Coheed and Cambria, from left: guitarist Travis Stever, drummer Josh Eppard, guitarist and singer Claudio Sanchez, and bassist Zach Cooper.
For 25 years, Coheed and Cambria has been forging a musical path that tears at the very fabric of categorization as they’ve built a mythological universe based on a series of science-fiction comic books called The Amory Wars, created by Sanchez and Chondra Echert, and published by Evil Ink Comics. The multifaceted lyrical arc of their albums that follows the comics is quite possibly the longest-running concept story in music history, with each studio album detailing a chapter in the saga. Along with their genre-hopping approach to songwriting, The Amory Wars throughline has allowed Coheed and Cambria to carve out a unique niche for themselves by being hard to pigeonhole stylistically and brazenly fantastical lyrically.
SoundStream
Formed in Nyack, New York, in the early 2000s by Sanchez, lead guitarist Travis Stever, and drummer Josh Eppard, Coheed and Cambria also includes current bassist Zach Cooper. The band first gained attention with their debut album, The Second Stage Turbine Blade (2002), which introduced The Amory Wars storyline. Their sophomore album, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 (2003), established their presence as a progressive rock act, combining elements of pop, heavy metal, post-hardcore, and emo, and reached No. 52 on the Billboard 200. With the exception of 2015’s The Color Before the Sun, all of Coheed and Cambria’s subsequent albums draw on The Amory Wars narrative. Their newest is the third part of a series that was introduced with Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures (2018), and Act II featured “Shoulders,” the first song in their career to reach the top 10 on Active Rock radio charts.
Claudio Sanchez (with drummer Josh Eppard behind) and his Evil Instruments Jackhammer, which is manufactured by Dunable for the guitarist’s own brand.
Photo by Stuart Garneys
Musically,The Father of Make Believe fits neatly into the band’s existing sonic milieu, with yowling guitars, drums that beat like cannon waves, and Sanchez’s ethereal, high-pitched, and powerful voice centering conceptual moments both tranquil and turbulent. Where the album pioneers new territory is in how Sanchez reorients the lyrics and assumes the role of the main antagonist—he literally casts himself as the Father of Make Believe, questioning the efficacy of the fictional world he’s constructed with The Amory Wars. Besides lead-off single “Blind Side Sonny”—arguably their most aggressive track to date—and “Meri of Merci,” which were written in Paris, all of the songs on The Father of Make Believe were written in Sanchez’s home studio in Brooklyn, New York. Eppard’s drums were cut in Woodstock, New York, Cooper tracked bass in Florida, and Sanchez and Stever put their guitar parts together in Brooklyn. Sanchez mixed the record in LA with producer/engineer Zakk Cervini, who also produced/mixed A Window of the Waking Mind.
“As I get older, I’m recognizing how it feels good to be a little more transparent.”
One thing that sets The Father of Make Believe apart from the band’s past records is that Sanchez is writing more transparently about his own life and its influence on the narrative. As a result, he’s recently reflected on whether or not The Amory Wars storyline is an obstacle to reaching a broader audience. “I feel like there’s this limitation when people see this big grandiose concept tied to these records,” he admits. “I’m really curious about how this band would be perceived if the concept had not been a diversion. As cool as The Second Stage Turbine Blade sounds, it’s just a part my dad worked on in a factory when I was growing up, and the dragonfly [Turbine album cover artwork] resembles a syringe because my dad was a recovering addict. These are topics I wasn’t ready to talk about at 22 years old, so it was very easy for me to construct this narrative that I could use as a diversion. But as I get older, I’m recognizing how it feels good to be a little more transparent.”
Vaxis – Act III: The Father of Make Believeis the third part of a series the band started back in 2018 with Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures.
Such realizations presented a challenge when it came to visualizing a follow up to A Window of the Waking Mind. And while Sanchez’s own desire to be more transparent, and the success of that album, presented distinct hurdles, recent personal losses and the deeply introspective questions that arose from grieving lost loved ones really affected his creative process. “My uncle passed away and his wife was widowed,” he says. “It reminded me of my grandfather’s situation when his wife passed away and he ended up living 35 to 40 years of his life without my grandmother. It just got me thinking about what life would look like if I passed away.” Faced with his own mortality, Sanchez couldn’t help interrogating Coheed and Cambria’s achievements thus far. “As death becomes very real, I started questioning where I’m at in my life and asking, ‘Is Coheed entirely how I envisioned it?’”
“Everything is a tool.”
