Candice Night "Sea Glass"

"Welcome back to The Rock and Blues Experience — where legends live, and the music never dies.

On this special edition, we mark a powerful milestone.

Candice Night — ethereal voice of Blackmore’s Night — joins us to celebrate the release of her stunning third solo album, Sea Glass which is out now and available from all the usual outlets https://amzn.to/4mn6mI5 .

It’s been 30 years since Candice first stepped into the spotlight with Rainbow in 1995, lending her voice and pen to the iconic album Stranger in Us All. That moment sparked a journey that would reshape Renaissance-inspired rock for generations.

Together with the legendary Ritchie Blackmore, she formed Blackmore’s Night — a band that continues to enchant audiences around the world.

Today, Candice speaks to us from her home in Long Island — reflecting on the past, unveiling her new work, and looking boldly toward the future.

So join us for a celebration of artistry, legacy, and evolution you can either watch the feature

or read the editorial here.

And so the story begins over 3 decades ago when Richie was recording "Stranger In Us All"

and was about to fly in a lyric writer.

Stay with us… the experience begins now."

Tim Caple (00:00.102)

So, we are now three decades on from your recorded debut. I don't know whether you realize this. Sometimes it doesn't quite compute, but your debut on Rainbow’s “Stranger In Us All “where you wrote four of the songs, you sang on Ariel, you sang on Black Masquerade, you sang on Wolf To The Moon and Hall Of The Mountain King. Did you think at that time that...

This is going to be the beginning of what has been a very fruitful and successful career.

Candice (00:39.006)

No, and anything that I ever think about planning to happen like that never does. And then the things that I think I'm never, ever going to do, somehow life makes me take a left turn and wind up right in the lap of whatever that thing is that I have here or it's such life lessons. When I was in university,I pushed off taking, speech training, public speaking until the very, very last courses, because I was terrified to talk.

in front of people, in front of large groups of people. life says front and center stage for you. So you can learn your lesson. No, I never would have thought that. And again, time goes so fast when you say 30 years, it's it's mind boggling how quickly you blink and decades just, just go by so, so quickly. But I remember those days like they were yesterday. And honestly,

Candice (01:35.278)

Like everything in my life with Richie, everything has been this very natural evolution. So I honestly, at that point, just thought I was helping out my, well, husband-to-be, boyfriend, I guess, at the time, whatever we were, a divine definition. But when he had called me up and saw that I was a closet poet with my journals and my poetry books and always kept them locked in a closet so no one could see them or read them.

and he knew that I would be singing around the house or around the hotel room when he was traveling. And so when he was having a hard time coming up with lyrics or the band was having a hard time, and Richie called me and I was at home, our home, and he said, I'm going to fly in a professional lyric writer tomorrow. We're getting the plane ticket now, unless you can come up with something for this backing track. And back in the days, we didn't have cell phones, so we would play

the tape recorder over the phone and I listened to it. And I took the ferry up to see them in Massachusetts where they were staying. And it was an hour and 15 minutes on the ferry. And in that time with the sunshine on your face on the top deck on the ferry and the wind in your hair and listening, just hearing that the music for an hour and 15 minutes just came up with 14 verses and drove on to the other side after getting off the ferry. And I said, all right, well, on my notebook, here's what I came up with guys.

And the producer took my notebook and circled the four that he liked the best and the other two he put pieced together as the chorus and said, cancel the plane ticket for the other lyric writer. We've got it.

Tim Caple (03:13.125)

Brilliant. And since then, 11 studio albums with Blackmores Night, three live, six compilations, 11 singles, 14 videos, and now three solo albums, plus guest appearances for other people and raising a family, multiple global tours. There's rarely been a time when you haven't been producing something musically.

Candice (03:39.406)

no, I like that you just added musically at the end of that too, because when you said producing something, I was thinking dinner as well, but very important in my household, obviously, keep everybody going. But, no, I've always got something going on, always got something going on. Even, I almost can't stand to just have the quiet or the silence. As much as you need the silence, you need the silence to create.

