Lead singer Claudio Sanchez delves into the origins of his band, their new album, and the alternate reality of life without Coheed and Cambria
Claudio Sanchez is sitting in his home studio in Brooklyn. The floor is a labyrinth of pedals, so densely packed that you can barely make out an inch of floor space. The walls around him are lined with guitars, keyboards, and drums, all staring back like sentinels. This is a man truly encased in his work. And I can tell, he loves it that way.
“They’re for my son,” Sanchez laughs when I ask about the pedals. “My son and Travis [Stever]’s son are starting a band. They’re 10 and 11. This weekend, they’re going to record.”
“What’s their band called?” I ask, intrigued.
“Rock Extraction,” he chuckles. “They sound very punk right now. Travis said they’re ‘The Monsters meets Nirvana,’ and I said, ‘Oh, so the Misfits?’”
There’s always been something distinctly different about Coheed and Cambria. Something that only fully crystallised in my mind a few minutes into our conversation. Coheed and Cambria aren’t just a band; they’re true world-builders. Their music is designed for a narrative. Almost like Star Wars, if George Lucas were also in a band.
Their music is anchored by The Amory Wars, a sprawling sci-fi saga that Sanchez created himself. This narrative forms the backbone of Coheed and Cambria’s albums, comics, and novels. Coheed and Cambria, the names of the two central characters embody the heart of this universe.
Now, when you picture Claudio Sanchez, you imagine a wild mess of hair, flying every which way — a Hagrid-like figure. But today, Sanchez looks almost tame. He could be any other dad in Brooklyn, picking up a loaf of bread from the local bakery. Which of course, Sanchez is. But he also isn’t.
Coheed and Cambria all came about after Sanchez took a trip to Paris in the late 90’s. Having just left his band, Beautiful Loser, he needed an escape. Or a re- set if you like. There he conjured the tale of Coheed and Cambria. These two fictional character living in a fictional galaxy known as Heaven’s Fence. Over time, the story grew in his mind. It eventually took on a life of its own.
Upon his return home, Sanchez joined another band. This one called Shabütie. After this band broke up due to departure of drummer Nate Kelley (who was later replaced by Josh Eppard), Coheed and Cambria (the band) was formed.
But the concept of Coheed and Cambria, Sanchez admits, grew out of something far more personal: a deep insecurity. “The whole reason I came up with the concept of Coheed and Cambria was because I was an insecure frontman,” he confesses from his studio. “I didn’t like all the attention. People asking me what the songs were about.”
In creating the fictional world of Heaven’s Fence, Sanchez crafted a shield. “The songs were about my life, but I didn’t want to share that. It felt too personal. It was about family; about the things I’d experienced as a kid. I didn’t want to villainise anyone, so I created the characters of Coheed and Cambria.”
The band, namely: Sanchez, guitarist Travis Stever, drummer Josh Eppard, and bassist Zach Cooper then became more than just a group of musicians. They became vessels for a story that, over the years, became deeply intertwined with Sanchez’s life.
“The Amory Wars is named after the street I grew up on, Amory Drive,” Sanchez says, his voice softening with nostalgia. “Coheed and Cambria? They play characters based on real people. The Second Stage Turbine Blade? That’s something my dad worked on when I was in high school.”
But with their latest record, Vaxis – Act III: The Father of Make Believe, Sanchez wanted to break from the familiar. He asked himself what his life might look like had Coheed and Cambria never existed. What would that alternate reality look like?
“I’ve wondered what existence would have been like if I hadn’t made that suggestion,” he muses. “And when the story is over, what’s next? The title’s ambiguous. For both me and the character.”
It’s curious. As I speak with Sanchez, I realise the narrative he’s spun for Vaxis mirrors the storyline of a book I’ve been reading, Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library.
“It’s a trilogy of videos,” Sanchez reveals. “The first video shows us playing in front of an energetic crowd. But there’s this figure moving through the audience, cloaked in mystery. In the second video, we learn it’s Blindside Sunny, a guardian angel. He opens portals to alternate lives — lives we could’ve lived if Coheed and Cambria hadn’t existed. And in the third, we enter a white light and become guardian angels.”
Despite creating Coheed and Cambria as a way to shield himself from personal questions, Sanchez now seems more at ease with vulnerability. Particularly when it comes to talking with journalists. When I ask him about the song “Meri of Mercy” from their new album, he was actually fairly candid with his response. More than I had expected.
“I wrote that song in Paris,” he says quietly. “My grandfather passed away during the pandemic. Then my uncle passed too. I romanticised the idea of them being reunited.”
The song’s narrative took on new meaning when his brother, a first responder during the pandemic, shared a vivid memory. “My brother told us that, even though Grandpa was semi-conscious in the hospital, he did this little dance. That’s the image I had when I was writing this song, them reuniting.”
It’s no surprise that songs this intimate can be difficult to perform. Many artists detach from the emotional weight of particular songs to get through it. I ask Sanchez how he manages.
“We’ve just started playing with confidence,” he says. “We did a live version on March 11. There were two moments in it where I got choked up. It happens. But as time passes and I heal, I start to appreciate the song for what it is. I don’t feel so scarred by it anymore.”
As our conversation winds down, I’m left in awe of Sanchez’s boundless creativity. His imagination is an endless fountain of the make believe. One that doesn’t stand to run dry anytime soon. Here he’s built an entire world in his music, and yet, he continues to expand it, crafting worlds well beyond what we can imagine. Who knows, maybe his sons band Rock Extraction will feature on the next album.
Coheed and Cambria’s eleventh studio album The Father of Make Believe was released on March 14 and is available to be streamed here now.
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