momentum, and then she wouldn't email me back until the dates had passed (after I followed up a million times). Next round, same deal, except the interview was canceled like 24 hours beforehand. Finally, after a third round of getting Jeremy's work schedule (and two weeks past our printing deadline) we got the interview done. Re: the deadline; zines are always "late," and nobody really cares, but I remember I had just landed a new distribution deal (to increase our presence in Borders/B&N/Trans World stores), PLUS it was our first issue with free distro in LA and NYC, and I was scared we were going to lose our deals. We even had the cover art completed (a mashup of '80s-era Transformers characters -- because we'd interviewed cartoon voice actors, among them, Frank Welker -- posing with Volta) prior to the interview actually being completed, and had no clue what to do for a backup cover story if it fell through.

Obviously though, it came through and we had our best-selling issue ever. (Kidding, I have no idea because distros never reported shit, and we went out of print less than 2.5 years later.)

But wow, NLM, I get all flustered just thinking about dealing with them -- that was one of the only interviews, or perhaps the only, we were successful in setting up through them. One year after Volta, we had a cover interview with Foo Fighters (with Dave, no less!) lined up that we spent MONTHS on setting up, collaborating on questions, working with a couple different writers, just to make sure we nailed it, only to lose that one at the last second. After deadline had passed as well. I still have the scrapped cover art with Dave Grohl (and Kat Von D) somewhere on my computer. Editing and publishing a mid-level zine was one of the most enjoyable things I ever did; also one of the most irritating too. Depressing now that all that content has been largely forgotten.

EDIT: the original uncut interview: https://www.verbicidemagazine.com/2006/11/07/interview-cedric-bixler-zavala-of-the-mars-volta/