Candlebox’s Kevin Martin: ‘We’ve Had Great Times and God-Awful Times’

"People have their expectations and their vision of what Candlebox is," singer Kevin Martin tells Noisecreep. "For me, it's always been changing so 20 years went by so quickly. We've had great times and God-awful times."

Today is one of the good times. Love Stories & Other Musings, the Seattle band's first new album in four years, finally hits stores today. The record features nine new songs, plus five bonus tracks which are re-recordings of the band's biggest hits like "Far Behind" and "Cover Me."

"We had two directions we wanted to go," Martin explains of the re-recording process of "Far Behind." "Do we want to play it the way we usually play it, or do we want to play the new version? When we weigh and pros and cons of everything... when we did the original version, that was a demo that was done a year before we recorded our record for Maverick. We tried to reproduce the song in the studio for the first album. The label came back and said, 'We love the attempt but the original version from the demo is much better.' I think that was always in the back of our minds and it's probably been there for the past 20 years. That demo was, for some reason, magical. We wondered if we could go back in the studio now, have fun with it, better it."

While the band had fun tinkering with their old hits, Martin hopes fans will connect with the new songs as well. The first single from Love Stories & Other Musings is "Believe In It," a Candlebox song with a more upbeat tempo than most might expect. The tone came about organically, directly from Martin and his current place in life.

"My life has changed a lot since 2008. My son, Jasper, was born in 2008 and he's now four-years-old and the process of writing this record, I've watched him go through some enormous changes that are so exciting and it's taking me back to my childhood and my relationship with my dad. All those things – memories – come rushing in sometimes when you're writing songs. Even when I might not even realize what I'm writing or thinking. As I was writing, I don't think I even realized I was directing it toward Jasper and the things in his life and what he'll experience and what he has to experience and what he will take from me and how I was raised and my understanding of life."

So while Martin attests that he is "really happy," fans should rest easy knowing that Love Stories & Other Musings musically covers a lot of ground. Martin's wail is still in top form and the band's signature guitar crunch remains in tact.

Candlebox's Love Stories & Other Musings is available via AudioNest/Fontana/Universal. Candlebox will head out on tour starting Saturday, April 7 in Pensacola, Fla., eventually wrapping up in Detroit, Mich., on May 19.

Tour dates:

Sat, April 07 Pensacola, FL Cap'n Fun

Tue, April 10 Jacksonville, FL Mavericks

Wed, April 11 Atlanta, GA 37 Main

Fri, April 13 Charlotte, NC Fillmore

Sat, April 14 Myrtle Beach, SC House Of Blues

Tue, April 17 Charleston, SC Music Farm

Thu, April 19 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Culture Room

Fri, April 20 Tampa, FL Jannus Live

Sat, April 21 Orlando, FL Florida Music Festival

Tue, April 24 Winston-Salem, NC Ziggy's

Thu, April 26 Philadelphia, PA Chameleon Club

Fri, April 27 Allentown, PA Crocodile Rock

Sat, April 28 Nashua, NH Boston Billiard Club – Outdoors Festival

Mon, April 30 Washington, DC Fillmore

Thu, May 03 New York, NY Gramercy Theater

Sat, May 05 Asbury Park, NJ Stone Pony

Thu, May 10 Syracuse, NY Wescott Theater

Fri, May 11 Pittsburgh, PA Altar

Sat, May 12 Flint, MI Machine Shop

Wed, May 16 Cleveland, OH House of Blues

Fri, May 18 Ft. Wayne, IN Piere's

Sat, May 19 Detroit, MI Emerald Theater