Coheed and Cambria

There’s nothing about Coheed and Cambria’s rising popularity that makes sense. They don’t have boy band looks, their songs can push eight minutes and their lyrics spin a disjointed sci-fi yarn about two characters who take their names from the band. Still, with two indie releases on Equal Vision Records under their belt, Coheed and Cambria has forged an army of disciples nationwide, a legion that threatens to grow even greater with the release of their major label debut titled (ready?) Goodbye Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV – Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness, due out in late September.
    Sandwiched between two shows in San Diego—an intimate performance at Casbah, which holds just about 200 people, and another at the much larger Soma—and fresh from a signing at the San Diego Comic-Con, Coheed and Cambria’s frontman and comic book author Claudio Sanchez met up with Synthesis. Shy and soft-spoken, Sanchez seemed far removed from the person who helped send a small, but well liquored-up crowd into a frenzy the night before and as unlikely a budding figure on the national rock scene as any fanboy scouring for hidden four-color gems in convention longboxes.

I saw on your CD/DVD that you and the band are big zombie movie fans. Did you get a chance to see Land of the Dead?
Yeah I did.

What did you think of it?
I liked it. Me and Josh [Eppard], the drummer, kinda butted heads a little bit about it. I liked it.

I liked it, too. I saw it with a bunch of zombie movie fans and there was also a lot of mixed opinions.
Yeah, I didn’t think of it as a zombie movie as much as I did a Romero movie. I didn’t go in there expecting Dawn of the Dead the remake, you know?

Earlier today, you did a signing at the San Diego Comic-Con. Was this your first time at the event?
Yeah. We had a booth there last year, but I couldn’t go. So yeah, this was my first time.

What’d you think?
Dangerous [laughs]. There’s a lot of really cool stuff there, and I’m probably going to go home broke. I thought it was awesome. I’m really excited to go back tomorrow and get to check out all the booths.

Have you always been into comic books?
Yeah. Not as much as I used to be. Now being on tour, it’s pretty tough to follow anything. But I still find myself going to comic book shops.

What were some of your favorites growing up?
It was mostly the obvious—the Marvel characters. Wolverine was always one of my favorites, Spawn. As a kid, I didn’t really dig on anything other than the Marvel and DC characters. Recently—I do collect some titles and one of them is Red Star, which I really like a lot, and The Walking Dead.

I know you guys were signing for about 40 minutes or so, but did you get a chance to walk around that much?
I did. I walked around a little bit, but tomorrow [Saturday] I’m going to go early before it gets crazy, so I can see what’s where. So I can plan my day, like what I’m going to get and things like that.

Are you looking for anything in particular?
Not really. I just like looking around.

You just released the second issue of the Turbine Blade series. Why did you decide to present your music as a comic book?
I don’t know. I’ve always been kinda into sci-fi and horror and it’s always something I wanted to be a part of. I’ve been playing in bands since I was 12 years old or so, and just one day those two paths just crossed. I just thought one day, “okay, I’m going to try this…” One day it just kinda happened.

What’s the difference between collaborating with other musicians and collaborating with an illustrator?
It’s not that different. You basically just tell him what you want, and he goes and does it. Then you go back and forth, and he gives his interpretation on what he thinks might be right. It’s pretty much kinda the same chemistry.

Had you seen Wes Abbot’s work before? Is he a friend of yours?
I didn’t really see any of his work. When we met Wes—it wasn’t last Comic-Con, but the year before, at that Comic-Con—our manager went there looking for someone who might be interested in doing a title like this, and not many people were into the idea, but Wes came out of nowhere and showed us his portfolio. I was into some of his work, and he seemed like a nice enough guy, so let’s do it. I was just anxious. I wanted to do something. The idea was there, brewing. And, you know, it orked out.

I remember a while back, there were those comics that, like, told the story of Kiss and stuff like that.
Oh yeah, my friend had all of those.

Was that something that you were trying to get away from—that the artists you were approaching weren’t into doing?
That was never an idea in my head. I think I was kinda clear when I brought it to the table. I don’t think anyone thought that we were looking to be drawn as superheroes or anything like that. Although, I have to say that those old rock ‘n’ roll comics were pretty cool. And I am a fan of Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park [laughs]. 

Is Evil Ink your own publishing imprint?
Yes it is.

Do you hope to put out more stuff with it?
I do. It’s just that right now, it’s so hard to get anything for the Second Stage series done, I don’t want to fill my plate too much. But I mean, the next thing we do will be for the next record, Good Apollo, which is a graphic novel. It will come out the same day as the record. That one will feature a different artist, Christopher Shy.

What other work has he done?
He just did a graphic novel for Image called Ascend. It’s different. It doesn’t look like the Turbine series. It’s much darker looking.

How long have you been kicking these characters around in your head?
Since 1998. Coheed and Cambria was actually an idea I had for a side project for my last band, which is kinda essentially the same band. They were being toyed around with ack then.

You were in bands since you were 12 years old. Have you always wanted to tell stories through music?
I was never the singer, I was just the guy who played guitar. I’ve always wanted to tell stories, but I wasn’t sure how to do that.

Was it difficult to sell the band on the concept of Coheed and Cambria?
It wasn’t hard, but at first, some of the guys just didn’t understand it, and that’s cool, because it’s a band. We can live without the concept. They just didn’t know what was what. They knew I was talking about it, but it was something I was working with, doing by myself. They knew it was there, but they didn’t know what it was. Now, a few years later, they’re a lot more interested in what goes on. Y’know, they attended the Comic-Con today.

How’d they react to it?
They loved it. They were really surprised. I mean, all of us are into some—usually, we share the love for the movies. The comic books thing is kinda my thing.

To get off of that subject for a little while, we were able to catch the band at the Casbah last night. How often are you able to play in a club that small?
We just recently got to play Spaceland in Los Angeles, but not that often. Definitely not hat often.

Is that an unfortunate side effect of becoming more popular?
I think so. As much as it has gotten easier over the years, you do miss that—getting the van, the quest, the journey, four guys who are wondering if you’re going to make it to the next stop alright. Now, we have the comforts of the success that we’ve built, but I do miss it. [Playing smaller venues] is also a nice way to meet people, whereas now, we can’t really.

Last night, you guys played a couple of songs off the new album. How does it feel to play them live?
It’s refreshing. It’s always nice to play new material, because you play the old stuff so much. But it’s fun. It’s exciting. It’s exciting to see how the crowd’s going to respond to them, whether the crowd’s going to be into them or not.

Do you learn more about the songs when you play them live for the first time?
Oh yeah. When that happens, it’s like, “I wish I would have done this when we were recording.” So much stuff. The song kinda grows with you.

The setting at Casbah was really intimate, and I was expecting a little more interaction between the band and the crowd there was. Is that the kind of thing you tend to shy away from?
Not really. It depends on the night. There’s no real formula for what we do at live shows. When it’s small like that, I get nervous. It may be a little hard to believe, but I do onstage. Usually, it’s easier to play in front of a big crowd, because you feel like you’re not the center of attention. With a smaller crowd, all eyes are on you, and then it’s like, I don’t want to say the wrong thing. I don’t know. I get nervous. It may be a little hard to believe, but I do on stage. 

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