Somewhere in the foggy mist of music pieces pretentiously titled "The Velourium Camper II: Backend of Forever" and "Ten Speed (Of God's Blood and Burial)" lies the true meaning of the Coheed & Cambria saga.

That story, however, is not of the New York-based, prog-rock quartet of confessed sci-fi geeks who conceived the metal-meets-strings-meets-Rush-lite-vocal thrash and just happen to call themselves Coheed & Cambria.

Think instead of a tale of a fictional couple named Coheed and Cambria, forced to sacrifice their children to rid the world of a gene-embedded virus — a tale spread (so far) across three CDs of relentlessly cinematic prog rock by said band named Coheed & Cambria.

Got all that?

Here, I'll gratefully allow the very genial, very game and very wild-haired Claudio Sanchez, lead singer and conceptual mastermind behind all of this drama, a go at a brief summary.

"It's like a sci-fi story that takes place in an alternate past on an alternate solar system where a husband and wife (find out) in their midlife that they're actually not who they're supposed to be," Sanchez said. "It takes you through a series of events that leads them to their demise.

"The records following (first CD) 'The Second Stage Turbine Blade' and the prequel record (due to arrive fifth in the series, for those keeping score at home) are about their sons' quest for vendetta. And that's pretty much it."

The story's hero? A Coheed and Cambria offspring named Claudio. Uh-huh, as in Claudio Sanchez.

Whether or not you grasped all of that or simply think it may have been a long, long time since Ground Control called Major Claudio, consider yourself prepared enough for Coheed & Cambria's Wednesday night Pipeline Cafe gig.

The good news about the band's music? You won't have to buy into or even understand one iota of its talk of monstas (evil beings bent on destroying the universe) or the keywork (an energy beam that nurtures all planets) to enjoy it.

"That's all there. But it's up to the listener whether or not they want to be part of that piece of Coheed & Cambria," said Sanchez. "There are those who like (Coheed) because it's a rock 'n' roll band, some because it's a progressive rock band, or because we do something a bit different and a little intricate.

"Others, again, like the concept."

Sanchez takes neither himself nor the fictional story too seriously. Coheed & Cambria, the band and story, was born as a side project Sanchez started to keep himself entertained while spending time in a now defunct "funk-jazz-rock-rap-whatever" fusion band called Shabutie.

"It was going to be an electronic piece (with) a story that went along with it," said Sanchez. "The story just kind of came to me. (I had) a love for storytelling ... fantasy storytelling."

A fan of sci-fi writer Frank Herbert's works, a handful of concept records (especially Pink Floyd's "The Wall") and the straight-ahead rock of Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix, Sanchez simply combined all his passions into one package.

The success of the first two independently released CDs in the series piqued the interest of Columbia Records, which signed the band. Coheed & Cambria's major label debut (get ready for this mouthful), "Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV: Vol. 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness," debuted at No. 7 on Billboard's Top 200 album chart in September.

Sanchez also serializes every Coheed & Cambria album in graphic-novel form.

The inevitable Coheed saga conclusion and prequel are mapped out, but "heavily in the works," said Sanchez. His influences wouldn't surprise anyone.

"Right now, I guess (the story) is more based on movies and George Lucas' 'Star Wars,' " he said.

Sanchez was careful to pause here for geek clarification.

"The first three — 'A New Hope' to '(Return of the) Jedi' because I grew up with those three and they had, I guess, a profound impact on me."

As long as it wasn't "Battlefield Earth," Claudio.

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.