A festival may not be the best place in the world to do an interview, but we'll try to make the best of the situation with Leif Edling.
— I think this festival is a perfect environment to be in. You get so relaxed, the phone doesn't ring all the time, you drink beer and just have fun. Anything can happen at a festival, and anything does. So I really like this festival environment.
What made you reunite again?
— We've been on Music for Nations for about 15 years, but they didn't want to reissue our old records with nice covers. They wanted to do budget versions with both Nightfall and Ancient Dream on one CD. That's something I really hate, because I'm a big record buyer myself. If I buy reissues on records, I want nice covers with quality. So we decided that we would reissue our records with good sound. The original records didn't sound that great. Nightfall came out on CD when the entire CD medium was new. Nightfall on vinyl actually sounds better than on CD. We wanted to make Nightfall sound as good as possible, for the fans. We don't expect to sell millions of records. We just want them to sound good. Ancient Dream didn't sound good when it came out either, now it sounds much better. We're music fans ourselves and we wanted to release our records with a polished sound and new pictures because the originals don't have any pictures on the sleeve at all. It was actually mostly for ourselves that we re-released the records, and of course for the fans. If we can then get other people to listen to the records, that's even better. We're doing it together with a small record label, so we have full control over what we're doing. I'd rather do it like this with real covers and luxury packaging and sell 6,000 records, than do a budget version with Music for Nations and sell 20,000 records. When they were out, we started calling each other again, and started talking about maybe doing a gig to promote them. Then when we decided to do a gig and maybe Sweden Rock Festival, we got so much attention from everyone — fans, promoters and most people thought it was awesome. That's when we realized that we still had pretty good status as a band. It felt almost impossible to say no. Now it feels really good, a whole summer of festivals. We fly to festivals during the weekends and we have a lot of fun. So this is a really fun summer. I'm sorry for this long explanation. In the US they want answers to be a maximum of 20 seconds.
While we're on the subject of America, at the beginning of your career you were singled out as Black Sabbath copies in the States. You went your own way, and today no one compares you to Black Sabbath. Candlemass has its own reputation now.
— I'm really happy about that and we don't do Black Sabbath medleys anymore. Actually, I don't think they had anything to compare us to in the beginning. There were no bands that were as heavy as us at the time. After a while, all these doom and goth bands came along. Nowadays, there are so many bands that play different styles of heavy metal or heavy doom and goth. Now it's like we have our own niche, so now people say about certain bands that they sound like Candlemass. We kind of have copyright on our sound now. We were the first to do what we do. When people talk about Candlemass now, they talk more about the songs and not how we sound. It used to be more like: yeah, they sound like Black Sabbath or Mountain or something. Now it sounds more like: yeah, those songs with melodies and basic riffs, quite melodic but it's still raw and heavy. For me, it's a big compliment for people to say that we're a song-based band. We're a riff-based band but still a song-based band. And that people say we have classic songs like "Gallows End", "Source of Pledge" and "Mirror Mirror". So now people focus on the songs instead of thinking Candlemass is doom and they're so depressing. It's more: They make good songs and have a really good set list. We're getting our reward now. When we decided to take a break in 1992, we didn't get the reward. We were pretty famous, touring and selling a lot of records. Now it feels like we're reaping our reward by hearing what people really think of the band. It's a pretty tough thing we do. Instead of going in and making a new record, we're going out on tour and just playing old songs. It's a bit of a risk, because we don't know what the audience thinks. We're doing it as well as we ever can. We've been in and rehearsing since November just to make sure we don't do a crappy show. We're going to be super tight and super good or we're not going to be on stage. And we do it, we play well and do good shows, if we didn't do that there would be no point in playing. We would just ruin our reputation from the 80s, because people say Candlemass is a good live band. So it would be stupid to go on stage and ruin that reputation. Now we do good concerts and get to hear what people think of us and our records from the 80s. They
It's fun to hear people say: I saw you play last week, it was like watching a concert with you from the 80s. It's absolutely incredible to be able to do something like that. Wacken Open Air Festival is a typical place where many bands have their reunion, they stand there in their underwear and socks, they may have rehearsed five times and sound like crap. We can't do that, that would be committing suicide with your own career.
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| The cover of the magazine |
You are actually one of the big sources of inspiration for stoner rock. Stoner rock started to get big after you split up.
