A Conversation with Coheed and Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez – HuffPost 6.18.10
Mike Ragogna: Let’s start at the very beginning with The Amory Wars, your sci-fi theme that runs through each of your five releases. This fifth album, Year Of The Black Rainbow, is a prequel, and for many, it will be the perfect place to get acquainted with the story and music of Coheed and Cambria, the name of your musical group and the heroes in the storyline. What’s going on in this installment, and can you bring us up to date?
Claudio Sanchez: The story is the second stage. The story of Coheed and Cambria is about their mid-life, and finding out that they weren’t born in the colony of Heaven’s Fence, but were actually created for it. These characters were basically learning about what had led them down a series of downward spirals, if you will, and eventually, to their demise.
MR: It’s pretty involved.
CS: It’s a science fiction epic, everything kind of revolves around decisions those two characters have made. The following record, Good Apollo…, is about their son and his quest for vengeance, if you will, but it’s also a kind of coming-of-age tale.
MR: Because of it being a bit of a space opera, it’s been compared a little bit to Star Wars, and it even has a wink to the franchise when one of the characters turns to his wife and says, “Somehow, I’ve always known.”
CS: Certainly a wink. Yes. Without a doubt. The narrative hints that she has always been suspecting something and her dialog confirms this. So yes, that is certainly a wink to Star Wars without a doubt.
MR: This all started with your Shabütie project, right?
CS: Sort of. Coheed and Cambria was a side project to Shabütie.
MR: Weren’t there Shabütie songs that were re-titled and that became part of the Coheed and Cambria universe?
CS: Oh yes. “Time Consumer,” I believe, was considered a Shabütie song, so was “Junesong Provision.” These were all songs that I started to create under the guise of Coheed and Cambria, but then it started to morph into more of a rock band scenario. As the band started to kind of falter with the name Shabütie, everybody kind of liked the name Coheed and Cambria, so the songs started to transfer over.
MR: This album being a prequel, you had quite the task, to go back and maybe adjust or clarify your universe. What was the approach on this record?
CS: Basically, with the characters Coheed and Cambria, with every record, I use personal experience to feed the fiction, if you will. I got married this last year, and I used some of the emotions that went with that decision, and I decided to kind of feed it into those characters. I understood, in terms of the story how we were going to start–what the story was that needed to be told. But as far as the details went, a lot of that came with my writing the songs about some things that happened to myself.
As far as things that accompanied the record, we wanted to do something different. We sort of did do something different with Good Apollo… by releasing a graphic novel at the same time. We just wanted to kind of revisit that idea by bringing the literary component back with this release.
MR: That personal connection you mentioned is apparent. For instance, there was definitely a reference made to it being drawn directly from “Claudio,” and the band’s real life triumphs and travails.
CS: Without a doubt. And I tried to make that known to the audience with the Apollo One… story by dividing the it in half, and showing it from the writers perspective–the writer being what the characters considered was the God of their world. They didn’t know what it was, but this writer opened the portal between the tunes. It was called the “The Willing Well,” and it wills the characters to do what he wants for the sake of making it better in his real world.
MR: Everything gets further fleshed-out in your graphic novels. What are your favorite graphic novels out there, and who are your favorite writers and artists?
CS: One definitely is the Watchmen. I have two very large pieces of art in my house that are composed of issues from the Watchmen–really nice large pieces. So, it it certainly shows my devotion to that comic and it is certainly, hands down, my favorite. That would make Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons my favorites in that realm. The Preacher is another one, Steve Dillon…
MR: You did a concert way back, Neverender, that played the four albums back to back. Are you planning on doing Neverender Two so you can add the prequel?
CS: I would certainly love to. There is no confirmation of it yet, but we had such a blast doing the first one, it would be silly not to do it again now with the complete Armory Wars. I would love to do it again.
MR: You’re looking at your Amory Wars as being complete. But in the comic realm, as they say, you haven’t really lived until you died. So, how does that affect potential future sequels?
CS: It’s tough to say. This is the first time I have actually brought this up. The idea that we are working on right now…we’ll see. I think that what we have done is perfect the way it is, and if the band were to stop tomorrow, this would be it. It would be fantastic and totally complete. But should we decide to move forward, the possibilities are endless until it’s over.
MR: Looking all the way back now at your old single “Devil In Jersey City” from a 2010 perspective, what are your thoughts about that song and your earlier works now?
CS: It’s still perfect. I wouldn’t change anything about it. All of these records certainly are very much reflections of who I was at that time. To me, it’s almost a kind of looking back, they are a chapter in my life and are perfect the way they are.
Transcribed by Erika Richards