In March 2012,
The Mars Volta released its sixth studio album,
Noctourniquet, following a three-year recording period. Only 19 tour dates were announced in support of the release, of which 18 were in Europe and one in Israel. Following the tour, Rodríguez-López moved back to his home town of
El Paso, Texas, and subsequently formed Bosnian Rainbows with frequent collaborator Teri Gender Bender of
Le Butcherettes, Mars Volta drummer
Deantoni Parks and Nicci Kasper, who previously worked with Parks in Kudu and also as the writing duo Dark Angels. Regarding the band's conception, Rodríguez-López noted, "I found myself lonely and bored. So it's like, 'OK, new phase — let's get into it and let's create a dialogue. Let's find some things out. Rodríguez-López subsequently put The Mars Volta on hiatus (although the band dissolved four months later) in order to focus on a more democratic project, stating, "It’s a
band — that's something I haven’t been in for over eleven years. [...] [The Mars Volta] was my baby: I started the group; I named it; booked all our tours — it became known as my family, not my band. I had to be in control of everything and I was really fucking domineering with everybody, not just musicians." with Rodríguez-López noting, "The tour was booked five months before it happened, and it was going to be another solo tour, and then at some point, I decided to start a new group and have a team effort. So it got booked one way, but I try to make it clear every night that this is a new group, and these are the names of the players, and 'thank you. The band rehearsed in Hamburg at Clouds Hill Studios, owned by Rodriguez-Lopez's longtime friend
Johann Scheerer. During the rehearsals Bosnian Rainbows recorded a live session, which was released on 10" vinyl and DVD as a part of
Live at Clouds Hill limited-edition
box set in December 2012. After the European leg of the tour they returned to the studio to record their
self-titled debut album, with production by Scheerer. Rodríguez-López noted, "These are very much shorter, more to-the-point songs [than The Mars Volta's]. They still have spaces that stretch out, but what I mean to say is that it’s all the same influences that have been in most of my writing and all the people in my bands’ writing.
Can is there,
Siouxsie and the Banshees is there,
Gang of Four is there, all the
Led Zeppelin, whatever... all those things are there, it's just different elements of those things. You make it shorter. It's stripped down, it's starker. The very melodic side of Can; the very textural side of Siouxsie. You take all those elements, and you take elements that maybe you weren't exploring as much before. Later, the song was released as a digital single on the band's
Bandcamp page. On February 12, 2013, the second studio track, "Turtle Neck," was released on the band's SoundCloud and bandcamp pages. The debut
self-titled album by Bosnian Rainbows was released worldwide via Clouds Hill Ltd on June 25, 2013. Bosnian Rainbows reportedly recorded their second album in 2013 with producer
Rafa Arcaute. However, the band went inactive in 2014, as Rodriguez-Lopez reunited with his Mars Volta partner
Cedric Bixler-Zavala in a new project,
Antemasque. The second Bosnian Rainbows album remains unreleased. ==Line-up==