Two Bands Tied Together

By: Emmy Boyce

Kevin: Oh! No, I haven't. I knew there was something last night. I'm so bad right now. I was just telling the guys, we went to have lunch a little bit ago, I'm on sonic fucking overload. Like, I can't even hear right now. Like, I can't... everything's great, but I'm like so...I've been in the studio for two weeks now. I'm forgetting everything. It's fucking crazy.

AA: It makes you numb?

K: Yeah, because you know, you get into a work mode and then all of a sudden you go, fuck, it's been two weeks and I haven't been outside. So, Butch Walker. I'm going to do that.

AA: I think you look like him, but maybe it's just me.

K: Cool.

AA: How long has the interim been since Candlebox diffused?

K: Seven years? May of...it was May or June of ninety-nine. So, seven years.

AA: For those who might not know, what have you been doing over that time?

K: Producing, writing, started a new band called the Hiwatts directed out of my own label called Tympanic Records, and toured through Europe...just trying to keep myself busy. I got married last year.

AA: Are a lot of the things you find yourself doing now - I don't want to use the word byproduct - but the path that your life is going to, are they things that you intended to do anyway?

K: In what sense, like, leaving the band and changing my life as I got older?

AA: Like, you're sitting there ten years ago saying, "If Candlebox ends some day, I want to do this."

K: No, I mean, to be perfectly honest with you I never thought Candlebox would end. That was my first mistake. You hope that things last forever. It just never happens that way. I think that when you find yourself sitting there a year after the band has broken up and everybody is asking what happened to Candlebox you kind of just go, "Um, we broke up and I don't know what I'm doing right now." I had never planned on being in the position I'm in. I never thought that I would be reuniting with my band to tour and start a new secondary life with them, and a second career with the band that I started in the 90's. It's quite a humbling experience. It's shocking at times. Life can throw you amazing curve balls, and you can only deal with them on your own terms. If it is that your band is over, your relationship ends, your marriage ends, or your husband dies, your wife dies, your father dies, your mother dies. It happens inevitably. It's accepting that it's inevitable, that things are going to change, and that's what I think made it easier for me to get back together with Candlebox. I thought that it would be forever, but when it ended I wasn't...I didn't think it was the end of the world. I think I had always kind of accepted that it wouldn't last forever, I just didn't realize it. I hope that makes sense.

AA: Did you ever in the past few years have this ache where you just needed that back; you needed to be back with Candlebox?

K: Not in the past few years. It actually just happened about a year ago. I was in the studio working on my new record - the Hiwatts record - and for some reason I was like, "You know, I think this song is a Candlebox song," and I went back and went through my whole collection of stuff I had. I skipped through, and I found myself as I was skipping through stopping and listening to songs. I ended up wasting two hours trying to do this vocal track on the song that I had written, and I just realized it had been so long since I listened to these records, and so long since I'd been on tour with the band, and I really missed it at that moment. You know, I realized we were a great rock and roll band and we had written really great, fucking songs. It was a real clear moment.

AA: So, you have gotten back together and Candleox is going on tour soon. As far as length of tour, how many cities, nation-wide, selected areas, what's the plan of attack?

K: We get to play 80 shows, four months, no break.

AA: Hitting?

K: Oh, everywhere. Minneapolis to New York to Toronto to the Midwest to the south, the southeast, all along the coast, all the way along the southern coast, into Texas...

AA: You don't have any Idaho dates, do you?

K: We're trying to do a Boise, Idaho, date September 28th, I think.

AA: Nobody lives there.

K: I know. It's weird, isn't it?

AA: Yeah, nobody lives in Idaho.

K: I know, it's strange. We'll do something maybe halfway through to Spokane, which is kind of Idaho.

AA: In the band's original days did you feel that musically you were miscategorized, or that you didn't fit with what was going on then?

K: Oh, totally. I mean, we were a blues-based rock band. That's exactly what we were. There was nothing in our songwriting style that was similar to Alice in Chains, or Sound Garden, or Pearl Jam, or Nirvana. At all. And also, everybody thought we were from Los Angeles. Reviews of our record or stories on the band were, "MOVED TO SEATTLE TO GET SIGNED". That was so bullshit. Pete, Bardi, and Scott were all born in Seattle. I moved there when I was 14 years old. That was in 1984, before Nirvana, and before Sound Garden, and before Alice in Chains. I was a 14-year-old kid. That's when I moved there. So, the category of what type of music we were, what type of band we were, and that we had moved there to get signed, that was the biggest misconception.

