Claudio Sanchez, the man behind Coheed And Cambria’s pitch-defying vocals, can never be accused of being lazy. While not busy touring this year with Coheed or dealing with the recent departure of bandmates Josh Eppard and Michael Todd, he has been dabbling in other creative ventures that don’t fall too far from the same tree. Sanchez released a solo album under the guise of The Prize Fighter Inferno back in October and more recently has been focusing time revising his comic book/graphic novel saga The Amory Wars. Both side projects are further extensions of a sci-fi storyline he created that involves numerous characters and subplots, which Sanchez has made the centerpiece of his music.
Fans will be relieved to hear that Sanchez has no intention of calling it quits on the ongoing Amory War saga, despite the recent band upheaval.
Sanchez recently talked with writer
Amy Kelly to discuss the future of Coheed and whether the Prize Fighter Inferno will also be more than just a one-album experiment.
UG: After your whirlwind year, have these last few weeks of 2006 been a little relaxing?
Claudio: Yeah, pretty much. We’ve been working on a new Coheed record. We’ve also been working on some scripts for the graphic novels. I’ve actually got an issue in front of me right now, just kind of getting that ready to go to the artist.
Is it true that you’re actually working on revisions for the original comic released through Evil Ink?
It’s actually starting over, kind of starting from the beginning of it and just doing it over. There was the fact that we had not been capable enough to get it out as fast as we wanted. It would be like a year between the two. One would come out and a year later another would come out, and that’s really not the way I hoped it’d work. This time around it’ll be Evil Ink with a subsidiary of Image Comics, 12 Gauge. We’ve kind of been doing it more on a conventional level, where we have deadlines. Most of them, when they come out, they’ll start coming out on a monthly schedule as opposed to whenever.
With deadlines in the picture, have you set a release date?
I think March, April. I just laid out 4 pages of the dialogue for a magazine. So they should be in that pretty soon.
In your liner notes it states that the My Brother’s Blood Machine was actually recorded over a span of 7 years.
Yes.
In that first year of recording the record’s songs, did you know at the time that it would end up on album that was an entire different entity than Coheed?
When I first started recording the material, at the time of conception, that project was called Coheed. Coheed was basically a side project of the band that we were in a long time ago called Shabutie. Initially the idea for Coheed was to be like a kind of mixed acoustic and electronic and just any kind of music that I just wanted to try. But I knew when I started that it would become a record eventually. Whatever I felt was good enough would become a record. But when I first started writing it, they weren’t even songs.
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| "Whatever I felt was good enough would become a record." |
There are so many different styles that the Prize Fighter Inferno explores. Talk about the writing process for a song like “The Margretville Dance,” which almost has an early Michael Jackson feel to it.
I wrote that one when we were working on Good Apollo. So in the morning before I went into the studio to work on Coheed stuff, I would take the first couple hours of my day and just work on that stuff. I think the beat of the song, like the actual bulk of the song, was actually recorded in the back of a tour bus. It was actually going to be a joke song! We were going to create this song for our tour manager to sing. So I had this beat on my MP909, brought it on tour. It reminded me very much of Huey Lewis or something, Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall or Thriller, that period of time. I thought it was going to be a very funny song for our tour manager, but we never got around to it. Then when I was in the studio I was like, “You know, I still have this beats. You know what? I’m going to try and use them because I don’t want them to go to waste.” I don’t know. I am a fan of old Michael Jackson, especially Off The Wall. I guess in some ways I was trying to emulate that.
How about “The Fight of Moses Early and Sir Arthur McCloud,” which has a gorgeous acoustic arrangement?
That one was actually written at the house when we were doing Good Apollo. I think with that song, it was like there were a lot of guitar parts going at once. It was almost like gears in a clock. I’m very much into sequential and electronic music, and I think it comes out when I play guitar, especially something like that. It’s almost like 3 guitars kind of looping, although they aren’t looped. But it kind of feels like it because they are kind of turning like a clock’s motion. When I wrote “Moses Early,” lyrically it has its place in the concept of Inferno. But when I was writing it, we were going through a hard time, recording all of our record. I think at the time we were tired of being isolated. I didn’t have a car to get off the property, so I was stuck at the compound like 24 hours a day! It was getting to me.
