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Interview with
KEVIN MARTIN
from
CANDLEBOX

(November 23, 2023)

Interview with by Dave Bruce

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Dave: What inspired Candlebox to embark on their first and last Australian tour after three decades of their career?
Kevin: What inspired us? I’ve been trying to come to Australia for 30 years. And, you know, that is the God’s honest truth. And I’ve said this to the last three people that I’ve interviewed with. It’s like, you should have conversations with the promoters down there, because I’ve literally come there every Christmas for 23 years because my wife’s Australian. I’ve tried to book shows at the Great Northern to play acoustically. I’ve tried to book shows and try to play acoustically. No luck. And I’ve sold records in Australia.
So I’m not really sure why it took me so long to get there.

Dave: How does Candlebox reflect on their impact on the rock music landscape, considering their self-titled debut album sold over four million copies worldwide? That’s fantastic.
Kevin: Thank you. Yeah. You know, the reflection has been pretty amazing.
I think, you know, there are moments where, you know, I’m standing on stage and like you mentioned earlier, people are singing your song back to you. That’s the most, I mean, that’s like the craziest instant gratification dopamine burst in the world. And the fact that I’ve been able to do this for 30 years and have had the opportunities that I’ve had, you know, touring with Metallica and Rush and Aerosmith and Living Color and Henry Rollins and The Flaming Lips and playing shows with Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden and Nirvana and, you know, all those years and years and years of doing this, my reflection is really just, God, I’m a lucky son of a bitch, you know? And the fact that in all of those opportunities, somehow, or in all of those kind of worlds, somehow Candlebox survived.
You know, I’ve lost a lot of friends in this industry to drugs and alcohol. And I mean, I just, I pinch myself every day, man. It is really, I’m just the luckiest son of a bitch I know.
And I’m so grateful that, you know, 30 years ago, somebody decided to buy our CD and then that spiralled into four and a half million, five million, whatever the number is now. It’s really just sometimes, you know, you just got to take a look at yourself in the mirror and say, God, you’re a lucky son of a bitch, you know?

Dave: Gee, some of those bands, mate, that must be great. You’re going to come out with a book at some stage and start to write about some of those experiences, or you might have to be dead, I suppose, because, you know, many names will come up.
Kevin: I think so. The lawsuits that would come out of the Metallica tour alone would be too much for me to bear.

Dave: Unbelievable. The Nirvana thing would have been pretty cool, too.
Kevin: Well, it wasn’t a tour, it was, we just played a show that they were on. It was way back in the early days when they first started playing around with Dave. So, you know, but seeing that happen and being, you know, coming from Seattle and watching and experiencing all of that change was, you know, I can’t even, I can’t put it into words.
It was really just a magical time, certainly as a young kid. I think the thing about it is, everyone that survived, survived for a reason.

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Dave: Could you share insights into the significance of Candlebox, iconic hits ‘Far Behind, ‘You, and ‘Cover Me’, which have combined 200 million streams on Spotify?
Kevin: Yeah, so ‘Cover Me’ is a song that was written, a conversation that my guitar player and I had about religion, organized religion. I was raised Roman Catholic. I was an altar boy.
So I was having a conversation with Pete just about organized religion and kind of how I find it to be completely, you know, a mess. And certainly at the time, back in 1990, when we wrote the song, 1991, rather, you know, the world was experiencing a lot of gross change in what was happening in the Catholic Church and in the Christian religion and, you know, the Falwells and the Tammy Faye Baker and all that crap. So it turned into a song, which, you know, to this day and age, it’s changed over the years because it’s become a lot more personal to me about organized religion and what my beliefs are.
‘You’ is a song that I wrote about my drug addiction that I had in high school, things that I was doing that were killing me. And then I went to see Midnight Oil on my 18th birthday, and Peter Garrett scared the living shit out of me. I quit doing drugs the next day.
So I wrote that song. And ‘Far Behind’, I wrote for Andrew Wood, who was a singer from Alabama and a very, very good friend of mine. And it’s written from the perspective of heroin.
So it’s really about Andy making a choice to choose heroin as his outlet. And it ended up killing him. But, you know, it wasn’t his choice to kill him.
It’s just heroin is a dangerous drug. So that’s, you know, the significance of those three songs.

