Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Keeping The Flame Burning With KEVIN MARTIN From CANDLEBOX

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Keeping The Flame Burning With KEVIN MARTIN From CANDLEBOX · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Hi, my name is Kevin Martin. I believe you're gonna be in countermarks.
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  We are coming to Australia and Rocky Socks. Beautiful Kevin, thanks for
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  joining us today. A pleasure. Thanks for having me. No, as
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  you say, Ray Cambra Box. We'll be touring austray for the first and
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  last time ever next year, starting in Brisbane on January the tenth, before
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  hitting Sydney and Melbourne, finishing me into Adelaide on January the fourteen. So
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  the most obvious question, bro is how and why have you neglected us for
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  thirty years? Well, and then kis asking why they coglected Australia. How
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  did you try to come there from thirty years to talk with the motors of
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  that? How about that? Yeah, it's been a it's been a dream
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  of mind of me, marriage in Australian women. I've got astead of Australian
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  family over there that I love very much. I've been coming to Australia for
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  the past twenty three years. My affinity for that country goes beyond I think
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  it was Australian in the past life. It's it's just one of those things,
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  man, I love that country. I've been trying to come to thirty
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  years. I don't know why it's taken us so long. We've we've asked,
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  you know, several times if you put on something like even the Best
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  of These with Stone Temple Pilots and the guys in live and stuff like that,
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  I guess maybe, you know, Australia the promoters just didn't think we
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  were worth, you know, pop to miss And I don't know, but
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  I cannot tell you how excited I am becoming to play there, man,
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  because I am looking forward to to play in the country that I would hopefully
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  at some point called home. Very good man, and the show is a
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  part of your global farewell to Also, it's gonna be a bittersweet moment view
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  when you're Astralian fans. There isn't it, I think so. I mean
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  it's gonna be more bitter sing for me. I think that it is for
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  them. I mean, I'm gonna give him two hours, you know,
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  each night of my very best, but you know it's saying goodbye in his
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  career. Is it's been strange? I mean, you know, I alsomer
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  long. There's a moment standing on stand age in front of you know,
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  ten thousand of my closest friends, thinking to myself, this is the last
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  time I'm going to sing this song with these people. It's a strange emotion,
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  but I think for me, you know, being home during COVID and
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  spending time with my wife and my son and realizing just how much I had
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  actually missed of that life with them was pretty earthshaking for me. And I
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  sat down with my wife right around I would say, September of twenty twenty
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  October of twenty twenty, I said, listen, I think I'm I think
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  I'm pretty much ready to kind of put all this music thing behind me and
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  be a husband and a father. And is that okay with you? And
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  she says okay with me. I'd be, you know, beyond grateful,
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  but she's like, are you sure that you can put that away? And
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  I said, I don't love it as much as I used to, you
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  know. And I think it was being home for such a long, extended
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  period of time that I realized that music was no longer the love of my
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  life, nor my mistress. It's almost as though she become like a close
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  friend that I would bump into every now and then and didn't really like seeing
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  that much sort of thing sense, and I certainly don't don't want to be
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  an armistic phones it in, you know, I don't want to be that
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  guy. So when we got back out on the road in twenty twenty one,
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  I made sure that the shows that we played where we want to play,
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  that the events that we were involved in were events that I felt were
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  a good place for Candlebox to be. And it was all leading up to
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  this Farewell Goodbye tour of twenty twenty three for the Dead, you know,
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  thirtieth anniversary of your debut album. So I was very conscious about what I
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  was doing. So on that night, Brian like, how do you wrap
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  up over thirty years of music in one show? Must be hard? Well,
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  no, man, I don't know. It's good. I think the
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  last show in Adelaide is going to be pretty strange for me because I'm going
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  to get out a plane the next morning and fly home to Los Angeles and
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  at that point I'm finished up as a toy musician. So I think that's
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  going to be the real kind of moment for me where I kind of absorbed
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  everything that's happened, and I don't know how you put it in I don't.
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  I mean, I don't know. I'm gonna try me this. Yeah,
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  so I was supposed to. This is a fitting a time as any
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  to take this back. It through the history of Candlebox. Bro. So
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  you guys emerged out of the Seattle ground scene in the mid ninety ninety So
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  what was a musical climate like when you when you came into the world.
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  I guess where did Candlebox fit in? We didn't fit it anywhere, unfortunately.
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  You know, We've always been the red edd step child of to see
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  how music scenes. Yeah, you know, I like that, so,
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  you know it's uh. I think when we started the band, we were
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  so much younger than the guys and Alice and Salad Arden and Eurosia. I
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  mean I was I was sixteen when Christmas twenty one, you know. So
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  it was a weird city because every all the eyes in the world were on
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  it. It was over saturating with bands. And then along came these sport
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  knuckleheads in a band called Candlebox and sounded nothing like it any other bands,
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  and no one really knew who we were. I knew a lot of the
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  guys from the Prologium and had a lot of guys from Salad Art. Chris
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  and I were very good friends. Lansday was one of my best friends because
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  I worked in a shoe store that was managed by Susan Silver, who was
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  managing Salad Arden, Allie and Chains and Trees at the time. So I
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  got to know a lot of the musicians from that environment and coming to get
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  flyers from the shows and whatnot, and so I think that they were all
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  kind of surprised that this kid that worked in a shoe store was now singing
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  in a rock band. I was playing drums in a punk band prior to
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  Candleboxes, so don't I don't think it was you know, people were really
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  like, that's the same guy who was playing drums. This is weird,
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  but you know, it worked, but we did not fit in, and
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  we didn't certainly didn't fit in in the Grune movement. We immediately went from
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  the alternative radio play to our hard rock riding playing, which I think was,
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  you know, kind of stupid, but you know, it was just
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  kind of one of those things that happened, and unfortunately we kind of always
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  sat on the outside of that little tiny click of the Seattle rock and roll
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  scene. Mm hm. So you day were yourself to allow ninety ninety three
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  was a massive success, right, Like, what do you put that down
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  to? It? Was it timing, was it the songs on? It
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  was a combination of everything. I think it was everything combined. You know.
