Ryan x Claudio from Coheed and Cambria 2021
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00:00It is 93.3 WMMR, everything that rocks. Ryan here inside Studio Z, and through the powers of the ones and zeros of the internet, I'm joined today by a very special guest.
00:10The journey started for him in 1995 in Nyack, New York, and the road for his group has led to a sound and a presence that is uniquely their own.
00:20Their latest musical offering coming from their upcoming 10th studio record, it's a song entitled Shoulders, which you've heard right here on MMR.
00:27Their name is Coheed and Cambry, and I have the distinct pleasure of welcoming their frontman, Claudio Sanchez, for a conversation today.
00:34Claudio, thank you so much for the time, my friend.
00:37Awesome. Thank you, Ryan, for having us.
00:38My pleasure. I want to dive right into the new track, Shoulders, because it is a bombastic number.
00:44Can you give a nutshell description of the song?
00:46Yeah, I mean, you know, when I wrote the song, I was thinking about the 20 years the band has been around and just, you know, realizing that, you know, the thing that we love to do isn't really for everyone, but that shouldn't let us feel, you know, shouldn't let us fight for it any less.
01:03So, it's really about that, just kind of perseverance and that idea, so.
01:09Nice. And I know that there is a proper music video, there is a proper lyric video.
01:13I will say my favorite one so far is your wife, Chandra, on her Instagram has a video of your son, Atlas, singing along to every single word.
01:21As a dad, it's always nice to have your kids liking your music, so that was a cool thing to say.
01:25Oh, yeah, I love it.
01:26I love when he asks me to do, like, either anything like that, whether it's a Coheed song or a song that's just, you know, like a karaoke sort of version.
01:35I mean, we do everything in here, you know, all the songwriting for the band I do in here.
01:39And, you know, there's not a day when I'm doing that that I don't get met with my son and have to be around the train.
01:47The fact that you can share that with your son is so amazing, too.
01:51Obviously, the single is going to lead us to the larger body of work, which will be the upcoming record.
01:55Is it safe to say we can call this Vax's Act 2 yet or?
02:00Yeah, definitely safe to say that everything else is sort of still under wraps.
02:05But yes, this will be the second part of that story.
02:09For the uninitiated, a vast majority of Coheed's work centers around this story called The Amory Wars.
02:15Excuse me.
02:16And I mean, it's this overarching thing that's taken so many of your records.
02:20It's such a fun thing.
02:21And each record having a companion piece with a comic book written by yours truly.
02:27Being that it's so character and narrative driven, is there a character new or old that are really kind of exciting to you right now?
02:35Is there anything that jumps out?
02:36I think for me, at the moment, you know, when I think of the characters, I think of, you know, in the original five stories of Coheed and Cambria, The Crowing was one that was exciting to me because it very much reflected myself in my like sort of adolescence and sort of confusing points of my life.
02:57And in the new story, I think of Nostrand and Nostrand is the father of this character Vaxxas that's coming.
03:04And, you know, me being a dad now, I definitely see reflections of myself in him.
03:09But I think if I were to draw from someone that isn't, I don't really see myself in, I think in the new story, I'm really enjoying the Trough Finder brothers who are actually the cover of Shoulders.
03:21They're these two conjoined brothers, not by birth, but by accident.
03:25And I'm just, I'm loving the dynamic between the two of them, Siv and Gob.
03:31Excellent.
03:31And, you know, with such a vast universe that you guys have created, there has to be somebody, especially with modern, you know, streaming companies.
03:39There's got to be somebody that wants to do some adaptation of this.
03:43Is that something that you'd want?
03:45Like, could you see like a television series, a feature film?
03:48Is that something you'd like to see happen with this work?
03:51Absolutely.
03:52You know, at one point we were affiliated with Mark Wahlberg's company, Leverage Entertainment.
03:59And nothing really happened there.
04:01And there was talks about like some sort of animation and things like that.
04:06But, you know, it has to be right.
04:08I mean, this is a huge body of work.
04:10And if we go out of the gate tripping and falling, like, you know, the rest of it doesn't get a chance.
04:15And I mean, we're talking about 10, like you said, 10 albums.
04:20It's pretty much 10 stories.
04:22You know, this is a saga.
04:24So we really need like somebody to be very delicate with it.
04:27So I'm very precious with it.
04:29So when going into these meetings, it's hard for me to say yes.
