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When Coheed met Cambria

A Warped Tour headliner explains the band's otherworldly take on things.

By BRIAN ORLOFF
Published July 29, 2004

Warped schedule PREVIEW: Vans Warped 2004 starts at noon Friday at Vinoy Park, St. Petersburg. $26 advance, $28.75 day of show. (813) 287-8844 or (727) 898-2100. Here are the eight stages and the bands playing on each. The schedule is set on the day of show; bands are listed in random order. Punkadilly circus Loads of happy campers will descend on Vinoy Park in St. Petersburg to free the repressed masses.

Like many bands on the Warped Tour, young upstart Coheed & Cambria sings about politics. But don't expect to hear about the presidential race in the band's moody, prog-rock-influenced epic songs. Instead, this quartet, influenced by science fiction, croons about galaxies far away.

The band just rereleased its sophomore album, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3, signing a deal with Columbia Records and generating enough buzz to rocket the newcomers to headliner slots on this year's Warped Tour.

Calling from a Milwaukee tour stop, bassist Michael Todd gives a Cliff's Notes version of his band's Isaac Asimov-meets-punk rock sound.

Talk about the concept behind your albums. What does Coheed & Cambria mean?

(The album) is pretty much just a story of two characters - Coheed and Cambria - and what befalls them and their children after they die. It has to do with a different space and time - a political struggle in this one solar system and how Coheed and Cambria are directly related to what's going to be the downfall of the entire solar system. But they don't want to be, and they're trying to prevent it.

Are they heroes?

They're wanna-be heroes. There really isn't so much of a protagonist or an antagonist per se because they actually die in the first record (2002's The Second Stage Turbine Blade). And everything else is just what happens because of their death.

Do you do anything to help fans follow the narrative?

Now, there's going to be a comic book series that follows the lyrics of the stories. The music kind of plays as a soundtrack to the underlying concept, the theme of the story. But it's all going to be in print because it's pretty complicated.

Are you planning to continue with the storytelling in your music? Or do you think you'll start writing about more personal subjects?

We've got a couple more albums worth of story and material, so we're going to stick with that. We're not really sure what's going to happen after the story. We have an ending to the story. We just need to get there.

How does the live show work at Warped? Does it reflect the narrative structure?

We don't really focus on the narrative live. It's kind of like a bonus thing. If people are interested in the concept or the story, then they can take the initiative to check out the comic book or look it up online. But aside from that, we just hope people enjoy the band for its music.

[Last modified July 28, 2004, 10:17:13]