WIN ON-AIR: Coheed and Cambria with Taking Back Sunday

Formed in Nyack, New York in 1995 by Travis Stever and Claudio Sanchez, Coheed and Cambria is a juggernaut in the progressive and post-hardcore scenes. The band went through a handful of iterations featuring different names and band members before changing their name to Coheed and Cambria, reflecting the main characters of the new science fiction comics series that Claudio had started.  

The comics series, titled The Armory Wars has become the main focus of Coheed and Cambria’s writing, usually telling the storyline out of sequence. The band’s debut album The Second Stage Turbine Blade, released in early 2002, was met with favorable reviews and featured a guest spot from Dr. Know of Bad Brains. The album’s positive reception led the group to a handful of tour dates throughout the US, as well as a spot on the 2002 Vans Warped Tour. 

Coheed and Cambria’s success continued into 2003, bringing them on tours with Linkin Park, The Used, and Slipknot. Later that year, they released In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 which featured the singles “A Favor House Atlantic” and “Blood Red Summer” with the former, as well as the album as a whole, being certified gold by the RIAA. With their popularity growing, the band recorded their first live release, a DVD titled Live at the Starland Ballroom, which was released in early 2005 and also reached a gold certification. 

Later in 2005, Coheed and Cambria would release their biggest album to date Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness. The album is their third straight to reach gold certification and has nearly reached platinum status, and peaked at number 7 on the Billboard charts. The single “Welcome Home” has become their most played live song to date and currently sits as their only platinum certification. Two years later, they released the follow up Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow (2007) which continued their string of successful releases.  

The band would continue to tour until they released their fifth album Year of the Black Rainbow in 2010. This album acted as a prequel for The Armory Wars story and concluded the “Coheed and Cambria” saga. However, with their following double album The Afterman: Ascension (2012) and The Afterman: Descension (2013), the band showed that they still had plenty of material from The Armory Wars universe to write about. In 2015, they released their first, and so far only, album to not be related to The Armory Wars, with Claudio choosing to reflect on things happening in his own life rather than that of his characters. 

In 2018, Coheed and Cambria returned to creating the soundtrack to The Armory Wars, beginning a new storyline following the character, and the namesake of their current string of albums, Vaxis. Vaxis’ story began in 2018 with Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures and continued in 2022 with Vaxis – Act II: A Window of the Waking Mind. Both albums were met with critical praise, with the latter topping the US Top Hard Rock Albums chart.  

Staring towards the end of 2024 and continuing into this year, Coheed and Cambria has begun to release and announce more information regarding the third album in the Vaxis saga, Vaxis – Act III: The Father of Make Believe which will be released in March of this year. They have also announced the Infinite Arc Tour with Mastodon and Periphery that takes up the first half of the summer, and it’s follow up in the second half with Taking Back Sunday and Foxing. 

Taking Back Sunday, formed in Amityville, New York in 1999, are considered one of the biggest emo bands of all time. They have undergone a number of lineup changes, but currently consists of John Nolan, Adam Lazzara, and Shaun Cooper alongside a handful of touring musicians. The band has released a total of eight studio albums, with their most recent 152 being released in 2023.  

152 was Taking Back Sunday’s first release since 2016’s Tidal Wave and was met with mostly positive reviews, but failed to chart in the US. Beforehand, all of the releases from 2009’s New Again on had been met with high praise and were in the top 10 of nearly every US chart they were on. This trend stretches back to their debut Tell All Your Friends in 2002, although the first three albums tend to be their biggest in the eyes of the fans. 

Two of the band’s biggest hits are off of Tell All Your Friends in “Cute Without the ‘E’ (Cut from the Team) and “You’re So Last Summer”, the latter of which even featured Flava Flav in the music video. Their second release Where You Want To Be (2004) peaked at number 3 on the Billboard 200 chart and features another big hit for them in “A Decade Under the Influence”. Their third and most successful record Louder Now (2006) has the hits “MakeDamnSure” and “Liar (It Takes One to Know One)”.  

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From 6:00am to 10:00am from 3/24/25 to 3/28/25, call 973-292-1055 to enter this on-air contest. Four (4) random entrants will win a pair of tickets (2) to see Coheed and Cambria with Taking Back Sunday at the PNC Bank Arts Center valued at $39.00 each (plus fees), courtesy of Live Nation. Must be at least 18 years old and legal residents of the United States. Unless otherwise specified, listeners are eligible to win in station’s contests; a prize valued under $600 only once every seven (7) days and a prize valued at $600 or more, only once every thirty (30) days. Only one winner per household (whether related or not) is permitted in any contest. Otherwise, WDHA's General Contest Rules apply and are available by clicking HERE.