Cody Statz Is Writing a Rock Opera About Mars

Denver-based singer-songwriter and musician Cody Statz has released a new single, “There Was Evening,” off his upcoming rock-opera album, Mars, expected to drop on February 15. The track is the first in a linear story about humanity terraforming the planet Mars, preparing it for colonization, and the uncertain future hanging over all life on Earth.

The synth-heavy single begins with the biblical creation story: God separates evening and morning by light; land and plants are spoken into existence to produce oxygen for humanity. But as the song creeps along, God is replaced by humanity, and Mars is far less cooperative with humanity than the Earth was with God.

The upcoming album is a result of Statz wanting to challenge himself creatively, but “There Was Evening,” specifically, was inspired by a certain visionary with a penchant for public meltdowns: the one and only Elon Musk.

“The first song was inspired by hearing Elon Musk saying that a solution to change the climate on Mars would be to use nuclear weapons," Statz says. "In my story, it’s maybe a fantastical way of doing it; I have them making bombing rounds and droppings these things from the ground on the poles to change the temperature. Who knows if that would scientifically even be the solution, or anything?”

The new music from Statz is a bit of a departure from his singer-songwriter background. He’s wrestled with Mars-adjacent themes before — religion, the question of the afterlife and hand-wringing over humanity’s impending doom — but he didn’t lean nearly as far into synth-heavy sounds or space or science fiction.

“I tried to make certain things spacey, and it was more effective in some places than others," he says. "A lot of the sound that’s going to be heard throughout the album is going to be brought to life by the producer, Tyler Imbrogno.

“I’m a very novice musician," Statz adds. "But I think I’ve become and am becoming a better songwriter. The idea of making a complete thing, instead of just an album of eight or ten songs that kind of go together, was interesting to me.”

Statz will play “There Was Evening” as well as a handful of other new songs off the upcoming album this Friday, November 16, at the Lion’s Lair.


Cody Statz, with The Whimsy of Things and Jon Arckey, 9 p.m. Friday, November 16, Lion's Lair, 2022 East Colfax Avenue.