Claudio Sanchez is a Park Slope dad. He calls us from his couch at home in Brooklyn, where his son Atlas Hendrix is asleep on his lap. The 37-year-old Coheed and Cambria frontman and his son (a bit over a year old now) just returned home from a trip to the play gym, with a week to spare before the band heads out on the road for their North American tour.
He’s a morning person
A well-documented early morning creative, Sanchez says he’s still able to wake before his son, but doesn’t often to do work around the house anymore. “I can’t be loud, so I’ll either go to the gym or I’ll read,” he explains. “I like to do work early, but musically, it doesn’t work for the apartment. It’s a bummer.”
Writing on the road might not be an option either — “The bus is like a cradle, so I end up sleeping longer than I ever do in my own bed. It’s got that soothing effect to it, especially when you’re in a bunk.”
Conceptually yours
That’s fine, though, the band’s October release, “The Color Before the Sun,” was a step in a new creative direction — breaking from their decade-long dedication to weaving a science fiction storyline into their last seven albums’ narratives. This album was different, breaking from the pattern conceptually and physically, recording at St. Charles Studio in Nashville. The new change in pace is an invigorating one for the band, Sanchez riffing on the idea of “removing a mask” with the new album.
“The concepts [from past albums] come from a personal place, but I’d utilize the concepts as a mask to hide what those songs were really about,” he says. “The record isn’t all that different — except [without] the mask.”
The tour that follows will include the band’s longtime pals Glassjaw, I The Mighty and newcomers Silver Snakes, who just signed with Sanchez’s Evil Ink Records last month.
“I think [the tour is] really well-rounded, and a lot of cool stuff is going to happen through the night,” says Sanchez. “On the Coheed side, there will be some songs that we’ve haven’t ever played [live] in the past, but then, also, those crowdpleasers that are very much part of a staple of our shows.”
Low maintenance
Also a staple: Pantene Pro V for Curly Hair — only Pantene Pro V — which the epically fro-ed Sanchez lists as his go-to mane tamer.
“It’s a damage control kind of situation,” he laughs. “It helps me get the knots out. It’s funny though, because ever time I go to a store or out, and I meet a fan, the first thing they want to do is tell me their idea of what I should use or do for my hair.”
This writer suggested the Wet Brush.
But Sanchez, while grateful, isn’t overly optimistic at another idea, “Every time it fails. You have no idea what this requires!”
If you go
Boston
Feb. 22 and 23, at 6 p.m.
House of Blues Boston
15 Landsowne St., Boston
Philadelphia
March 5 at 8 p.m.
The Filmore
29 E Allen St, Philadelphia
215-309-0150
New York
March 4 at 8 p.m.
The Theater at Madison Square Garden
4 Pennsylvania Plaza, New York
