Coheed And Cambria interview (Claudio Sanchez)

Interview by Davide Sciaky

Puoi leggere l’intervista in italiano qui.

Hello Claudio and welcome to TrueMetal.it.
You are about to release “Vaxis – Act III: The Father of Make Believe” and the first thing I want to ask you is this: you already told stories that span through two albums, two acts, in the past, but this is the first time that you reach “Act 3”. Was it the plan since the beginning, or did you end up with just so much material that you kept going?

When I first initially created this idea [The Amory Wars] 20-odd years ago, I only though it was gonna be three parts, I never thought it was gonna be as big as it is now. I didn’t imagine it to be so long, but I am very grateful it ended up this way.

Can you tell me a bit more about the lyrics and the story that you tell in this album?

Yeah, of course. When I finished writing “Vaxis – Act II: A Window of the Waking Mind“ and we put that record out, I was super proud of that album. I was so proud of the record that I had a hard time envisioning what a follow up would look like. So, I just kept writing music, just in hope of finding a thread and it wasn’t until my uncle had passed away that it put into light the idea of what life would be like had I passed away, or what that would look like if my wife did. And I started to spawn a bunch of questions, the whats and ifs of this midlife. You know, I just started spawning all those questions that come with this time in my life. And I realized that that was sort of becoming the focus of the record. So that’s really what kind of defined the vibe of the record. It’s loss, mortality, identity, who am I now? Like, what would life have been like if I never suggested the concept and how would Coheed and Cambria have been perceived? That’s really kind of the big theme of the record and almost, what am I going to do when the concept is over? What’s going to happen when all is said and done? You know, will Coheed and Cambria metamorphosize into something else? Or is this sort of the end of the band that’s coming in the next two records? I think pretty much the big picture of the album is just the questions one asks themselves in their midlife.

This album is musically all over the place in a good sense, jumping from one style to the next effortlessly. I think it’s beautiful, you never know what’s going to happen next. Is there any limit to where you’d take the band? Does it ever happen that you write a riff and feel like, okay, this doesn’t feel like a Coheed and Cambria?

I think nothing is off limits, right? When I started creating music as a kid, I never wanted to be defined by a genre, I wanted to define the genre of the music that I wanted to play. I just wanted to play everything. I mean, I wanted to have a wide palette of tools to create. So, for me, listening to this record it does feel like it’s the kind of thing where you would expect the unexpected. I think when we released the three singles, Blind Side Sonny, Searching for Tomorrow, and Someone Who Can, they’re so different that it was like really giving the audience this idea of, this record can really go in any direction, it’s going to be that kind of experience. And I think a lot of that just has to do with the versatility of the band and the open-mindedness of the band when it comes to creating.

You mentioned Searching for Tomorrow, you had an animated video, which is not the first time you jump into this sort of media, but I felt like this one was more complex and elaborate to me than other similar videos you did in the past. How was it like to work on this and what was the extent of your involvement with the artist who created this video?

Oh, I was involved from the beginning. Just so you know, Someone Who Can is a part of a trilogy of videos. So, Blindside Sonny, Searching for Tomorrow, and Someone Who Can are all part of an overall narrative where the character of Blind Side Sonny gets introduced in a very different way than he is in the story. He almost acts more as a guardian angel and he sort of shows us, through the video of Searching for Tomorrow, the potential realities that Coheed and Cambria could have had if the band didn’t exist. And, when that video ends, we get into Someone Who Can, where we see younger versions of ourselves. And we as the older version are basically now in the role of the guardian angel, helping the younger version of us overcome the obstacles that are put before them. And Blind Side, the character still manifests just like he had in the previous two, but in a different way, like the relics that are kind of hidden about the video, like the air freshener in the van or the little figurine at the soundboard. The character is still very present. But yeah, I had a big hand in writing the treatments and trying to figure out creative ways to get the videos to sort of connect, casting some of the actors and I’m always sort of involved when it comes to making videos to some degree. I’m always there. I’m always on set. I find that to be a lot of fun.

Of course, the story is in the world of the Amory Wars, which has been the context of pretty much most of your albums. And when I see an animated video, of course, that feels like the natural progression from comics. I was wondering if you ever thought of making more animated videos besides the music, continuing the stories in their own way, like an animated series or something like that.

Oh, absolutely. And we’ve been talking with showrunners in LA all the time, about potentially bringing it to some sort of feature. You know, there’s always some sort of hurdle that you have to kind of navigate, whether it’s the writer’s strike or the actors are striking or this, that, or the other thing. But, yeah, we do. And it requires a heavy amount of educating, like letting people know the desire that our fan base has for a property like this in a medium like that. It’s definitely something that we think about, we’re working towards, it is a part of the mission for sure.

