More than four years ago, Candlebox frontman Kevin Martin announced he would be retiring, and it was a well-constructed plan: on the 30th anniversary of its quadruple-platinum debut album in 2023, the band released what was billed as a final album, “The Long Goodbye,” and embarked on a series of farewell tours through last year.
The final chapter had been written.
But when original guitarist Pete Klett filled in on some 2025 dates, Martin was inspired to write a sequel.
“Pete coming back to the band re-sparked my love for music,” Martin says in a phone interview. “We hadn’t played together or written together since 2010, then he left the band in 2015. I made three other records without him and I was kind of at my wit’s end musically. I didn’t feel like I’m where I want to be as an artist, as a creative, and I was pretty burned out from touring, and he came back and played some shows with us.”
Klett wanted to do more than fill in while then-guitarist Brian Quinn had to miss time for a wedding. “Pete was like, ‘Look, man, I’m really missing playing with you guys. Is there any chance you can kind of forgo this retirement for a bit?’”Martin recalls. “I was like, ‘Well, you know, let’s see what happens.’ And we started working and we jammed some dates last year, and I’m like, yeah, we can forgo that. Let’s make some moves. So that’s kind of really what happened.”
Martin, Klett and company have released a new song called “I Remember Everything” and are headlining an ambitious tour called “I Can’t Quit You,” with a stable of openers for various shows, including fellow ‘90s upstarts Sponge, The Verve Pipe and Sweet Water, young country rock band American Blonde and the literary-minded indie folk group Mountain Goats. Mountain Goats are an unlikely pairing, but a connection was forged when MGs released a song in July that references a fictitious tour with Candlebox.
Emerging from Seattle, at the time the center of the alternative rock universe, Candlebox was the first rock band signed to Maverick Records, the label run by Madonna. The self-titled first album spawned the hits “Far Behind” and “You,” and the group found itself on massive tours opening for Rush and Metallica. A second album, “Lucy,” represented a musical progression but a commercial retreat, a gold album that paled in comparison to the quadruple-platinum of the debut. More albums would come, but “Lucy” would be the last time Candlebox would reach gold status (500,000 units sold).
Ahead of the band’s shows with Sponge at Penn’s Peak in Jim Thorpe, PA, on Sunday and the Bowery Ballroom on Monday, Martin chatted about his “chemical and mathematical” partnership with Klett, the wild times of the band’s commercial peak, what he and his comrades learned from the members of Rush and why the music created by his generation is resonating with younger people, including his own son.
Music fans are familiar with the classic singer-guitarist dynamic, the Mick and Keith, push and pull, love-hate thing. What is your relationship with Pete like?
It’s push and pull. We’re the best of friends. We’ve known one another since we were 22. I didn’t know him before the band. We’ve been musician friends for 35 years. He’s an incredible talent, but he also needs me musically, and I need him musically, and I think that’s what we realize every time we get together writing, that it’s the kind of mathematical element that works in Candlebox that didn’t really work in our other projects. There’s something chemical and mathematical about our relationship and I’m just happy that it’s continuing on.
Does it feel different to be working together than it did in your 20s and 30s?
We are older. We’re a lot more mature and we understand one another a lot more. We understand ourselves a lot more. We understand what our musical abilities are. All of that stuff comes from growing up. But there’s also that moment where it’s exactly the same, where we connect on something instantly and it falls right into place.
Candlebox was the first rock band to sign to Maverick. They released your first album in 1993, and two years later they put out Alanis Morissette’s “Jagged Little Pill.” What was it like being thrust into that world?
I think we were all hanging on for dear life at one point. We’re out on tour with Metallica. We’ve got the number seven record in the country and we’re moving 150,000 units a week, and everybody’s looking at us like, “Who are these knuckleheads from Seattle and why are they on Maverick Records?” We were asked to do press for Woodstock in ’94, and no one in the press corps gave a shit because we were the band that nobody cared about. So I think we were all hanging on for dear life. What does this mean? Where are we headed? What is this career going to be for us if nobody in this mixed media world of television and film and writing and journalists and online or whatever it is, what does this all mean? And where do we go from here? We were just out of balance as human beings, and it was freaky. And then you get your first royalty check and you’re like, oh, let’s buy a Porsche. What?