Sanchez relies on a Mac/Pro Tools setup for recording in a Brooklyn home studio that also features a lot of outboard gear, including preamps, compressors, and combo amps. “If I’m trying to drive an actual amp, my main one is the Peavey Special 130,” he explains. “For clean tones, I have a Dual Reverb and a Blues Junior [both Fender], as well as a vintage Ampeg J-12 Jet.” He also employs stereo reel-to-reel and cassette four-track tape machines to help him break-up his signature crunchy rhythm sounds.
All that outboard gear doesn’t necessarily mean Sanchez is a purist when it comes to guitar tone. What listeners hear on Coheed and Cambria records is ultimately a hybrid of analog and digital. “I do use plugins here and there,” he admits. “We’re usually going direct with plugins so that when we go to LA for mixing, we can re-amp. There’s some cool dimension that comes out of the immediacy of the plugins mixed with the air from these amplifiers.” Recently, he’s even started incorporating Universal Audio UAFX guitar pedals into his signal chain. His reasoning for combining digital and analog resources to achieve the desired tone results is quite simple and based on some insight from a friend. “Somebody told me years ago, ‘If Jimi Hendrix was around right now, do you think he wouldn’t use all this stuff, being as creative as he was?’ There’s some wisdom in that. Everything is a tool.”
Claudio Sanchez's Gear
A pair of Gibsons for Coheed. Sanchez sports his white EDS-1275, while guitarist Travis Stever opts for a black Les Paul.
Photo by Stuart Garneys
Guitars
- Evil Instruments Jackhammer
- 1980 Gibson E2 Explorer
- Gibson EDS-1275 Doubleneck
- 1963 Gibson LP Custom SG
- Gibson Flying V Custom
- Gibson Baritone Explorer
- Gibson SG Special
- Gibson Explorer ’76 Reissue
- Gibson J-45 acoustic
- Taylor 512e Acoustic
Amps and Effects
- Fractal Audio Systems Axe-Fx III
- Fractal Audio FC-12 Mark II
- Mission Engineering Expression (pedals)
- Matrix GT-1000FX
- Shure Axient Digital wireless system
- Radial JX-42
- Mesa Boogie Road King 4x12
Strings and Picks
- Ernie Ball Slinky RPS (.010–.046)
- Dunlop Tortex .73 mm
Sanchez’s main “tool” is a signature model Jackhammer guitar he designed on his iPhone; it’s currently manufactured by Dunable under his own Evil Instruments brand. “I was on a plane to see my in-laws in Florida and started collaging the body type on my phone,” he recalls. “I went to Kevin Allen, my tech for many years who is also a luthier, and asked him, ‘Can we mimic the scale profile using my E2 [Explorer II] and make one just to see if this is worth exploring?” Allen built a working prototype that Sanchez took on the road, affirming his concepts. “I was like, ‘We can make this happen. Let’s find somebody who’s got the infrastructure to do it.’” They met with Dunable in California and proposed the idea to them—the rest is history. “I wanted to make sure it was something that I would play. I didn’t want it to just be something to put my name on. I want to play it.” The imports come stock with Alnico 5 humbuckers, and the American custom models feature the Bareknuckle pickups that Sanchez typically installs. While the body looks like a cross between an Explorer and a Flying V, the headstock is similar to a traditional three-and-three SG headstock.
Sanchez applies the same intuitive design acumen to his songcraft and says he basically has the identity of each song complete from his home studio, except for the drums. “I don’t play drums like Josh does,” he chuckles. “I’m also not trying to exclude their identities from the final pieces, so even though I might have some idea about where a rhythm sits, I’ll pass it around and get everyone’s feedback.” The most delicate balancing act is trying to find a middle ground between the guitars and the vocals. “That’s one of the big reasons why Trav comes in here [his home studio],” he explains. “So we can make sure we’re not stepping on the vocal too much, which is one of the hard parts about what Travis does. His frequency range is right where the vocal sits. We try to find a place where his identity can be expressed but also doesn’t take attention from away from what’s being sung because that guides the experience of the listener.”
“I wanted to make sure it was something that I would play. I didn’t want it to just be something to put my name on.”
Vocal and guitar interplay is clearly Sanchez’s wheelhouse. Though he was a guitar player at first, he considers himself more of a songwriter than perhaps anything else. “When I became a singer, I stopped learning how to play guitar and learned instead how to write songs,” he explains. “In high school, my dad got me a cassette four-track, and that changed my world, even more so than the guitar, because I started thinking about melodies and song structures and trying to create things.” In his first band, before he was a singer, he learned to play by writing songs, mostly eschewing covers (exceptions were made for “Blister in the Sun” by Violent Femmes and “She” by the Misfits). As far as influences go, he listens to just about everything, including classic rock, hair metal, death and thrash metal, grunge, and pop music. “When I write music, I never want to limit myself,” he confesses. “I never want a genre to dictate what my creative output is going to be. It’s just more colors for the palette.”