AA: Back in the day when Candelbox was in its original days I would talk to people about what music they like and they would name these grunge bands and then say, "And I like Candlebox." Not that you can't like a wide variety of things, but it was kind of like, even the people that were listening to it, were categorizing it with grunge. The same thing happens to me a lot because one of my favorite bands is Collective Soul, and people say all the time, "Aren't they a grunge band?" Actually, no, they're not.

K: It's the same thing. Blues-based rock band. Actually, more pop sensibility. Collective Soul, their pop sensibility in music far surpassed any band of their time that was doing anything in the early 90's with that song "Shine". The only thing that made it grungy was the guitar tone, that "den-ne-ne-ne-ne-n-ne-ne-n-ne-ne-ne, hey!" You know, it was like... maybe the way Ed was singing at the time because he wasn't the best singer then. He had a kind of Eddie Vedder type of sound, a bit of the Cherisms and Eddieisms, the rrrrrrrrr shit. But he wrote great pop songs and that was the difference between Collective Soul and Candlebox. Collective Soul pop songs that were just great. They have a strong fan base.

AA: Yeah, they do have a strong fan base. The music that Candlebox had then, do you feel it has a better fit now? If Candlebox was a new band now, do you think that things would go over differently?

K: Candlebox wouldn't be signed. No way. They are not signing bands like this one.

AA: As far as how the public feels about it?

K: No. It wouldn't have happened at all. We would probably be sitting in Seattle hoping that we were going to get signed and it wouldn't happen. Music right now is so bad. The industry is so bad, and there are so many fucking bands that aaaall are trying to sound like The White Stripes, or Black Sabbath, or... what's the big thing now that everybody's trying to do...well, the emo shit.

AA: We're O-Town, but we're in a "band".

K: Yeah. You know? I mean, it's really. it's shocking. Oh, we were doing this before Jimmy Eat World, or before that stuff, and now there's a bunch of new types of real soft emo stuff like Death Cab, and there's a bunch of bands coming out like that. Everybody's so bandwagon. We would never - I don't think - get looked at. The nice thing about us coming back is that we'll hopefully turn people's heads again to the bands that do play blues-based rock and roll. There's a good band out there called Dirty Sweet that I love. They're very Black Crowes, old Allman Brothers type of band, great southern rock, and I would love to see something happen because they're great song writers.

AA: There are certain elements to what I define or categorize as rock and roll, and one of those characteristics is blues. Once you take the blues out of it, I don't care how many tattoos you have, or how many piercings you have, or how black your nail polish is - you're not rock and roll. I might be very opinionated but...

K: Yeah, and then you've got your metal and nu metal, or rap rock, and it's really not rock and roll because rock and roll is flat out blues-based. Everything about it is blues-based. That's what rock and roll is.

AA: I think that blues is calling out a lot of the prevalent bands right now as to what is rock & roll and what's not. I just go around every day saying, "Well, it's not rock and roll." What do you think of The Darkness?

K: I love The Darkness.

AA: I love The Darkness, too.

K: I fucking love it. I love that last record, too. "One Way Ticket to Hell...and Back". I love that fucking record!

AA: The best song is "Knockers".

K: Oh, my god. "I love what you've done with your haaaaaiiirrr!" I laughed so hard. My wife was like, "What are you laughing about?" I go, "I fucking love this." It takes real balls to fucking write that song and be serious about it, and hope that people fucking dig it. I love that record. I listen to it at least once or twice a week.

AA: As do I.

K: They're great. Cheers.

AA: That wasn't even a question. I just had to ask all of a sudden. You started to touch on this. What is your biggest lament about the music industry? What makes you fume, what makes you sad?

K: Well, the worst thing, the thing that bothers me the most is the labels have lost sight. And this has been going on for about the past 10 years, maybe for the past 15 years. The labels have lost sight of the value of the artist. Anytime you run a business based on capitalism at the expense of your employee, whether it's Microsoft and the people that design their software, or it's Warner Bros and the bands that are signed to the label that basically pay the fucking salaries of the people who work there, when you lose sight of that and the reason that you got into it, it's a downward spiral from there. And that's why the business is where it is, and that's why fans download music. Labels still charge bands new media technology fees, so we're still paying for the CD as though it's new media technology. This is a device that's been around since 1983...84? And you still pay five per cent of your money - of your royalties - five per cent of what you earn goes back to new media technology. That's the first mistake. CD's don't cost but 30 cents to produce with a 4-color, 12-page jacket. Why are you fucking wholesaling these things for eleven dollars? You don't have to. You can wholesale the CD for five bucks and the kids pay ten dollars for it, and they'll continue to buy them for ten dollars just like vinyl was. It's cheaper to develop than vinyl, but they've become so greedy, and they pay so much fucking money. You've got a president out on the east coast that's ten million dollars, and a president on the west coast - of the same company - that's ten million dollars. Why do you need 2 fucking presidents to run one company? I mean, in the day and age of computers, and video conferencing, and whatever, you don't need a president on both coasts. So, how are you going to cover a twenty million dollar note? You've got to have a bunch of bands, and you've got to get greedy, you've got to wholesale that CD for eleven-ninety-nine, which means you're going to pay nineteen bucks. Of course the kids are going to fuck the CD, and by rights they should. If it's there, if there's a way to share that music via computer...I used to make tapes for my friends of my favorite bands.