Did you think it was strange when Candlebox was asked to tour with Rush on their Counterparts tour, and how did it work out?
I didn’t think it was strange because I always thought Candlebox was an arena rock band. I thought we wrote songs like “The Spirit of Radio.” I always felt that was kind of what we were like, we were a Journey or we were a Foreigner, you know? We wrote melodic rock songs and ballads. So I thought it was a perfect combination. And it ended up that it was because they had us out with them from January till April of ’94, and I think it established us as a band to maybe be reckoned with. And it’s also why we got the Metallica tour. We did stand there on stage and see nothing but middle fingers for the first, you know, 30 rows of the concert. Nobody really wanted to see Candlebox open for Rush. I think all the fans that were in the stands or in the way-back were fans of Candlebox who were buying tickets to see us at that show, and I think the guys in Rush realized that and they took great care of us and taught us a lot about how to treat other musicians and how to treat your career and respecting your art form and those types of things. I’m very grateful to Alex, Neil and Geddy for that because it really showed me what it means to be a touring artist and a touring musician and how to be human.
How did you find out about the song “Candlebox” by Mountain Goats? How did you react?
My manager sent it to me. And I was like, “I love Mountain Goats. Why? What is this song?” And she said, “Well, did they ever tour with you?” I said, “no,” I go, “This is just a super interesting thing for me. I’ve gotta reach out to them.” And so she contacted their manager and got me John Darnielle’s number and I texted him. I was like, “Hey, man, this is cool. I don’t know if you’d be interested, but we’d love to have you actually open some dates.” And he was like, “Yeah, right, this is the singer for Candlebox,” that whole thing, which I get a lot when I meet people. I’m a pretty basic dude and I wash my cars and I build shit around my house and I like meeting people.
So it was an interesting way that it fell into our laps, and he was like, “Well, this is really you. Yeah, we’d love to do those dates.” So they’re doing two shows with us and we’re very excited about that. I’ve loved that band for years. They’ve been one of my favorite artists. My music taste is incredibly eclectic and they’ve been in there for about 40 years or maybe 35 years, about the same time as Candlebox.
But it’s a very interesting mix of opening artists and we’re happy to have Sponge back. It’s gonna be cool.
Sponge was your tour opener in 1996 and you’re bringing them back out 30 years later. Had you stayed in touch with them over the years?
I’ve kept in touch with Vinnie [Dombroski] since that first tour, and we’ve done shows with him over the past 30 years. I’ve loved that band since their debut album. It’s really been a full-circle career for both bands, I think, Candlebox and Sponge, and it seems like a no-brainer. We actually asked Seven Mary Three to do some dates with us as well, but they’re in the studio making a record. Maybe next year we can do something with those guys.
There has been a resurgent interest in ‘90s culture, including music. Do you feel that’s a tide that’s helping lift bands like yourselves?
Oh, absolutely. That kind of sincerity and honesty of the ‘90s rock music is something that everybody’s looking for right now. There’s a real interest in that from a very young generation right now. My son, he’s 18, he’s headed to New York for school, and he listens to a lot of ‘90s rock and roll, but he’s also listening to Steely Dan and Christopher Cross and Foreigner and REO Speedwagon. So these kids are finding that the music of the past is a lot more sincere than the music of the present, and it’s because it’s not about me, it’s about us, it’s about them, it’s about the world. I think that that sincerity of ‘90s rock and roll is something that everyone’s gravitating towards right now. I think that if you had a movement like that right now, I think there’d be a great change in the world. I don’t think that’s going to happen, sadly.
So are you fully unretired or do you just have one toe dipped back in?
Half a foot in the water.
That’s pretty good.
I was done and then Pete came back and I was like, oh, this is fun. Let’s see how much longer we can go. I told him, until my voice gives out, you’ve got me. And I’m a bit of a vocal acrobat on stage, so I don’t know how much longer that’s going to be. It might be you got me for another three years, maybe for another five, I don’t know.
Photo by Carlos Novais
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