That kind of stylistic non-conformity is a hallmark of Coheed’s brand, but it can be equal parts blessing and curse according to Sanchez. “I imagine it’s a little perplexing to go through one of our records,” he admits. “But being a unique entity has a lot to do with the longevity of the band, and it’s afforded us really interesting tours, from Slipknot and Linkin Park to Primus and Incubus.” The musical ambidexterity that makes Coheed and Cambria unique among their peers probably also works to their advantage in the digital age of streaming and curated playlists. “Streaming is much different than when you had to take a chance on a record,” he says. “Right now, you can try as much music as you want with a subscription, which works in our favor because there’s versatility in Coheed that mimics the idea of a diverse playlist, not because we’re thinking that way. It just feels like it’s moved in our direction, and people are willing to explore more.”
YouTube It
Sanchez works the doubleneck last summer during “Welcome Home,” from Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness.
![Rig Rundown: Coheed and Cambria [2022]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/rig-rundown-coheed-and-cambria-2022.jpg?id=30506405&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
It’s common for prog bands to create a fictitious narrative for their concept albums. Often, the lyrics tell a linear story, while the adventurous, experimental, and elevated musicianship provides emotional support and dynamism to the album’s arc. Some ambitious wordsmiths may even spread their yarn over two albums or releases, but Coheed and Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez has penned an entire science fiction tale called The Amory Wars that has been transcribed in comic books and graphic novels published by Evil Ink Comics. All but one of the band’s 10 albums, including the brand-new Vaxis–Act II: A Window of the Waking Mind swim in his solar system called Heaven’s Fence—a collection of 78 planets and seven stars wholly envisioned by Sanchez. (The Color Before the Sun, from 2015, is the lone release not centered in The Amory Wars universe.)
Crafting a daring soundtrack for these narratives requires an equally bold group of musicians. Through two decades, this fearless foursome have incorporated prog orchestrations, synth flourishes, pop-punk hooks, menacing metalcore, hardcore aggression, and electronica ballads—and yet it’s always felt like Coheed. No matter the direction they turn or how their colors and hues shift, it’s unmistakable. Having no genre allows for all genres.
It’s worth noting the band’s name is lifted from two main characters in The Amory Wars. Their original name in the late ’90s was Shabütie, and that trio (consisting of guitarist/vocalist Sanchez, bassist Michael Todd, and drummer Nate Kelley) released three EPs before rebranding for Coheed’s 2002 debut, The Second Stage Turbine Blade, released on Equal Vision Records. That first Coheed lineup included the Shabütie carryovers of Sanchez and Todd, and welcomed guitarist Travis Stever and drummer Josh Eppard. (The earliest incarnations of Shabütie included Stever, too.) The band’s current lineup has been solid since 2012, when bassist Zach Cooper joined.
Coheed’s headlining 2022 run is a dual celebration. They’re honoring the 20th anniversary of their debut and the just-released Vaxis–Act II: A Window of the Waking Mind. Before their July 23 show at Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium, PG’s Chris Kies hosted conversations that covered upgrading Gibsons, overhauling an entire bass rig during shutdown, and how a stolen Big Muff eventually led to a signature sound and pedal.
Brought to you by D'Addario XPND Pedalboard.
A Golden Accident
In a recent Big 5 video for PG, Coheed and Cambria’s Travis Stever held up this Gibson Les Paul Standard goldtop as his favorite guitar, even though this was a free throw-in from Gibson for a custom order we’ll see in the next slide. He favors this Les Paul to the rest of his Gibsons because it’s heavy in sound and stature. “It gives me something to grab onto,” comments Stever.
He’s since upgraded it with a set of Gibson ’57 Classic Plus pickups and a Bigsby vibrato. (All of Travis’ axes have either ’57 Classic or ’57 Classic Plus humbuckers except for one Gibson we’ll meet in a minute.) He uses Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottoms (.010–.052) on all his electrics and hammers away with custom Dunlop Tortex picks.
