Candlebox’s “Disappearing in Airports” is a completely different album for the iconic rock group. It’s the shortest time that the band has ever taken to record an album and that’s mainly due to the new lineup. Other than frontman Kevin Martin, there’s an entirely new lineup for the group. Bardi Martin left a few years ago. Pete Klett – the only member of the band that had been in the group the whole time along with Kevin – left before the new album was written to focus on Lotus Crush. He took drummer Scott Mercado with him. So that leaves Martin surrounded by a new set of guys, even though he does have prior relationships with a couple of them. The Candlebox lineup is now Martin, Dave Krusen, Adam Kury, Mike Leslie, and Brian Quinn. Talking with Kevin Martin about the new album, the first thing we said to the frontman is the noticeably different vibe that the new album gives off. “That has a lot to do with the two new guys in the band that brought some great energy,” said Martin. “We tried to collaborate as much as possible. We had four songs going in that were in solid, working order. The rest of them were in bits and pieces that we pieced together in the studio. That has a lot to do with the energy of the album and the consistency and the cohesiveness of the songs. Working as five members was key to the outcome. With old Candlebox stuff it was usually just Pete and I – we’d go in and say these are the songs and these are the parts. In that situation you had the feeling where not everybody felt like they were a part things. That has a lot to do with how the record sounds the way it does. I wanted to grow, I wanted to find some new people for our audience. That’s why we made things a little more contemporary than what people expect of us too.” The transition wasn’t hard for Kevin to go through. You’d think that having two all-new members of a band, and basically four new guys total, that would be a rough thing to get through. But Martin moved from place to place all throughout his childhood and he’s constantly had to adapt to change. He enjoyed the change in the process of making a record for “Disappearing in Airports”. “Pete is such a perfectionist,” started Martin when asked about the difference between Klett and his new guitarists. “A lot of times a song that would take 30 minutes to write would take a couple of days because he’s all about the musical element instead of the melodic element of a song. That was something that I had to wrap my head around when he decided to go out and do Lotus Crush and be more focused on that side of his life. It was just different not having someone there to do a lot of questioning. I like to do simplistic writing. I grew up on punk rock, which isn’t confusing, it’s visceral. That’s what I like. Not having him in the studio was different. I love him to death and I miss him, but I didn’t miss him working on this album. I was happy not having to go over things time and time again. That’s not to say Pete’s a pain, it’s just the way he works. I still think he’s one of the best guitarists to come out of the 90s.” A new lineup made for a new process, which in turn, made for a new type of album from Candlebox and it’s something that Martin enjoyed. “12 songs in 4 days on drums and bass,” said Martin while laughing. “That hasn’t happened to us in twenty years. With this, we didn’t want to overthink it. When you do that, songs make themselves available to you. When you’re on the same page and all cylinders are firing – you can really get in there and knock something out. We’d like to do it this way again.” You can catch Candlebox out on the road right now. Tour dates are available at Candleboxrocks.com. The new album, “Disappearing in Airports” is available on April 22nd. aa