— Yes, it's us and Kyuss. Many stoner bands are influenced by Kyuss, apparently. If you ask them, the influences are also Candlemass and 70s rock. In the early 90s, no one mentioned Candlemass as a source of inspiration. Now you hear it from everyone you meet. Even the guys in Rob Halford's band said we were great and that they listened to us when they were in high school. I met Layne Staley in Alice in Chains before he died who said: damn, guys I love "Gallows End". He was a fan of ours when he was in college or high school. It's absolutely fucking unbelievable to hear that from people. I don't give a damn when a person like Layne Staley says that. We didn't hear that kind of thing at the time we were playing. We actually heard it when we toured England from bands like Paradise Lost, Cathedral and My Dying Bride, but not from the really big bands. Did you know that Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters is a big fan of Candlemass. That's awesome.
The funny thing is when grunge came in the early 90s and the metal scene disappeared, the grunge bands didn't want to admit that they liked metal. It was only influences from punk that mattered. Now all the old grunge bands are coming forward and admitting that they like Candlemass, Kiss, Van Halen and every metal band you can think of. They don't even listen to punk.
— Dave Grohl called us about a year ago when he was working on his solo project. I don't know if the album has come out or not, but he wrote twelve heavy rock songs with 70s vibes. He also got all his favorite singers to come on and put their vocals on the album, like Lemmy, King Diamond, Cronos from Venom and he wanted Messiah to sing, but he couldn't get hold of him. Dave puts all the instruments on the record himself.
He probably just wants to do something that will make Zakk Wylde shut up.
— Well, it's at least nice to know that not all the "Soundtrack" bands are on the album like Anthrax, Megadeth, Type O Negative and Metallica.
Do you see this as a one-off thing or is it something you'll continue with after the festival gigs this summer?
— We don't know. We'll do about ten gigs this summer at the big festivals in Germany, Moscow, Switzerland and England. After the summer we'll have a band meeting and see if we want to continue. We've got a lot going on in South America and also in Japan, so there'll be more and more. People are really interested in us. We said we'd do a few gigs this summer, but the snowball just keeps getting bigger and bigger and it keeps rolling. So we really need to have a big meeting soon, and figure out what we really want to do. If we're going to tour, it won't be on a tour bus, it'll have to be a flight to the place, a good hotel, cable TV and lots of booze and they'll pick us up and drop us off at the festival. So we don't have to kill each other on a tour bus. If we don't kill each other this summer, maybe there'll be an album eventually, that is, if someone offers us a record deal. As it is, we don't have a record deal. We've been doing five or six interviews a week since November and touring all over Europe. So we've already done a lot of the groundwork and I can't imagine how much money that's worth. Let's say if we were to get a record deal at Wacken in August, it would be stupid if the record company didn't give us a really good deal, considering how much hard work we've already done.
The thing is, record company executives don't think like we do. They think like businessmen, meaning lots of money today and tomorrow. They don't think long-term and that's the problem. Why did you guys split up?
— It wasn't fun anymore. The main reason we got back together was to have as much fun as possible. If I'm not having fun when I'm playing, then I don't want to play anymore. I really wish more bands would think that way. I've seen so many unhappy artists over the years who hate touring and making records. We just want to have fun now. If we're not having fun, we're not playing. That's the key to everything.
I can see you enjoying this.
— I'm really having fun. I can only guess what the next record might sound like. If we get an offer to make a record, I'll try to sit down and write. I don't know if we could do what we did in the 80s. Then we have to remember that Messiah is going to sing so we can't sound like some goth band or nu-metal band.
You have to sound like Candlemass.
— Yes exactly, but I don't know what it is. It simply has to be damn good. Yesterday when we played, we had to play well. If we're going to make a record now, we have to be even better. Now I speak for myself. I don't want to make a record if I know that the record won't be really damn good.
You should sound like you do and not think about how others sound.
— It would be pathetic if we started doing industrial, alternative or NU-metal.
Candlemass is doing a Limp Bizkit?
— No, no, not a chance. I'm not exaggerating when I say that we need a whole wheelbarrow of money if we're going to make a new record. It's not that I'm greedy or anything, but if we're going to do it, it's going to be in a big studio. We have to prepare for about four months to be able to make a good record. It has to sound like a few million kronor. We can't make a record for fifty to a hundred thousand kronor. We have to be really prepared and make demos and record in good studios, and really take our time to make the record. If someone can't give us that kind of offer, we can't make the record.
Interview: Ritchie Adams
Text: Robin Engblad
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