"That's been a while, at least five or six years," chuckled Candice Night of Blackmore's Night. "With "Winter Carols," we put one out originally and then there are so many amazing Christmas songs that we love that we didn't get a chance to put on so we recorded and put them out again and then a few years later we recorded again and put some more out (Laughs). So, that one has been out a bunch of times and I'm glad you brought that up because of course Winter is coming and so is Christmas time so it's always great to break out "Winter Carols" and listen to that one, especially over the next couple of months, there's lots of Christmas music to delve into. A lot of the songs are very, very old songs which of course is right up our alley so it's great to take some of those songs from the 1200s, 1300s, 1400s and moving all the way up and they fit right into the Blackmore's Night style of sound and our genre, whatever we've created is as far as our genre is but yeah, they fit perfectly at home so we love playing them, it's probably our favorite time of the year."
Blackmore's Night is composed of legendary guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and his spouse/partner/band mate Candice Night and they have a show scheduled for the Newton Theater on Saturday November 15 which will feature their material (Maybe even some things from "Winter Carols") as well as selections from Night's new solo record, "Sea Glass," her first release in a decade.
"I do, yes," she began excitedly as she first discussed her new album. "I really didn't realize this until an interviewer asked me the other day why it took me 10 years to come out with another solo album. I didn't realize a decade had gone by since the last time I had put out a solo release. I think time had just gotten away from me and I know it sounds insane that it was 10 years; it wasn't just a few minutes, it was 10 years but within that span of a decade, I basically was just keeping up being a working mom, although all moms are working moms whether you have a clock-in job or not; you're 24/7 with your kids and your family. So, my children have gone from toddlers who I was chasing around to teenagers who are towering over me and that definitely eats a lot of time just keeping up with everybody's schedule and making sure that everybody's happy and healthy. In 2018, I lost my dad and that was about a year's battle of helping him with cancer and watching what he went through which was horrible. Moving on after that, 2019, I was diagnosed with cancer and had to deal with that and then we went right into COVID time which ate about three years out of everybody's life. So, there were big chunks of time that were eaten out of that past decade but for a lot of that darkness and some of those poignant moments that I went through, my healing process has always been to write. So, whether it's to write in a journal; I love just going to the pages of a journal, pen to paper old school, none of this typing stuff and getting my emotions and my feelings out and it's a lot easier for me to do that. A book or a page will never judge you or even give you an opinion back; sometimes you need to just get things out as an outlet. A lot of those thoughts and ideas turned into songs and those songs wound up on "Sea Glass." So, out of that time period and all of those things that wound up happening, I did wind up getting some, what I consider very poignant songs in my life and it really helped me to heal. So, it was really a pleasure to be able to write those, it was very cathartic to get that out, all of my experiences and finally come up with the album and put it out for the world to hear and hopefully to help other people to heal as well."
Sea glass is formed by years of tumbling and being pushed around by ocean's tides and the constant pummeling against the sand, given the trials and tribulation she just described; is that what influenced the record's title?
"Perfect parallels to the human condition," she explained. "I've found and it took me a while; when I came out with that song, the title track to the album, it was during the dark days of COVID. The worst thing about COVID or one of the things is that we were all thrust into that dark period together. It wasn't like an area or a region, it was the whole entire world and we all lived through this darkness and fear and we were quarantined and the simple little things that brought us joy like hugging people or going to a concert and feeling that positive energy from a concert or going to a restaurant; as you know, we weren't allowed to do anything. We were all quarantined and locked in our homes, it was very solitary and so horrible for all of us. I had two children at that point and I was trying to restore some sort of normalcy to their lives and show them that life goes on outside of the screens because everything was through a screen. Seeing your friends, facetiming someone you love because you couldn't see them face to face, your schooling; everything was through a screen. So. I said, "We're gonna get off these screens, we're gonna go outside, we're gonna be safe staying six feet away from everybody but we're gonna walk the beach everyday." Luckily we have a beach near our home and the kids and I would go out there every single day and they could feel the ocean breeze through their hair and get some fresh air and the sunshine on their face and in the miles of beige sand one day, one of the children came up to me and said, "Look what I found, it's a gemstone!" it wound up being a piece of sea glass and we held it up to the sun and it illuminated and just shone with this brilliant emerald green and another was sapphire blue and amber gold and we were so excited. The joy on their faces to see these incredible treasures that are hidden throughout the beaches here and they are hard to find so you really have to look for them. It was one of those days during those long walks on the beach that I realized that the things I had gone through or was going through, as a human, we all get kind of shattered and scattered throughout our lives; if I could say we were only broken once in life, that would be a hard thing but still be a blessing because we all know we lose parents, we lose loved ones, we go through so many hardships in our lives and we break down, we do, we just break. We get tossed and tumbled through life as sea glass does with the ocean and we're returned to the same place we were as sea glass does to the land and we're different. We're changed but we're still somehow innately the same, deeply the same but our edges are softened and we become, hopefully these beautiful brilliant pieces that can be illuminated by the sun once again and we can find our joy, find those treasures within ourselves and just as those pieces of sea glass were bringing joy to my kids during that dark time; we can still find that joy within us too. Even though we're breaking, we have to do that healing and find that joy again. So, it really became sort of an epiphany where I was like, oh my God, this is more than just finding these little pieces of broken glass on the beach, it's really akin to what we go through as humans and it wound up as so much more of a deeper meaning when I had that "Ah hah" moment and it really kind of resonated with me. Then as I was going through and collecting the other songs and all of them are inspired by different things that have happened in my life over the last 10 years, they all wound up being their own piece of sea glass and wound up being my sea glass collection in musical form and in message form through text and obviously the lyrics to give to the world. So, yeah, this is my collection of sea glass to give to you."