The World in My Hands
“Growing up, a friend of ours’ father had a ‘Black Beauty’ Gibson Les Paul, and I remember whenever I picked that guitar up, I felt I had the world in my hands, so I always wanted one,” summarizes Stever. When the opportunity to order a Les Paul Custom introduced itself, Stever decided to make it extra special by requesting the body have the“Keywork” engraved on its top. The “Keywork” is the band’s defacto logo that symbolizes the energy stream among the planets in the fictional Heaven’s Fence universe.
It’s Not a Sticker!
A detailed closeup provides scratchy evidence that the Keywork logo is etched into the top and not a resilient sticker.
Slim but Sturdy
Here is Stever’s Gibson ES-137—reserved for the heaviest songs like “Beautiful Losers” and “Toys,” and tuned to drop D. The svelte semi-hollow has a mahogany center block running through its core, giving it some Stever-needed heft. This one still has its stock Gibson 490R and 498T humbuckers.
Balancing Bigsby
Stever’s crafty tech Ryan Ashhurst added the gold Bigsby to the 137’s slightly carved top. If you look closely, you’ll notice the back end of the tailpiece is floating off its curved shell.
Nothing Else Matters
While recording 2018’s Vaxis–Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures, Travis took a break from tracking and went to a Guitar Center in Paramus, New Jersey, to clear his head. He fooled around with this Gibson ES-335 and in a blink 90 minutes went by. “When I go to a guitar store, I still like to keep a mindset of a kid where all my dreams can come true through this instrument,” admits Stever. “I played a red ES-335 for so long at that store that nothing else mattered.” He didn’t leave the shop that day with a new friend, but he quickly went online to Chicago Music Exchange and ordered the above sunburst 335. It currently gets stage time for “Blood Red Summer.”
Backup Beauty
This classy-looking ES-335 is a backup for the previous sunburst model.
Sunburst Sidekick
This snazzy acoustic is a Gibson Songwriter Standard EC Rosewood that Travis busts out for the pre-show VIP performance of the song “Our Love” off Vaxis–Act II: A Window of the Waking Mind.
Don’t Think About It
When we filmed with Coheed in 2013, they were an early adopter of the Fractal Audio Axe-Fx II. This is that same unit. In our new Rundown, Stever admits that his core patches haven’t changed in seven or eight years, and everything is based around the Mesa/Boogie Mark V. A Matrix GT1000FX powers the cabinet. All his guitars run through a Shure AD4Q wireless that splinters into four inputs thanks to the Radial JX-42 guitar and amp switcher. (Not pictured: The JX-42 is controlled by a Radial JR-5 remote.)
Four on the Floor
Here’s how Stever controls everything with his feet: a pair of Mission Engineering foot pedals (a VM Pro at left and an EP-1 on the right), a Fractal Audio MFC-101 Mark III MIDI foot controller, and a TC Electronic PolyTune.
“I’m a Bit Outrageous…”
“James Hetfield plays an Explorer. An Explorer is kind of outrageous. I’d like to think I’m a bit outrageous, so I got it,” admits Claudio Sanchez. The creator and visionary behind The Amory Wars narrative favors a space-age instrument for his stage persona. His longtime squeeze is a 1980 Gibson Explorer E2 that left the Kalamazoo factory on his brother’s birthday (01/04/1980). He scored it at Mike’s Music in Cincinnati, Ohio, before a gig at nearby Bogart’s. He found it tucked in the shadows behind a big Ampeg SVT stack. As with all of Sanchez’s live guitars, he puts a Bare Knuckle Nailbomb humbucker in the bridge. This particular Explorer got an upgraded TonePros LPM04 Tune-o-matic bridge and tailpiece. And all his electrics take Ernie Ball 2240 Regular Slinky RPS strings (.010–.046).
Arm & Hammer
Check out the wear and tear Sanchez puts to the body of his No. 1 E2.
Can’t You See Me Looking?
The E2 headstock has spent plenty of time in the ER.
E2 Part Deux
Earlier this year, Claudio eyed this early ’80s Explorer E2 at a shop in Asheville, North Carolina. This gem was in too good a condition for Claudio to drop the coin, so he put it back on the shelf. Little did he know that his wife, Chondra Echert, and guitar tech Kevin Allen combined efforts and scooped the E2 for Claudio’s 44th birthday. This one has a set of Bare Knuckle Nailbombs in it.
It's Yours Now
Claudio is unsure if Gibson loaned him or gifted him this 1963 Les Paul SG Custom Reissue with a Maestro Vibrola that was pre-dinged by their Murphy Lab team. He uses this one on “Blood” and has the middle humbucker engaged for an approximated Andy Summers sound.