AA: When people do things like making copies of CD's, or file sharing, or whatever it is that they're doing to not have to pay for it, is it taking more royalties out of the artist's pocket, or is it keeping the labels more from making a profit?

K: It's the label making a profit. As an artist you only make 15 points, which is essentially 15 per cent of wholesale. Wholesale cost on a CD is ten dollars, maybe ten-ninety-nine, eleven-ninety-nine. You're essentially earning a dollar sixty-three, but you're paying back that investment at an 85 per cent interest rate because it's out of a hundred per cent, you're making 15, you have to recoup all the money spent before you make that dollar fifty-six. And out of a dollar fifty-six your taxes are 38 per cent, you've got 20 per cent goes to your management, so for the band you're splitting 83 cents, maybe 80 cents. There's four guys, that's 20 cents a piece. So, now the record's $200,000, but they probably spent $2 million to start a new record which means you still haven't seen a fucking penny. So, bands tour. And we tour, and tour, and tour, and tour because we'll make $150,000 each by touring a year. Fuck the record sales because the kids are coming to our shows, they're buying our merchandise, they're buying our shit at the show. So, bands can get...you can get as pissed off as you want about somebody downloading your shit. Go ahead and download mine. I don't care. I'll put it up there for you. It's the labels that have the fucking problem. Metallica made the mistake at attacking Napster because they felt that it was taking money out of their pocket. Instead of embracing it as a new way for them to reach new audiences and sell millions of more albums, more concert tickets, they alienated their fans. Their last record was shit. Who knows what could have happened. It's unfortunate because all we have is the hopes that somebody is going to sell our fucking record for us. If there's a kid that shared it with somebody else who's like, "Fuck, I've got to go buy this. I want to see the artwork," that's great. You get a million downloads of your record, you didn't sell many records, but then you go on the road and every show you play is sold out. Two thousand seats at 20 bucks a ticket, that's forty grand. You walk away with twenty thousand dollars a night. That's more than you make off of a CD. It's unfortunate that it's where it's at, but there's nothing as an artist you can do about it. It's really hurting the labels, and it's the labels' fault. They could have protected this; they could have protected themselves from this. A lot. Now, the Recording Industry Association of America, the only reason they're going after everybody is because it's taking money out of their pockets - which is supposed to be non-profit.

AA: Funny that. Back to Candlebox, along with the reunion can we expect new Candlebox music?

K: Yeah, we're doing a record this fall.

AA: Are you going to have any Kevin Martin and the Hiwatts tunes in the mix when you're on tour?

Alternative Addiction: So, tell me, how many porn stars do you know?

Wally: [big laugh] I know none! I had a run-in with one one night, and she rubbed a poster on her crotch and gave it to me. And that's about how it went.

AA: Did you get a name?

W: Aahh, Tara Hart. Yeah, yeah. Her name was Tara. Tara Hart. She was big in the 90's.

AA: And big in the chest?

W: And great in the chest.

AA: So, you just finished recording an album with Kevin Martin of Candlebox.

W: Yes.

AA: How do you feel about that?

W: I feel really good about it. I think that he really brought out some of the bright spots in the writing because realistically, putting this album together, aside from the 4-song demo that's on myspace, we only took a week to really write it. I mean, they're all songs that I've had written for a while now, but I decided to slowly but surely bring them out to everybody. Well, we only had a week's time to really do it, so it was kind of a brain scramble and everything. With him getting in here for literally only, like, three days of pre-production he managed to dig into every song and say, "That's cool. That's not. That's awesome. Let's bring this up. How can we emphasize this part? How can we make this shine a little better? What can you do in your voice to make this part be brought out better? How can we phrase with different words, different lyrics?" You know? Changing up guitar lines to give everything a little more punch. We have a habit of writing a little...sometimes it can sound a little dated within our sound. He made us dig into each part and try to bring out what would be the best now, what would be the best representation of SKYWYND now.

