The Rise Of Coheed & Cambria

Sat 19th Nov, 2005 in Features

At their Irving Plaza show in New York, Coheed & Cambria plays to a captivated audience at a sold-out concert. But unlike your typical “rock show”, there are no fancy stage sets, no elaborate wardrobe, not even rockstars. Furthermore, their audience appears more like a crowd of college sophomores taking a break from playing Dungeons & Dragons, than a crowd of coolies with tonight’s hottest ticket in town.

Bassist, Michael Todd is passionate about books. He loves the aesthetic quality that old, rare books have, and is an avid antique book collector who boasts a proud, but modest collection, of some first edition Hemmingway, some old chronicles and hardbound periodicals from the sixteenth hundreds. This is by no means a band that follows the latest trends. Although the average age of the band members is only twenty-five, they possess a sophistication that is reflective of a band who is twice their own age. Their latest album, Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV. Vol One: From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness is the fourth instalment in their epic storytelling concept, concocted by the band’s vocalist, Claudio Sanchez. It is a complicated apocalyptic fantasy tale set in a galaxy far, far away about two characters named, Coheed and Cambria. “The concept of the story is the singer and author, Claudio, follows the rise of Coheed and Cambria and what happens after they die.” Explains Todd. “It starts with Coheed and Cambria and how they find out that they have to save the galaxy, then how they were lied to, and their need to go and destroy the ruling government.”

Fortunately for those, like myself, who are not intellectually sophisticated enough to follow the multifaceted plotlines, the band has released a series of graphic novels and comic books to coincide with the albums to help explain the story better.

Their albums can be found in the “heavy metal/punk” section of a record store. But unlike a lot of bands that allege their music is too difficult to define to be placed in a particular genre, Coheed & Cambria are a band who can actually make this claim for real. They have been sited in an array of genres from rock to metal to emo.

Despite their complicated identity, the band doesn’t seem too worried with all the various categories they’ve been considered into. “There’s so many labels out there to define our kind of music. We just kind of call it a rock’n’roll bent.” Todd clarifies, “We definitely are progressive and our album does encompass different kinds of styles of music. Like, we’ll have an eight minute long track. We’ll have a really progressive, really long structure song and we’ll also have a basic pop song. So basically progressive rock is a good way to describe it, but with a sci-fi twist that comes from the concept.”

The band originates from Woodstock, New York, the area steeped in music legend, which seems to have influenced their intricate riffs found in their progressive rock songs and highly evolved signature albums. “Woodstock is one of the places that’s a very strong mecca for musicians and artists.” Todd proudly recalls, “I grew up playing jam bands around town. I grew up playing with Dr. Know and Daryl from the Bad Brains, and Dave Matthews was in Woodstock when I was fifteen.” He continues, “And seeing those dudes just changed my life. Like, when I was a little kid, I was into Alice Cooper and shit. But when I discovered the real cats, like, when I discovered the real old blues-men, I was like, holy shit -so that’s how you fucking play music.”

“Here’s an analogy, think of Neil Peart the drummer from Rush” he begins, “That dude is just all over the case, he’s as fast as fuck. But then take the drummer from Sly and The Family Stone, and that dude can say so much more with just a kick, snare and a hi-hat than Neil Peart can say with a hundred thousand drums. That’s just the vibe. That’s like the real, real ‘bad’ musicians who have a real ‘bad’ feel for it, and they just suck back and have this control.”

The “Woodstock vernacular” is momentarily lost in translation with me, as I realised that when Todd describes Neil Peart’s drumming as “bad”, he actually means, “good”. He continues by adding John Bonham into the analogy, and makes a point about drummers having to be so controlled and succinct when it comes to the recording process – one mistake in a progressive eight minute song, and they have to start re-recording from the very beginning again. Todd believes that, “it is harder to play soft than it is to play fast, because it’s more controlled, but once you can master the technique you become a more dynamic musician.”

“A lot of great tremendous musicians came from there and I think it influenced me because it made me want to be a better musician every single day. Every time I played bad in front of all these people, I wanted to play better and be a better musician. And I had the best teachers in the world in Woodstock.”

He continues, “I was always into being a ‘musician’ as opposed to being, ‘crowd pleasing’. Less about image, and more about just sucking back and playing some rock’n’roll, cause that just moves me the most… When I can’t take my eyes off a musician -now that’s some ‘bad’ shit man.” In fact, Coheed & Cambria were not ‘bad’ -they were actually really good. Having no preconceived notions of what their Irving Plaza show would be like, they turned out to give us a straight-up performance from a group of accomplished musicians. On this occasion, their little emphasis for showmanship highlighted their musical abilities.