Dave: And how are you so lucid? Because seriously, you’re obviously an intelligent individual, and you are very lucid.
Kevin: You know, I think it’s how I was raised, you know, my father was a was born in 1922, and he stormed Omaha Beach on June 6  1944 during World War Two.
And when he survived that, he raised us children with, with great respect, and he raised us to respect our family, and one another and, and ourselves. And I think that that was the thing that when when I went to see Midnight Oil, at that concert in Seattle, it was something that I had been searching for. And, and I wasn’t sure what that was, or how it was going to give itself to me, or appear to me, and it appeared to me through that concert.
And, and I think that that was, you know, catching myself that early in that in a stage of doing drugs and whatnot is why I’ve been able to survive as long as I have. So I was, I guess it was maybe just my father’s, you know, instilling, you know, great respect in me that allowed me to be that.

Dave: In what ways has Candlebox evolved since their 90s grunge era is evident in their latest and final album, The Long Goodbye?
Kevin: I think our evolution’s just been pushing ourselves constantly to try and create better art. We’ve never tried to relive the history or the past of the band.
Even in the current lineup, the only member of the band that’s been with me longer than anybody else is my bass player, Adam, and he joined in 2007. So, you know, I’m the last remaining member of Candlebox. And I think that just over that period of like growth and learning who we were as human beings from Lucy to Happy Pills to Into the Sun, we got back together in 2007.
We were constantly pushing ourselves trying to be better people, better musicians, better artists. And I think that that break that we had from 2000 to 2007, when we started writing for other people or writing with other musicians and forming other bands and projects, it really opened us up to, you know, the experiences of life that maybe we missed early on in the 90s, because we were trying to be, you know, the Candlebox as a major. So as time grew, and as time changed, when we got to making the Into the Sun record, and then of course, Love Stories and other music after that, the band was just going through changes.
And we were just embracing all the kind of art and music that was inspiring us. And I think that there’s such a great collection of new music that happens yearly, that you can pull from that you can be inspired by it. It’s not that you’re trying to chase a trend, you’re just understanding that there’s other things that you can utilize.
Candlebox still uses the bass chords that we always have. We use the suspended, we use the diminished, we use the minors, the majors, but we use them in different ways now. And we’ve done that every single record.
And I think that’s why we’ve been able to sustain this 30 year career.

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Dave: What message does vocalist Kevin Martin want to convey about the upcoming Australian tour, and how does he express the band’s excitement in the context of their 30 year career? You know, what can the fans expect?
Kevin: It’s going to be long shows, they’re gonna be close to two hours, probably 22 to 25 songs in the set.
It’s the long goodbye. And I want to make sure that the Australians get the best part of Candlebox that they deserve.
And the fact that I waited 30 years to come there, and I didn’t wait, I’ve been trying to come for 30 years, but I want to make sure that everybody leaves there, you know, knowing a little bit more about the band besides the debut album, you know, and I want them to have a good time. And I love performing those songs for two hours to me is, it’s like that, it happens, you know, really, really quickly. So it doesn’t bother me at all.

Dave: Do you think that COVID had something to do with you coming out this time?
Kevin: I think that’s, I think that’s certainly probably one of the reasons. And I think also, you know, with the success of this tour, we did this year, and the debut album turning 30.
I think that Silverback, the company that’s bringing over, bringing us over the promoter, Silverback, kind of saw that there’s a real opportunity for Candlebox. And, you know, I’ve said this in the other interviews, if something happens over there, we’re playing the shows, and they go really well. And somebody wants to bring us back and play some festivals in the winter, or maybe in the spring of next year, I’d be happy to come back and play, man.
Playing Australia one time for me is not going to be enough. Even though I’m retiring at the end of the year, you know, from making music and touring and stuff like that. I would always be glad to come back and play for any of any of our Australian fans that wanted to see Candlebox again.