Double-Oh-My-Heavens
Since the Beginning
This Gibson SG Special was used on the first Coheed and Cambria tour. Unfortunately, during that initial trek, Sanchez busted the headstock. Unbeknownst to him, this is a relatively normal repair that any experienced guitar tech has encountered. Alas, Sanchez thought the guitar was finished, so he pulled it out of rotation. He lost track of it and years later he saw a social-media post of a guitar that resembled his first SG. He noticed the body’s chipped paint, the Puerto Rican flag behind the tailpiece (getting warmer), and the alarm in his head went off when he noticed the headstock was broke. He reached out to the person and during the band’s next trip through Chicago he made a trade to reacquire this ivory SG Special.
Good as Glue
Sanchez’s tech Kevin Allen gave the fallen Gibson some serious TLC and now it makes an appearance every night.
Don’t (or Do) Hold Your Breath
If you’ve seen the band’s video for “The Suffering” off Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness, you’ll recognize this 2000s Gibson ’76 Explorer reissue. This was the band’s first album to crack the top 10 of the Billboard 200. In the Rundown, Claudio notes this is his only live guitar that doesn’t have a headstock wound.
A Gift for Ghost
While there was confusion if an earlier Gibson was a gift or a loaner, this J-45 Standard was most certainly given to Claudio. He uses it for the song “Ghost.”
Shred Stand
For the top of “Window of the Waking Mind,” Sanchez does his best Yngwie and saddles up on this Taylor 512e. It has a Western cedar top, tropical mahogany back, sides, and neck, ebony fretboard, and Taylor’s Expression System 2 electronics.
Kashmir Clone
“When I got this thing, it was sort of a gimmick,” concedes Sanchez. “I wrote and recorded ‘Welcome Home’ and acknowledged that there is certainly some ‘Kashmir’ DNA in that song, so I told management ‘let’s show the homage a little clearer and get this Gibson EDS-1275.” This “gimmick” closes out every Coheed show.
Same As It Ever Was
Like Stever, Claudio is still rocking the same Fractal Audio Axe-Fx II from the 2013 Rundown. His most-used patches still have the same heartbeat. His main distortion tone is based on two Marshall Super Leads, with a wah and pitch shifter set to Mission Engineering EP-1 expression pedals onstage. The medium-gain mood is based on an old Orange head with various delays and effects, and his clean is modeled after a Fender brown-panel amp with delay and compressor. He notes in this Rundown that new wrinkles include a patch with chorus and another with fuzz and octave for “Shoulders.”
Like Stever, a Matrix GT1000FX powers the Fractal, a Shure AD4Q wireless unit gives him maximum movement onstage, and a rackmount Radial JX62 handles wireless pack switches for guitar changes.
Sanchez’s Signature Stompbox
A Teacher’s Muff
The Black Stallion
Bassist Zach Cooper’s No. 1 is a Nash PB63. He loves this black bomber for its chunky neck profile. He said in the Rundown that if he had to play one bass for the entire gig, it’d be hands-down this one. All his basses have been stripped of the tone circuit and replaced their stock Fralins with his preferred Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound P-Bass pickups. All Cooper’s Nash Ps have custom volume knobs he’s scored from Love My Switches. This one rides in standard all night and takes Ernie Ball Regular Slinky Bass strings (.045–.105).
The Alligator Bass
Anyone who’s purchased a Nash instrument knows that they arrive in a brown alligator-skin case. Cooper ordered himself the above Nash PB57 and when it arrived his daughter helped him unbox it. Her gut reaction to its case and the green color was to call it the “alligator bass” and to seal the nickname he put a ’gator sticker on its back near the neck joint. This one stays in E-flat tuning and takes Ernie Ball Power Slinky Bass strings (.055–.110).
Creamsicle
Another Nash PB63 handles songs tuned B-E-A-D and takes a custom set of Ernie Ball Super Slinky Bass 5 strings (.060 –.125). The standard Super Slinky Bass 5 set includes a .040 fifth string, but Cooper only plays 4-string Ps in Coheed.
Amp Anomaly
While his guitar-playing colleagues dove deep into the digital realm, Cooper still brings out an amp. His current boom box of choice is an Aguilar DB 751 that runs into a matching Aguilar DB 810 cabinet.
Zach Cooper’s Pedalboard
Another rarity for the Coheed crew is a standard pedalboard. Cooper has a fun batch of stomps that includes a duo of Aguilar units—the Agro and the Octamizer, an old Mantic Effects Vitriol, and a Line 6 DL4 MkII. A Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner keeps his basses in check.
