CANDLEMASS - Candlemass Bloody Candlemass Page 2
by Martin Popoff

Talk quickly shifts to the run-up to the Candlemass reunion album, an album so good, the band is getting all sorts of magazine cover features, including our own print mag Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles.

"In 1998 or 1999, I tried to elaborate a bit with the doom concept," laughs Edling, "and do other things with it, and I think Dactylis Glomerata was a bit experimental, and From The Thirteenth Sun, was very 1971 Black Sabbath doom, I guess. And those records were pretty low-key, as well; we didn't tour, we didn't promote them very much. So I think that was kind of a good thing that it didn't sound like traditional classic Candlemass. So, I mean, fortunately, how can I put it? The Candlemass people want to see is the version with Messiah and the other guys. And when we plugged in, we had this chemistry, this magic, that people recognize. What they expect from us. I mean, no records that I've done, have been planned or thought through or too produced. Things happen, and I think this record sounds like it sounds because we did so many gigs during the reunion period. So that experience and those fantastic magical shows we did, I think they kind of still lived inside me when I wrote the songs for this record. So I think there's a special aura or magic around this, and around this special lineup of the band."

Now lyrically, do you write differently when you know it's going to be Messiah up there bellowing away, versus anybody else?

"No, I don't. I write to please myself. I don't think lyrics are too important to me. I think the music is so much more important. But you don't want to write any just cheesy lyrics; I guess they are cheesy in a way, but I still try to please myself. They must not take long to write. I mean, the bulk of it, 90% I write over one evening, and then I add things here and there, just small things. But I tried to make them a bit interesting anyway. Copernicus is about the reality shows, and the Black Dwarf song is about the media today, the tabloids, the shit journalism, that is upon us even here in Sweden, which is quite frustrating. So small topics like that. Not overly blatant or obvious."

CANDLEMASS - Candlemass Bloody Candlemass Page 3