Candice (04:09.612)

You know, so when there's so much happening and so much going on and so much melee and bedlam and chaos because of the household with what's going on here. You know, it's those quiet moments that I take in my car from the five minute vacation trip from here to the drugstore where I'm picking up, you know, local sundries or something. And then then coming back and say, for five minutes, then my brain just kind of relaxes. And then lyrics start to come in and.

Yeah, so even in those quiet moments, it's always happening. There's always some sort of creativity going, which is great. I feel blessed because of that. mean, the fact that I can create music and create music that certain people, they don't just listen to, they feel so deeply and they really relate to, and it moves them and has done for, as you said, 30 years, where people have written to me that they've used our music not only to

get married to in birthing rooms. Doctors use it when they're doing heart surgeries. the most, someone contacted me the other day that they have an animal charity and they rescue dogs that have been used, fight dogs. And the only way that they could get their dog and transport the dog in a car from place to place is to play the lullaby album that I had put out. And that relaxes the dog.

completely. it just like sits down in the back seat. It's, it's incredible. The magic that music has and the connection that you can have to people through music. think people know me better through music than, than probably people that I've, I've met face to face because it's me on different levels, very vulnerable levels. And that's how you, that's, you have to go into those deep dark parts to, you know, to bring them to the sunshine and illuminate them in order to create and bring them to the world.

Candice (06:06.996)

And it's very vulnerable, but so worth it.

Tim Caple (06:11.087)

So, Sea Glass, the third solo album. Now, each of the previous albums have been very different. Reflections, Starlight, Starbright and Sea Glass. What were you looking to create as a solo artist that differs from what you do with Black Moor's Night?

Candice (06:32.078)

The process is completely different with Blackmore's Night. When we're working on those songs, Richie will come up with the melody line first on acoustic guitar. And I'll be pottering around the house doing what I need to do to keep everything going, laundry or whatever, helping with homework. And he'll call me in and he'll say, you know, I've got this idea for a top line. Can you sing it?

And that's how the process starts. So I'll hum the top line and then I'll take the idea of the music and go away someplace, maybe go outside and do some gardening and see what pictures the melody line paints in my head and then try to translate that into lyrical content and what becomes a song later on. But when I'm doing my own, everything comes out at the same time. So I could be walking along the beach or doing anything and going through the woods or

you know, trying to just take time out and a song idea will come and the melody and the words all come flooding out at one time. So the process is very different. But I also found that, you know, of course when we're doing Blackmore's Night, I know other people have said before, well, Richie had nothing to do with any of these songs. And I said, no, because then it would be a Blackmore's Night song. It wouldn't be a Candice Night song. mean, he's always in the other room if I needed his help as I asked him to play.

guitar on two tracks because I am not proficient really as much on any instrument. But when you want that rolling, amazing, incredible guitar, the acoustic guitar that only Richie can do, and he can make a song like Seaglass sound like the ocean waves are rising and falling. It's just by playing that guitar, I have to come in and say, honey, can I bother you for a second? Come into the other room and sure enough. So it's always nice to have him there.

But he is very much the captain of his boat. And when he comes into a studio for BlackMores Night, he knows how he wants the songs to sound. And if they're not sounding that way, he'll take pieces and parts out and put other pieces and parts in. it comes out exactly how he wants it to sound. And I do my bit where I write the lyrics and I sing and do the backing vocals and play nine medieval instruments. But he steers those songs where he wants them to go.

Candice (08:52.11)

These songs, I don't think, it's really up to him also what songs go on the Black Mores Night album. He's very interested in where the Renaissance flair is and the medieval, and so he has very strong ideas and songs go where. So I kind of just sit back and watch the genius at work. mean, it's really incredible how his process is and how I've learned so much from him just by.

sitting and watching him. And when he asks for my participation, I'm there to say, yes, maybe this or maybe that, and we work together. But other than that, I'm sort of the co-pilot in his journey. So when it comes to my songs, I'm very aware that they're songs that are from my heart. And...