What kind of guitars, amps, and effects did you use on My Brother’s Blood Machine?
On some of the stuff, it’s been so long ago that I can’t remember everything. I remember some of the older stuff was actually recorded on like a cassette track, like a cassette 4-track. I forget the model number. There were some sort of analog devices. As far as like guitars go, I used a bunch of Taylors on the more recent stuff like “The Fight of Moses” and “Who Watches The Watchmen?” and those kinds of things. They’re very good to us in Coheed. I had a bunch laying around the house for Inferno. Again, there were Roland devices, 808, 909. As far as effects go, they’re probably just pedals – probably Boss pedals. But anything I could get my hands on, because I didn’t really have a rack. Everything was kind of just recorded on the spot. I used Pro Tools.
Can you see other albums released under the Prize Fighter Inferno moniker?
It’s hard to say because at first the idea was just to do one record in the collection and leave it at that. Cool, I did that. But part of me now, the way that the Blood Machine works – with that character from the Amory Wars, Inferno, passes away and becomes the narrator of this piece of fiction – there are so many avenues in the Amory Wars, other stories that could come out of this saga. I almost feel like I could have this character narrate all of them. Or I could have a musical project for the hell of it and not worry so much about the road ahead. It would be hard to say. I mean, I had a lot of fun doing it and part of me really wants to do it again. Yeah, I’ll probably do it again.
What came first: the Amory Wars story or the music?
They both came first. They both came at the same time. In 1998, that’s when I created the initial idea for Coheed and Cambria – this musical, sci-fi epic. It all just kind of parallels my experiences, a lot of what I go through. Yeah, they both came at the same time in 1998. Prior to that I was writing a lot of songs that were very fictional. It was kind of like very random. I was like, “Why don’t I work these together.” Like, here’s a song about, I don’t know, and here’s another one that has absolutely no connection to that.
When you began to come up with all the different characters and subplots, had you intended for them all to intertwine into one story?
Yeah, definitely. When I started writing the stuff, this overall story, of course, I probably saw it coming from personal experiences. But I then took those and kind of blended them in a story. Songs like “Time Consumer” and “Everything Evil” were probably the first two songs that I wrote under the guise of Coheed. I knew then that they would all be part of some big, grand opus.
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| "I am a fan of old Michael Jackson. I guess in some ways I was trying to emulate that." |
When you began to tell people about your idea for a grand opus, what was the reaction from your friends and other musical peers?
At the time, I was a little confused on how to approach it, especially in explaining it to others. I think the friends, they thought it was a little wacky – even with some of the band members. I’ve heard some of them say that never really knew there was a concept behind the record! But then you have this other side of the spectrum, where I would be explaining to some people and they’d be like, “Wow!” Then they would approach me with questions. So it was all over the spectrum.
Coheed fans are definitely a dedicated bunch who follow the Amory Wars intensely. I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of the fans provide their own theories behind the epic story.
All the time. I’m very fortunate that we have the fans that we do, that are interest enough to kind of inquire about the story. Even though there isn’t one there yet in a tangible form, they go on some of the websites and kind of go back and forth to each other on what they think is on the record. And that’s a lot of fun! That they’re that involved in the band and they take time out to do something like that. That’s something I think I’ve always wanted in a rock and roll band. I think I kind of got that a bit with Pink Floyd. I remember hearing a lyric and wanting to know what they were singing about. I’d listen to the lyric and dissect the code. So we’re very fortunate as a band to have that kind of support.
In The Last Supper DVD, it features a fantastic moment in which you and Travis kind of go back and forth with your guitar solos. Do you and Travis have an unspoken understanding of what goes onstage after all these years?