Dave: Can you elaborate on the themes and messages conveyed in some of the songs from the Long Goodbye album, such as ‘Punk’s’, ‘What Do You Need’ and ‘Elegante’?
Kevin: Oh, yes, certainly. So Punk’s is basically just a cautionary tale. You know, as a young band, Candlebox, we didn’t get a lot of the we didn’t have a big brother, if you will, in the music industry in Seattle. So there wasn’t anybody telling us what to look out for, what to pay attention to, what to what to be careful of.
And what the song’s about is really, you know, you may think that you’re, you know, groundbreaking musician or artist, but ultimately, if you’re not delivering 110% to 150% of your of your passion into that music, it doesn’t matter. If you’re just half-assing it, you know, there’s somebody else that’s done it before you and they’re going to keep doing it. And you’re never really going to achieve any any level of success that you’re you’re searching for.
You’ve got to get out there and do it. You’ve got to own it. You’ve got to be 100% a part of that.
So that’s what Punk’s is about. And the fact that, you know, when we started, you know, we got our asses handed to us a lot of times by, you know, audiences that did not want to see Candlebox, certainly touring with Metallica, you know, and it was that was something that I never forgot. So I wanted to make sure that that was thrown into a song.
The song, What Do You Need, really just asked the question, what kind of human being are you? What are you doing that is that is benefiting, you know, people in your life? Or what are you doing to to be a better person? Or are you just a taker? Are you just somebody that doesn’t really give a shit? And what are you how are you going to answer for yourself? Or how do you look yourself in the in the mirror and say, I’m a good person, I’m doing the right thing, or I’m doing right by people. And that’s really what that’s about. And there’s a little bit of history in there.
I think with that song, I would probably, I don’t know if I want to pinpoint any of the artists that I’m speaking about, or that I’ve been affected by in that song. But there’s certainly a lot of history in it with the things that I’ve experienced over the 30 years. So that’s kind of why What Do You Need, you know, asks those kinds of questions.
And Elegante, I gotta be perfectly honest with you. I just love the song. I have no idea what the song’s about.
Lyrically, it’s the words rhyme, and it makes sense somehow. And I have no idea. I just think it’s a cool song.

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Dave: Did you have any Sid Vicious (bottle-throwing’ experiences when you opened for those major bands and the fans didn’t want you on stage, when all they were after were the headline act?
Kevin: We did. I got my head split open by a bottle in Albuquerque, New Mexico, during the Metallica tour. We got shit thrown at us, rocks, mud, dirt, whatever, you know, it was, it was rough. But, you know, we survived it. The Metallica guys watched us every single night, and we’re still great friends with them. And I keep in touch with Lars. And, you know, it’s, it is what it is. They’re great.

Dave: How would you describe your sound?
Kevin: Well, Candlebox is a blues based. Yeah, blues based, basic structure, you know, we don’t really, we’re not grunge, we’re kind of like, I’ve always said that Candlebox is kind of like the Journey of the Seattle music scene. Journey was a band that had that anthemic rock sound, but didn’t really fit in with the San Francisco scene, didn’t really fit in with the New York scene, didn’t really fit in with the, you know, Chicago scene as a band of rock and roll band. But they had these great songs.
And they had a great band of brilliant musicians that wrote a ballad. They weren’t afraid to write a ballad. And I think Candlebox is kind of the same thing. We’re just a blues based rock band that got lumped into a city of music called grunge.
And somehow somebody thought that that was, you know, a good term to come up with for bands like, you know, Nirvana and whatnot. I think it worked for Nirvana. But I don’t think it worked for anybody else.
I think that, you know, Soundgarden certainly is a progressive rock band. If we sound like anybody at all from that scene, it would be Mother Love Bone. And again, that’s that arena rock sort of thing, you know, the big anthemic ballads and stuff like that.
So that’s kind of our sound, you know, we’re just, we’re just a rock band that, you know, a little rock band that could be pretty similar all the way through or has it changed significantly? It’s changed. It’s changed quite a bit over the years. I think that as I’ve, as I’ve grown as a musician, I’ve learned to kind of simplify my songwriting.
I really kind of admire the band of the War on Drugs. What I love about what, what he does is he creates textures, textures and layers. And he takes you on a crazy journey.
And I think that that’s what I’ve tried to do with Candlebox every single album is every song that I’ve ever written or lyric that I’ve ever written. I’m trying to be a better musician. I’m trying to create something that, that you’re attracted to and that your ears want to listen to and your brain wants to understand and your heart wants to feel.
And I think that I’ve done that on every single record. And I’ve really just tried to keep evolving as an artist.