"I did two versions of one song so I believe there are 11 songs on "Sea Glass," she continued. "Angel and Jezebel" has a double recording on there. One is a back porch version, that's the one I started with because we have this great back porch out here in my garden and every once in a while we invite our friends over and everybody grabs an acoustic guitar and we kind of pass the guitar around, sit under the stars and have a big bonfire and we get back to what I call the, "Old fashioned form of communication" which is talking (laughs), telling stories, finding out how your friend is and catching up with them; not texting or none of that stuff. I find nature is the great healer and the wind is going through the trees and we're so relaxed, it's just awesome. Music is obviously our medium of choice so we pass the guitar around and everybody gets to sing and play whether it's an original track or something they remember from a million years ago that we get to rediscover; such great memories and such great moments. So, I called "Angel and Jezebel" my back porch version when I wrote it because it's one of those songs that I thought would be a great one to just back there or play on a back porch somewhere and relax and tell a story. Then when I put all of the songs together to give to the record company, I thought, ah, there's a lot of kind of relaxing songs on here, maybe I need an edgy one or to rock one up a bit. So, I went back into the studio with my producer out here on Long Island and added some more edgy rock style drums and he added some electric guitar to it and we kind of rocked it up a bit. I thought it was gonna be a hidden track or a "B" track or maybe just for certain regions or something but that was the one they chose as the first release. So, that was released off the album before anything else so I guess they must've liked it and that's the rock version of "Angel and Jezebel." There is something so special about hearing a track in sort of its most skeletal form. I do that sometimes on the piano, that's how I come up with my, I guess they are demos I want to say but not really. I'm not proficient on any other instrument where I can just sit by myself and strum a guitar or anything. I have a great guitarist in the house so I tend to not learn guitar (Laughs). I mean, once you've got that in the house; what's the point really? (Laughs) Although, he happens to be an amazing guitar teacher for my daughter who is now 15 years old and the two of them can just sit and jam together and I'm like, are you kidding? This is the best family time and my son is playing drums so, I'm figuring one day we may turn into The Partridge Family and get one of them old buses and go from town to town (Laughs) but hearing it on that scale where it's just you and the instrument and the song in its rawest entity, there is some magic about how that comes out."
Night says that they no longer do large nationwide tours of length so this run, which kicks off November 9 in Virginia is only six shows long over the course of approximately three weeks. After the November 15 show at The Newton Theater, they have a show at The Queen in Wilmington, DE which is quite the intimate setting; something they relish.
"Normally and we've only done this a couple of times; we do handfuls of dates, it's not a whole tour of the United States. We just do a handful of like five or six dates one time and then five or six more like six months later and in this run of dates, we have our opening band, Wizards Consort but I think I'm gonna warm up the opening band. So, before they come out and do their thing or maybe they'll come out before I do my thing but I'm gonna come out with just my girls which is just me and my red haired, fiery haired violinist, "The Scarlet Fiddler" who is an incredible violin and fiddle player and her real name is Claire Smith Bermingham and my backing vocalist/rhythm guitarist Jessie Haines, my raven haired gypsy beauty; so just the three girls come on out. We scale it way down and again, bring it back to a very intimate sort of personal form of the song. So, you won't hear the big production, you'll just hear the three girls out there doing it. We'll do a couple tracks from "Sea Glass" but believe it or not, the girls have asked me to delve even further back and do some stuff off of "Reflections." They want to hear "Black Roses" and things like that. So, I don't know, I might switch it up. I was doing "Promise Me" and every once in a while, my kids will come to a show and they'll come up and sing their part which they did back in 2021 when their voices were super young and innocent; they sang on "Promise me" which is on "Sea Glass." We've brought up other children from the audience to do that part too. We performed "Angel and Jezebel" at my Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame induction out here and "Unsung Hero" is a real fun one to do. So, there is a mix but we'll definitely do songs off of Sea Glass for sure."
"Our shows are just like hanging out with a group of friends in our living room; actually, in our dungeon bar room basement. That's my husband's ultimate man cave our bar room basement with the torture devices on the wall; seriously, there is dungeon stuff down there. He wanted it to be like an English pub or a German pub and it's so dark down there but he loves it. We do Christmas parties every year and we all wind up downstairs in that bar room and everybody's singing along and having a great time and taking requests from the audience. So, I'm not gonna put it past us to think that may be the room we might be in; he'll be handing out beers to people, it's gonna be a good time (Laughs). The show in Virginia is already sold out from what I've heard and we've got a couple in upstate New York, one is Tarrytown and actually Ritchie and I were married in Tarrytown. So, this is gonna be a good run of dates and we're looking forward to it. We're also inviting our animal charities to these shows, I hear that in Tarrytown, one of the charities is bringing a cuddle station. Now that's gonna be tricky because I probably won't be able to tear myself away whether they set up in the parking lot or the lobby and we may have to change the venue to wherever I can be surrounded by puppy dogs or pussy cats or I'll just bring them all on stage (Laughs). My husband heard there was going to be a cuddle station and he thought it was something being set up for the keyboard player so he wanted his own cuddle station but I don't see that happening (Laughs)."
As is the case with most artists, Candice states that Blackmore's Night already has a plan with an eye to the future.
"We have about four or five songs already recorded for the next Blackmore's Night album. In the last two weeks we've written another three songs so, we're just kind of planning on when to get our producer Pat back in here into our home because we have our studio set up here and we'll fly him in from Florida. We usually do that in the Winter season when there's not a lot going on; it's not a touring season. We're gonna get that set all back up again and record a couple more songs and hope to have the new Blackmore's Night album out by the Summer of 2026."
To discover more about their current tour or Blackmore's Night, please visit https://www.blackmoresnight.com/tour
That's it for this week! Please continue to support live and original music and until next week....ROCK ON!
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