Narrative Pop | Claudio Sanchez and crew look like they’ve just walked out of their own fantasy novel.
Coheed AND Cambria
w/ Baroness, Pride Tiger. May 23 (8pm). Edmonton Event Centre (WEM). Tickets: $31.50, available through Ticketmaster (451-8000/ticketmaster.ca)
While their musical contemporaries have been out hunting in the wilds of new media, progressive New York outfit Coheed and Cambria have been hard at work publishing, of all things, comics.
Since the release of their 2005 debut album The Second Stage Turbine Blade, frontman Claudio Sanchez and his bandmates have been steadily constructing an epic mythological narrative, set in a postapocalyptic future, collectively titled The Amory Wars, with each album serving as a chapter in one young man’s quest for humanity’s salvation. Eventually, the story was adapted into a bestselling series of comic books: so far, Image Comics and Sanchez’ company Evil Ink have published five issues in the series and a graphic novel compiling the saga.
“In this day and age, there’s not really that much expected from the listener,” says C&C drummer Chris Pennie over the phone from New Jersey. “I think that’s one of the things that separates our music from other stuff out there—there’s a whole package.”
Pennie, one of the founding members of iconic mathcore destructors Dillinger Escape Plan and an occasional collaborator with Idiot Pilot, admits the strictures of today’s mp3 culture get a little frustrating. “I think nowadays, since everything is going digital, it sucks not to have something very tangible to hold onto,” he says. “People don’t seem to care about it very much, but personally, I like having the CD, the artwork, and the pictures. There is going to have to be a way for the industry, wherever it is going, to be able to get more dimensions of music to people.... The great thing about [The Amory Wars storyline] is that if you want to get a little more from the experience of hearing our records or seeing us live, you can. There are other mediums through which you can keep up with the storyline. Claudio has been working on all sorts of things. I’m sure he’ll take the comics even further into other mediums in the future.”
Of course, this approach may not be right for everybody. “I don’t think every band needs to do this,” Pennie says. “Everybody has DVDs and that sort of thing. This happens to be a different medium altogether. It’s awesome and it works. But I don’t think that it works for every band. Certain people just have a political agenda, and just use the band as a medium to convey their ideas. It’s different for everyone.”