AA: You've recorded albums before this one, but as far as taking direction from someone in the position of producer, was it different working with Kevin?

W: Yeah, it was different, but it wasn't as...It was brain draining for sure, but it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. I expected all of us to get completely mauled over. I'll be honest. I was a little leery at first about having him coming in and stuff. I've always listened to his band. I love Candlebox. I grew up listening to them. When my truck broke down and I had my CD player stolen out of it, I had my tape deck. The only tape I had available to play was the first Candlebox record, so I knew that thing backwards and forward. So, it's cool to have him, a guy who I listened to, who's sold millions of records, be on the talk-back in the studio telling me, "No, no, no. Dude, you have to try it like this," and have him sing it back to me, that's one of the coolest feelings ever. It was still challenging, but it was fun. He kept the element of fun in it. Nobody got pissed off. Nobody got frustrated. We all stayed very open-minded, and he stayed open-minded with us. He was totally the sixth member of the band. It was great.

AA: It felt more like he was working with you than trying to change you.

W: Yeah! There was no element of change at all. It was just bringing it out to make it better.

AA: As, in my opinion, is the role of a producer.

W: I agree. Totally.

AA: Just album to album, on the frustration level compared to recording your previous albums, how does this one rate?

W: This one had the least amount of frustration in it. "O2" we had too many chefs in the kitchen, and too many people trying to tweak their tones, or make their statement on their instrument when realistically they weren't even being concerned about the song. Writing it was completely relaxed, this time, even though it was really intense - we had to go really quick - there was no fighting. There was no irritation whatsoever on "how do we know if that's the right part". There was no second-guessing. Just get in there and do it. Go with your first instinct. Go with how you feel. Like, "O2", it was like pulling teeth to make that record. That's why it took us so long. It took us almost a year to get the thing done. It was ridiculous. And the money and the hours and the studio time that we spent, it was stupid. The songs weren't even up to par on what we have right now. "Escape Plan" was a pain in the ass because we had to fire our producer half way through it and go with another guy because he was also acting as the engineer, too, and was pretty much making the kind of album that we didn't want to make - really super dry, almost kind of "Saint Anger"-ish. That's not the kind of album this band requires. We're spatial and atmospheric and stuff, and this guy wanted to make something very dry and very punchy. The whole "Escape Plan" record has a big shadow over it. I think you can kind of hear it in the tracks.

AA: Working on this album, the fact that it was different for you, would you say has a lot to do with the changes in line-up your band has seen over the last year?

W: Huge...huge. No disrespect to any of the past players. I think a lot of it was just trying to find the right combination. It's like when our first drummer was exited from the group a big weight was lifted off our shoulders, and then we brought in a guy who could really stomp. And then, after the "Escape Plan" record, our old keyboard player, Michael, had split duties with me as far as running the ship. While he wanted to emphasize only on the business side of things, and me on the creative side, still being an artist [he] wanted to have a say in the creative side and hold the business. It got to be too much for him where when he wanted to try to make a statement with his writing and everything, it just wasn't fitting with what we were doing; what we were trying to put together in here. So, there's a song or two on "Escape Plan" that just sound completely different from the rest of the record. No disrespect to Mike, or anything. That's his writing, that's his style. It just wasn't right for the band. And I think he knew that when he left; that it just wasn't meant to happen. So when we did this record there was maybe one song that we all put together as a group and the rest of it was just stuff that I pretty much came down with over the past year-and-a-half. Some of this stuff was even around during the "Escape Plan" record. I just couldn't show it to anybody, or it just wasn't right to put it on that record. It just wasn't the right time.

AA: Do you consider yourself to be more a singer, or a frontman?

W: Definitely a singer. I'm a better singer than I am a frontman. I'm a goon onstage, I'll admit it. I've never...it's that, you know, everybody's got a little bit of ego and they bring it onstage. You know, I'm just up there trying to have fun. I'm not really going to go out there and try to wave my wiener in front of the crowd. I'm not interested in that. I'm not interested in being punk rock in front of everybody, and flipping off the audience, and stuff like that. I'm there to give them the best musical show they can possibly get. If I can throw a little entertainment value in there, I'm not going to drop trou [trouser], or anything, but I'm going to go up there and have fun, and still try to get everybody into it and get them all singing along because, ultimately, that's what it's all about.

AA: What makes SKYWYND rock stars?