I’ve known Travis since I was a kid. We started playing in a band together, so we kind of created a natural chemistry that we can kind of know when it’s time to lay back and let the other do his thing. It can be something as easy as eye contact. More times than not, it will just happen. A line will kind of resolve in a weird, melodic fashion that we’ll be like, “All right. Now it’s his turn.” It just happens that way. We have a very interesting relationship, Travis and I. We have such different influences – very different influences, very different approaches, which I think is very exciting. It’s not just 2 of me up there or not just 2 of him up there playing something. I approach it in a completely different fashion. The way I strike the guitar is different than him. I think that we complement each other very well.
He just moved up to the woods and got a house 20 minutes from me. He always comes over and we sit down and play together. Sometimes I watch him play and I’m like, “Why are we playing together? You hit that guitar like a barbarian!” Whereas, sometimes I’m a little too quiet. But it really, really works out very well.
Coheed has done an assortment of covers – from Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian” to “I Shall Be Released” from The Band. How does the band usually decide on what’s a go?
In the past, like with “Sister Christian,” I was really the only one who performed that one. And some other stuff, like “Your Love” I think might be another one that is floating around out there. It was always sort of last-minute. With the holidays coming up, it would be something cool to give the fans a cover. So it was last-minute because at the time we lived so far away from each other. We did a cover of “The Trooper,” which was really kind of out of nowhere. We were like, “Okay, well, let’s play it.” We stopped in the middle of “Everything Evil.” I think somebody broke a string or something. All of the sudden, somebody starts playing a line from “The Trooper” and everyone starts playing along! It was like, “Okay, well, that was nice. Let’s do that again.”
“I Shall Be Released” is definitely a different beast. Travis and I sat down and said, “Christmas is coming up. You know, Trav, we should probably do something for the holidays.” We sat down to come up with a cover together and “I Shall Be Released,” it kind of maybe sounds like a Christmas song. The lyrical content really makes a lot of sense of what we’ve gone through. Overall, I think it was a very appropriate song at the time. I just had a great time with it.
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| "We're still constantly making music and I think thatýs great for us." |
Obviously a big event for the band this year was the departure of bassist Michael Todd and drummer Josh Eppard. Do you have a better understanding of why they left?
I think Mike and Josh just kind of lost the love of what we do. They just lost it. I just think they just didn’t want to be a part of it and wanted to go on and do their own thing, which is totally understandable. But as far as me and Travis go, playing with Chris (Pennie) and Matt (Williams) has been very exciting. It almost feels like when we were doing the first record, learning how each other works. It’s just very exciting, very refreshing. I’m really excited for the band. I mean, I wish Mike and Josh the best, but I’m happier now than I have been in a while.
So are Matt and Chris only filling in right now or could they possibly become full-time members?
It’s hard to say. We haven’t given an official word, but they’re working on the record. Matt is playing bass and Chris is doing drums. This time around, I’ll cut tracks on my rig at home and then I’ll send them over the internet to Chris. Then Chris will put drums down. Then I’ll send them off to Matt, and Matt will work on some parts. So even when we’re not together, we’re working. Whereas before, when we weren’t together, we wouldn’t do anything. Everyone was focusing on their own thing. Whereas this time around, yeah, we’re not together, but we’re still working. We’re still constantly making music and I think that’s great for us.
Do you think it will still be feasible with the band change for a new Coheed album to come out by Spring?
Personally, I’m hoping Spring or Summer. It’s hard to say. I mean, there’s enough material there for a record, but we have some time to still write as much as we can.
The Alternative Press called the next Coheed album “the most anticipated of 2007.” What goes through your mind when you hear something like that?
It’s flattering for them to say that, but it’s no added pressure on us. It is what it is. We’re gonna do what we do, so we’ll see!
What else can fans expect from Coheed or Prize Fighter in 2007? Perhaps a tour?
Oh, without a doubt. There’s so much up in the air that we’re kind of looking at, possibly the Warped Tour. There’s a tour called Projekt Revolution that’s a possibility. It’s really hard to say. We’ll see. We’re just taking it kind of one step at a time. Right now, the real focus is getting our record done. But we will tour, without a doubt.
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