And, and talking about that, I know that a bit more than 10 years ago, Mark Wahlberg announced that he would produce an adaptation, but eventually that didn’t work out. Is there any talk about any other kind of adaptation, like concretely happening right now, or is still in the dream phase?

Yeah, it’s still a dream, again, we’ve partnered with a showrunner and we’ve done some pitches with some production companies, but things are kind of on hold at the moment. We’re just kind of in a waiting process to start the pitching again. It’s definitely in the dream state, but more so that we’re trying to put the pieces together to make it actually happen.

As we mentioned you’ve been working as a comic author for almost as long as you’ve been a musician. I was wondering, do you think of yourself more as a musician, as an author, or both things are pretty much on the same level to you?

I definitely think of myself as a songwriter first, because that’s where all of this stuff sort of stemmed from: just writing songs, kind of creating songs about myself and finding ways to make my insecurities the focal point of the concept. And so I really think of myself as a songwriter first, but I have been writing comics for some time and creating even comics outside of the Amory Wars. So, to a degree, I do create, I think of myself as a creative person, and I feel comfortable creating. So, I’d probably say a songwriter first and a creative person just in general.

Nowadays comics have jumped into the mainstream much more than maybe 20 years ago and it’s not rare that people who are known for their work in comics jump into other forms of media working in cinema and television. Is this something that appeals to you, and have you ever thought of trying to move into that direction?

Oh yeah, a little bit. Look, I’m so close to the Amory Wars and I feel like we put so much love and attention into making the Amory Wars and building the fan base that we have, I’d love to just see that come alive. I mean, if the right person came along and said, “Hey, I want you to write for this, or help create concepts for that”. I mean, I would be totally open to that. Absolutely. There are properties that I fool around with all the time. Like my wife and I joke about the potentials of writing for things that we aren’t a part of. And ideas that we might have for those things. And I’m all for it. If the right thing came my way that I had a love and attention for, then I absolutely would. But if it was just something random that was like, “Hey, we think you’re right for this”, and my heart wasn’t in it, then I’d probably consider not doing it. But I wouldn’t completely say no. I would educate myself first and wonder if it’s something I could get into and put my heart behind. But I’d be open to it, I guess, is the short answer.

One of the hot topics of these days is AI and, working with both comics and music, you are twice as exposed to the dangers, so to say, of this technology. I think a lot of people already have talked about the dangers of AI, but I was wondering on the other hand, if you have looked into it and if you maybe have seen any positives in this technology.

You know, I feel like AI in art is something way deeper than just the sort of fast track of creativity. I think the idea of teaching AI to be creative is something much larger than we are anticipating. And I think it has a lot to do with human evolution. I think in teaching and in teaching an artificial intelligence the tools of creativity, we’re teaching the concepts of free will and the option to sort of live. And, in a way, I think that is to marriage ourselves to it, to allow our lives to be elongated. Does that make any sense? If you can get artificial intelligence, the thing for itself, and then you yourself with a decaying body or allow yourself to put your consciousness in that, then it’s almost like getting a chance to live forever. I feel like that’s where we’re at in the stage of teaching AI creativity. To me, I find that when we even contract artists to work on things, sometimes they dabble in AI. And it’s unbeknownst to us, until we finally see the final product or a fan tells us, “Hey, there’s something in there that doesn’t look right”. I feel like it’s just something that’s here and it’s hard to avoid. It’s almost like the similarities between how photography may have been perceived when that was beginning to become an art form. It might be a little different because you’re basically just prompting something with language to generate these images or music or whatever have you. I don’t necessarily love that, but at the same time, it’s really hard to avoid. And it’s here and I really think it’s for a bigger picture, which is human evolution. I know that’s hard to digest now in this phase of it, but I think it’s here for something else. So, do I use it right now? No. Because I’m afraid to put the stuff I’ve created in there. I’m sure that somebody I don’t know is putting in Amory Wars as like a prompt to create characters of their own. But I think it’s just here. Am I afraid of it? There’s degrees of yes and there are degrees of no.

I only have one final question, which is a bit off topic from music, but I read that you’re of Italian descent. I was wondering if you still have any family over here and if you had any chance to visit our country, beside when touring.

I don’t know [about my family]. My wife, actually, she took a writing retreat to Italy, I forget where she went. But I don’t know. My mother is Italian, but as far as I know, I’m not entirely sure if there’s any family still there. I mean, I’m sure there is, but like maybe unbeknownst to her. I do desire to come here more often, both just to Europe in general, because there’s so much inspiration I draw from it. I mean, certainly being in the city of Paris [right now], I’ve been here several times. I’ve written songs here. The concept was born here in 1998. I find pleasure in traveling, the older I get, which is strange because when I was younger, it wasn’t something I ever aspired to do. But if I do have family in Italy, I’d love to find out because it’s interesting when I discover the secrets of my past. Where have I come from? So, it’d be interesting if there was any relatives still there for sure.