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Dave: If you could perform with any music artist alive or dead, who would you choose and why?
Kevin: Um, that’s, that’s a tough one. Because I, I mean, my favorite band of all time is The Clash. But and I would love if I could stand in front of Paul Simonon and sing some Clash songs, that’d be a dream come true. But really, Joe Strummer. I mean, I, as a songwriter, and, you know, specifically as a as an activist, I just loved everything that he stood for and, and would just love to get on stage with him and rock out.
60 minutes. That’s Joe Strummer from from The Clash, the singer. One of my favorites, you know, I mean, just just a brilliant songwriter and have a lot to say about what was going on in the UK and, and migrants and immigrants and, you know, all that sort of stuff, man, I, I’m a big proponent of, of supporting the, the downtrod, you know, trying to lift them up to a better, a better space.
And, I think that Joe Strummer would be who I would want to play a show with.

Dave: What’s the best piece of advice would you give to an artist starting out?
Kevin: It’s really hard. It’s such a hard business. If you’re not out there playing shows, you got to play shows, you got to get out of your comfort zone, you got to get out of your town, you got to get all over the place and you got to play. And social media is a fucking joke, because basically, it says to someone that you can influence without being out there. And what COVID showed was you can’t, because everyone trying to do something online and no one was interested.

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Dave: I’m going to ask you some final questions for some quick answers. Favourite album?
Kevin: Led Zeppelin 4.

Dave: Favourite artist?
Kevin: Led Zeppelin.

Dave: Favourite movie?
Kevin: La Femme Nikita, the original. Great movie.

Dave: Favourite place to visit?
Kevin: Australia. I love it. Australia.

Dave: Favourite venue to play?
Kevin: There’s several that I’ve played in my career. King Tut’s (Wah Wah Hut) in Scotland, in Glasgow is one of my favourites. Tiny little stinky bar, which I love. There’s a place, we played the Boule Noire in Paris once, which is just a fucking rad rock and roll club. I played Madison Square Garden, which was a dream come true for me. But there’s just too many to pick one.

Dave: Favourite food?
Kevin: Oh, man, I love French food.

Dave: Favourite drink?
Kevin: Whiskey.

Dave: Yeah, what brand?
Kevin: I have several, they’re about, I have about five go to’s. There’s one, I’m actually launching a bourbon next year as well, which I’m kind of excited about. I’d say probably Noah’s Mill, which is part of the Willow family. I love Noah’s Mill, Rowan’s Creek’s great. There’s a bourbon out called Frank August, which is lovely.

Dave: Favourite person in history?
Kevin: Oh, I’d have to say my father.

Dave: Favourite tattoo? Do you have a favourite tattoo?
Kevin: Yeah, I’ve got my son’s name tattooed.

Dav: Show me, show me, show me, show us all.
Kevin: Here (displays tattoo) Jasper.

Dave: Jasper, what a great name. That’s it. We are done. Thanks Kevin for a great time today, and good luck with the tour.
Kevin: Thanks Dave. We’ll see you downunder.

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TOUR DATES

Wednesday, January 10 – The Triffid, Brisbane
Friday, January 12 – Metro Theatre, Sydney
Saturday, January 13 – Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Sunday, January 14 – Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide

Ticket info / onsale info here

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Follow CANDLEBOX
Website – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter
Youtube – Spotify – Apple Music

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Press Release 14th October 2023 (below) HERE

CANDLEBOX
announce first and last
ever Australian Tour
January 2024

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AMNPLIFY – DB