04:33But maybe there's someone out there.
04:34I think it's going to be, honestly, I think it's going to be a fan of the band that will make it happen.
04:40Just out of curiosity, did you get to sit in a room with Mark Wahlberg and play him Coheed songs?
04:44I did not.
04:47That would have been that would have been interesting.
04:49But you know what?
04:49I think you're right, because obviously you have enough fan base to do this.
04:53And the place that I fell in love with the fan base is going to see you guys live in concert.
04:59I will never forget this.
05:00One of my best friends, Cody, and his brother, Justin, who got me into your music to begin with.
05:05You know, we go to a lot of concerts and we were going to get tickets for one of the Neverender tours.
05:10And they said, you have to see Coheed.
05:12You have to see them.
05:12I'm like, oh, OK, we're going to go.
05:13Like, no, no, you don't understand.
05:15You have to see them.
05:16It's and I'm like, OK, we're going to go.
05:18Like, I understand.
05:19And I really understood when I saw you guys live.
05:22I mean, everybody's singing every single word.
05:24It's just you feel just it's family at a Coheed show.
05:27Luckily, we're getting back to live music.
05:29You guys are about to hit the road for a co-headline tour with The Used, making a pit stop at Hamdell, New Jersey's PNC Bank Center on September the 19th.
05:38I can just see the smile on your face.
05:39I know you're ready.
05:41You are ready to get back to live music.
05:43Yeah, you know, I was unsure at first, you know, because I just at nature, I'm like, I'm very much a homebody.
05:50I got a lot done through the pandemic, through lockdown.
05:53But, you know, we just started rehearsals.
05:57Well, we just finished rehearsals and we did 10 days and, you know, it just there's an energy.
06:04I'm like, I think that stage, the first stage anyway, is in trouble because, you know, just in the in rehearsals, it's like pounding away.
06:11And we're not, you know, it's just there's something that that's undeniable.
06:16And it made me realize how excited I actually am.
06:19Well, everybody else especially is.
06:21And it's it's going to be so great.
06:23Any surprises in store for the show?
06:26Because every time I see you, it's always such a revolving set list.
06:29So I don't I don't know.
06:30I think, you know, definitely we'll we'll be playing shoulders for sure.
06:34There'll be some songs that, you know, we haven't played in a minute, but we'll see.
06:39You know, I guess it really all depends on on the perspective of somebody watching.
06:44You know, what feels like a surprise, I guess.
06:46But we'll see.
06:47Just just be there.
06:48That's all that matters.
06:49Just physically being there.
06:50You did mention about a lot of things that you accomplished during, you know, everything locked down.
06:54One of the recent ones I want to get to, because, you know, you're treading into the Renaissance man territory.
06:59So we're doing all the music.
07:01We have all the comics.
07:02And now we have Coffee Master to add to that.
07:05So Coheed Roasters, three blends to choose from.
07:08You have the Beast, the Knowledge and now the Inferno.
07:11Safe to say you're an avid coffee fan.
07:13Yes, absolutely.
07:14I spent most of my mornings, well, before we actually started making coffee, but going to our local spot and getting my wife and I a cup to kind of start our day.
07:24So when the idea was brought up to us, you know, I fully embraced it and really got into the idea of like curating the profiles of the coffee after the certain characters and things like that.
07:35And yeah, it was actually a lot of fun, you know.
07:37Do you have a favorite of the three?
07:38I think it's Beast.
07:39Beast is definitely the one that I curated to my liking.
07:43You know, it's definitely more of a bolder flavor.
07:46It's got more of a kick to it.
07:49You know, that's the one that I concentrated on the most.
07:53Knowledge, I wanted to back off a bit.
07:56You know, something that you might have in like the afternoon, say.
07:59And then Inferno is really kind of like this single bean like origin, sort of playing off the idea that Inferno is the the the clone of the creator of all three of them.
08:09So so, yeah, that was it was fun.
08:12Well, it's it's certainly fun to drink.
08:14I do have a bag of the beast and it is because I really love the dark roast stuff.
08:18So I agree with you there.
08:19Just a couple more questions, Claudio.
08:21One of the other things done in lockdown.
08:23I have two more things that we kind of want to bring up during that.
08:25But finally finding, you know, you know, this big Coheed family that we talk about and one in particular that comes out of nowhere is Rick Springfield of all people and just coming out with this Jessie's Girl sequel.
