MC: Was it always the master plan?
Sanchez: It was accidental. I wasn’t 18 years old thinking, “How can I figure this out?” I was thinking in terms of science fiction and fantasy and trying to color my life a little differently. How that translates into everything… for a thing like Second Stage [Live], the beginning of this band, and have a 10-year anniversary and be performing these songs for so long, the songs have changed over time. Why not give fans that version? And I think that was the idea [with the flash drives]… Let’s capture these moments and present them to the audience.
MC: Every live Coheed show is unique. You’ve performed with the USC Marching Band, brought out a Theremin during a solo. Is there a motivation to change the performance each tour?
Sanchez: It happens organically. A thing like the theramin, I’m very much a fan of modular synthesizers and synthesizers in general. I just happened to have one and thought, you know what, why not incorporate it? It might be fun to have a moment to feature it. And that sort of creates awareness where people say, “What is that thing?” Then they go and investigate.
We try to mix it up [live], we try to do interesting things like the Neverender Concert Series [where we play every album from beginning to end in a few cities across the US], the Second Stage 10-year anniversary, etcetera. Trying to honor the history of the band and celebrate it with the band. Something like that is a little more premeditated whereas bringing elements like theremins and other toys are more of something to create an interesting texture that may pose a question and create interest.
MC: Should fans anticipate another Neverender Tour?
Sanchez: We’re definitely going to do another Neverender tour. Neverender proper is usually going to be branded as Neverender. If we do another one proper, it will be Neverender 2. It’ll have the roman numerals that follow. But if we’re going to do a Neverender involving Second Stage where we’re going to honor one of the records because we’re celebrating an anniversary and so forth, those tours will always be accompanied by the title of the album.
I’ve definitely thought about this a bunch. Doing a second one, or doing The Afterman in its entirety, I definitely have plans for Neverender. One day, if we’re so lucky, we’ll have the movie accompany us.
MC: Speaking of movie, you had announced at 2012 Comic-Con that a Coheed and Cambria movie might be in the works. Any update on that?
Sanchez: At the moment it’s very slow moving. We’re trying to get the right pieces in place to make it happen. If we were ever so fortunate, it would be great to do a Neverender complete where you get the visuals to accompany it. Almost like when they do Star Wars with the orchestra playing along against the movie [live].
MC: How difficult is it to create a short set like Uproar when Coheed is trying so hard to honor everything written in the past?