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  It was a perfect time for a band like Cattlebox to come out.
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  We created a sound that was unlike anything other than in Seattle except for Made
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  My Other Love Bone. So, you know, I've always kind of said
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  the Cantleboxes like the Journey of the Seattle music scene. You know how Journey
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  doesn't always kind of fit in the San Francisco music scene, never really fit
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  in the kind of bad company world. They were kind of the pop band
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  of the seventies rock and roll scene, and Cattlebox was kind of a similar
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  band. So but I think that the music that we created, and certainly
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  songs like far Behind and You and Cover Me our statements even today still on
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  rocker indio and alternative radio. So we did something right. I think that
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  we we tapped into those emotions of an audience and kind of maybe was a
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  little bit jaded by what had happened with girl Jam and Nirvana and being spoon
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  fed this kind of Seattle music scene that all of a sudden came along with
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  this band of you know, candle Box was like a little bit of a
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  tea spin of sugar, if you will. We're a little bit sweeter than
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  everything else, and I think people were kind of ready for that, and
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  so that's mainly my idea of how it happened. So the music scene has
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  undergone many changes in your Trauma's band, bro, So has Cannibox been a
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  start of band it tried to change with the times or have you sort of
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  stuck to you un popwull? So I've always tried to push the band beyond.
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  I've never chased the trends, which I'm very lucky that I didn't.
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  You know, we after the debut album, we made a record that's complete
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  turn called Lucy, which had nothing to do with the debut album, And
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  then of course happened those came along and it was like a whole other direction
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  for us. So and by the time we got back together in two thousand
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  and seven to do the End of the Sun record, we had grown so
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  much as musicians and artists and songwriters that it was a little bit easier for
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  us to get into a room and write a record. So that's why I
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  think When I Ended the Sun is such a kind of poignant album for us
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  and a and a great record for us who have come back with But we
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  we just you know, we just somehow, somehow it worked. You know.
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  I tried over the years to kind of explain it and figure it out.
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  I'm not really sure now I got here. So looking back now like
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  that, have you think have you a shaved everything you wanted out of music?
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  Do you think, yeah, I've I've achieved. I've achieved. I
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  think it has allowed me Gucci. I don't know if right now I have
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  no desire to make music, and I have no desire to create songs and
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  write songs. I've been asked to produce some records, which I think I
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  would certainly like to do. But no, I don't think. I don't
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  think I've achieved everything musically I want to. But I think music, like
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  I said, has given me a great gift and it's something that I will
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  cherish for the rest of my life. And every time I look at you
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  know, the vinyl that's hanging on my walls, or or you know,
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  the placards or whatever that I've you know, accomplished over those years. It's
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  it's a good, warm feeling in my heart and I'm happy with that.
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  So back to be more modern stuff, right, Like you recently released your
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  fine album along Goodbye. So how fans receive that, I don't know.
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  I mean the ones that I've spoken to you love that they're like, you
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  know, this is the best Catabocs ever made. And I think that that
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  took a minute for them because I don't think they were prepared for me to
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  release a record that's only thirty five minutes long. And and and that's you
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  know, with the viral which comes out I think on Friday, there's an
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  additional three or four tracks on it. So we wanted to make a concise
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  record that it gave you the thirty years of me being in this business and
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  the things that I've learned and the music that I've created, and the lives
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  that I've that I've been affected by or the or the lives that have been
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  affected by me. And I think that in the process of us discussing how
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  to make this record, we found the direction we wanted to go, and
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  that direction was these are the only songs that we want to do right now,
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  this is the only record we want to make. We don't really have
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  any concern as to whether anybody likes it. This is where we are,
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  and this is our our our long goodbye and and and I think that we
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  knew that it was going to be kind of an interesting and to make as
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  a band, because it is. It's been a long, illustrious, kind
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  of strange career for me and I've I discussed all these songs in depth with
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  the guys in the band before we even recorded, and to make sure that
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  we were going in the direction that we wanted to go. I didn't want
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  to make a recommend. This is my last record. You guys are playing
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  on it, And that's what it was like. You're a part of my
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  band. How do you want to be perceived, How do you feel I
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  should be perceived? What are your thoughts on these songs? How much energy
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  do we want to put into this? How much difference? What do we
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  want to create, what textures? What levels do we want to go to?
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  So it was really a fully collaborative effort, and I was very pleased
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  with that, and I was very excited about it. So for me,
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  this is my favorite cantabouts record, and I think that the bands that have
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  hurt it love it, and I just hope that I really it's a record
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  that I want the whole world to hear. I know that's not going to
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  happen, but I think that it should. And I think because I think
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  there are songs in here that but affect you know, most people in positive
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  way, in a positive mm hmmm. And before we go, mate,
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  have you started up three nie Spotify playlists to help listeners get in touch with
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  bands that we interview. So can you give us using candlebox songs? Can
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  you give us a song for a playlist to get the party started, one
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  for a playlist to save your marriage, and one for a playlist that could
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  potentially end your marriage. If the party started, Uh, that would probably
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  be hair. Uh say, the marriage would be the song on the record,
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  and and the marriage it would be Uh. How does it feel off
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  of it? She easy? All right, Cavina, Well, thanks very
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  much. Be time to play man. You have suddenly waking me up and
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  goa be ready for the day. Brother. So we'll see you out here
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  in January. I'll be at the Brisbane Show bro, So let's catch you
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  then, Chris. Thanks by you, look forward to you,