08:39I mean, do you still have the idea of potentially doing a sequels record or I mean, is that something that's kind of on the side with with that or?
08:47Yeah, I mean, it's it's definitely something we fool around with every once in a while, like in a conversation.
08:52Maybe Travis and I are having about, oh, well, we could do this song or we could do that.
08:57But we'll see. I mean, right now, I think the idea is to try to complete the Vaxis pentology.
09:03And then and and then, you know, maybe get into some more like, you know, wacky things like like that.
09:11But but who knows? I mean, you know, we realized how easy that was to sort of put together and, you know, maybe going forward, you know, maybe we'll do one offs like that to continue that that that vibe.
09:22Has Rick heard Vaxis too yet? He has not. No, no.
09:26I thought it'd be fun to share with friends. One one quick note, not necessarily a question.
09:33I just want to do commend you guys for this, because when this came out, when everything started to lock down and everything started to kind of close up for live music, you guys did something that, you know, you were one of the first bands that I saw do this.
09:45And I just want to give you an insane amount of props.
09:47You guys came out with this T-shirt to support your crew and everybody touring in live music.
09:52And you guys put this out and basically said, you know, all the proceeds are going to go support the families of, you know, all of our crew members.
09:58So not necessarily a question. I just wanted to say, you know, kudos to you guys for doing such a great thing.
10:03Oh, cool. Thank you, Ryan.
10:05That's it. Seriously, road crew are the hardest working people in the live music industry and hit so hard.
10:11So good on you. And thank you for that.
10:13Actually, just one last question for you. And I'm kind of interested your artistic approach on this.
10:18What I find fascinating is as an artist, you create a thing and let's just use a song for this example.
10:27You know, it's created in a certain time and under certain constraints.
10:30And then, you know, it doesn't stay in that bubble.
10:33It kind of evolves. It grows. It takes on new meaning for a multitude of reasons.
10:39And sometimes that has an artist influence on that.
10:43You know, the example I think of is a song that you guys wrote called Two's My Favorite One.
10:46And on the recorded version, it's, you know, the end of this double album, The Afterman.
10:52And it is a ballad, but it has so much weight to it.
10:56Like it is a finale of finales.
10:59And I love that.
11:00There's also a version that you do and it's done with you and your wife, Chandra.
11:05Just you two singing, an acoustic guitar.
11:08And it's probably one of my favorite pieces of music.
11:11Oh, wow.
11:12And it just takes such...
11:14I can't...
11:15It's hard to explain with words.
11:16It's all about explaining and emotions.
11:18And it got me thinking, as an artist, do you ever feel like you could take something like that and go,
11:25maybe I can improve on it.
11:26Maybe I can do a different thing.
11:28Maybe I could change something.
11:30Or are there some things where you're like, you know what?
11:32No, I like what we did with this.
11:34I'm really proud of it.
11:35And if it grows, that's what it is.
11:38You know, I think the one thing in particular would probably be the band's first record.
11:44Just because, you know, when we did that, it was in a bedroom out in New Jersey.
11:49You know, it was just like a little home studio.
11:52We were actually putting that record together as a series of demos to try to get a deal with
11:57the label that signed us at the time, Equal Vision.
12:00But when we were finished with it, you know, the label thought, well, this is it.
12:04This is great.
12:05We can put this out.
12:06And so part of me, in a way, would love to see us re-approach that album 20 years later.
12:12But we'll see.
12:13I mean, you know, not to beat that record in any way, because it certainly has a sense
12:17of charm and identity because of how we did it.
12:21But just to see how we would approach it, you know, 20 years after.
12:26So that would probably be the only thing, I think.
12:29Everything else, I feel pretty good about.
12:33As you should.
12:34I mean, I'm really you guys, what you have done with the road so far, you've garnered
12:39every piece of success that you have.
12:41And it's so exciting from, you know, a fan standpoint, from everybody's standpoint to
12:45see you guys continuously grow.
12:46So once again, thank you, Claudio Sanchez of Coheed in Cambria.
12:51New single is out now, Shoulders.
12:52You can hear it right here on MMR.
12:54The tour with the U's taking place September the 19th at the PNC Bank Center in Holmdel,
13:00New Jersey.
13:01Claudio, thank you so much for the time, man.
13:02Really means the world.
13:03Thank you, Ryan.
13:04Thank you again for having us.
13:05My pleasure.