W: I think just our ability to stomp onstage. I don't think there's too many bands who can be as tight as we are onstage. I mean, we've just proven it at 1st Avenue. We'd gone a couple of months without rehearsing and we went up there and just put our balls to the wall. It was like for the most part we didn't miss a beat. There was a couple little sniffles here and there, but otherwise the rest of the set was practically flawless. We've just been doing it forever, and I think that we can wave that up there if anything. Off the stage we just like to hang out and have fun with everybody and be cool, but I think it's the whole stage persona where we're not fucking around up on stage. Let's talk about you, Emmy.

AA: What do you want to know, Wally? Is your beer still warm, or is it gone?

W: It's there. It's warm.

AA: You talk too much. What do you think of The Darkness?

W: Well, let's put it this way: I thought of the Darkness. I thought of the Darkness, so now I don't have to think about it anymore.

AA: So, exactly how many chests have you autographed?

W: [laughs] Honestly. I personally haven't done a whole lot. I did a few the other night, I'll be honest. Until we actually start getting out on the road more and stuff like that I'll let you know what the tally is after that. We'll see what happens after this summer.

AA: In comparison to a lot of what you typically hear on your "rock" format stations there are differences that I hear in SKYWYND. Like, sure, a lot of bands are electronic, but I wouldn't consider SKYWYND to be electronic. I do consider them. There's a synthesized element, but not to the point of somebody like Radiohead.

W: Right.

AA: That's one difference. You put SKYWYND up against Audioslave, and it's obvious the synthetic difference to your ears. But at the same time, you put SKYWYND up against seventy-five per cent or more of the bands that are getting regular air time and SKYWNYD is one of the few where the guitarist is actually...playing the guitar. Brian Adams is not afraid to step up like old-school and say, "I'm a fucking rock guitarist, and I'm gonna play a god damned solo."

W: He plays like a man. He knows when to throw it out there. Like, throw out a mean solo versus when to be more of a texture. It's not just about playing power chords, or using distortion 24/7, or something like that. This guy takes his shit very serious. We can have some of our heaviest songs and there's this real ambient texture in it and you'll think it's keyboard, but it's actually Brian; it's actually guitars. And vice versa on the keyboards, too. It's like the thing that I really dig about this record is we stray more away from the keyboard kind of tone like you hear on the average industrial record, Ministry record, or Stabbing Westward, or that kind of stuff. We went with more of an earthier tone for all the songs. We tried to incorporate real piano, Rhodes organs and stuff. You know, stuff that when you're listening to it, the mix sounds so thick and so full that you're sitting there going, "My god. What is that noise in there?" But it just sounds like something that you can't identify it. You can't go, "Oh, that's keyboard." You know, it may sound like some kind of real weird woodwind instrument or something. We just try to make the mix as thick and as full as possible, and we capitalize on the fact that we've always had a large sound. We really know how to cover the sound and spectrum, but we just knew how to do it right this time, knowing where to place certain instruments and how to make it bigger and better.

AA: Not only did Kevin Martin produce your album, but you're heading out on the road. You're kicking off the Candlebox reunion tour with Candlebox. How excited are you?

W: I'm really excited. Like I said, it's a band I've grown up listening to and stuff, and to be able to share the same stage with them is completely an honor. I'm amazed by what strings Kevin has pulled to get us included. I think at first, before he started producing the record, it was pretty much a strict business relationship. Yeah, his name was going to be on the CD, yeah, he was going to produce some songs, and that's cool, he liked the demo, and that was about it. There were no expectations like this being thought of or brought up. I think that, just from my perspective, he found a place in the music, and he found something about it in every song on the record, he really felt a part of it, like, he really felt like, "Shit, this stuff needs to get out." At least to me, that's my interpretation of it. He's now giving us a chance to play in front of a large audience every night of the summer, or a good portion of the summer, and expose this new record to them. Before the album even comes out, we don't even have a deal yet, and for him to want to us to jump on the road and jump onto that tour and be a part of it...he's a very generous individual. Let's just put it that way. That's really super cool.

AA: what else do you have going on tour-wise besides Candlebox?

W: Within the process of that touring as well, on their off dates, we'll be on tour with a band called Cinder and one called Revery. So, we'll be actually following almost the same routing as that tour. When we're in Cincinnati one night, well, the next night's an off night for Candlebox who'll be in Columbus, Ohio, playing a show. So, it's 14 days right now. We're working on more, seeing what's going on. Anything can happen, you know, considering they're one of the big players out there. We can get a major label to want us to buy into their tour in some way, shape, or form with one of their bands. Disturbed, or something. [laughs] Something that doesn't make sense. Throw a wrench in the whole thing. Thus far it looks pretty good.

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