If I waited for them to be chosen for a Black Moor's Night album, it might take years and years for that to happen. So since we've had basically a lull since Black Mores Night last album, since 2021 when we did Nature's Light, we put out a couple of anniversary editions, which are always fun to do, remixing, remastering, new vocals on certain things. But...

We're four songs in on the next album. So I thought, you know, it's been 10 years since my last solo album. And although Richie loves songs like Promise Me, he would have loved to put Promise Me on the next Blackmore's Night album. I said, well, I don't really want to wait that much longer to put this one out. So if he does choose to do that or redo it on our new album, I'm sure it will be in Richie's style, which is fine, because it's, you know, he...

He interprets things in such a different and interesting way, but I'm glad I was able to put out the songs the way that I've heard them, the way that I've felt them in their own form before anybody else has pulled any puppet strings and changed them to their own vision.

Tim Caple (10:48.365)

It's interesting. You've said in the past that depending on the time of the day, your emotions are completely different. So what is your favorite time of the day to create?

Candice (11:05.547)

Yeah, that's hard. Well, you know, I heard once that there was an old philosophy that said that when you're out there in the daytime and you see the sky, the sky is a false boundary. The blue of the sky is like a false ceiling. And at night when you go out, it's limitless. are at one with the skies and the universe and the stars and the planets and your creativity just

grows immensely. And I do find that to be true. I find that I'm very creative at night, watching the phases of the moon or just being outside in the night sky. There's something so incredibly mystical about that, just being enveloped in this cloak of darkness and feeling like you have no boundaries. So...

I would say anytime, anytime after I put the children to sleep, which from 11 o'clock on, because they never, they're night owls, they have musicians hours, unfortunately, and school, which doesn't work out at this point. But, but I just feel like the night is so freeing. It's so silent. It allows you to get in touch with your own inner spectrum, your own being. And

It's calming, it's peaceful, but it's also invigorating being able to just be out there and be part of something so much bigger than you. So I always find, you know, and it's not like early night, it's got to be deep within it. It's about two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning where I feel that.

Tim Caple (12:46.775)

it takes something to do that as well, to keep your mind fresh, because you described your average day as up at 6.30, school run, then the pick up the homework, the cooking, more collection and delivery of children from play dates, clubs, classes, then putting them to bed. And then after all, after doing all of that, it's like, I'm now going to go and sit, you know, from nine until one, two o'clock in the morning and create something. fatigue doesn't affect you.

Candice (13:13.782)

Yeah, that's right.

I'm very much fueled on coffee. And if we could get an IV drip of that, I would be incredibly happy. And I'm going to make a little correction. I'm up at 5.30 in the morning because my daughter is now in high school. So I get even less sleep. And my son goes the hour after that at 6.30. So that's all sorts of fun for us in the morning. Yeah. And then I spend my hours at night up with Richie.

And we are up until two or three o'clock in the morning. So my plan is as I do, you know, I do go to bed about 3 a.m. And then I try to sleep for those two hours. But of course, as you know, as a woman, my brain is constantly ticking, ticking, ticking. So I probably clock about maybe one hour of light sleep there. But I do plan on when my children go to university just to sleep for about three years. Right. Don't call me.

Don't call me, lock on my door. I'm shutting my ringer for three whole years. I hear that's not going to happen because the bigger the kid, the bigger the problems. I hope that's not true. I hope that's not true, but it would be nice to clock some sleep at some point. You just keep going. I always find that it's incredible what you can accomplish when no isn't an option. And really in my world trying to...

keep up with everything and knowing that I'm such an important cog in the clockwork of what happens here. You know, I often say to Richie, I'm like, you know, it's an interesting position to be in because no one would thank their hand. And yet if you didn't have your hand, you would surely miss it because you know how much you need that hand in order to do everything. But no one gives the hand credit. I'm sort of the hand in everyone's relationship here.

They just kind of know that I'm here. I'm supportive. I'm taking care of everything and and it's hard and that's that's one of the reasons when I recognize that in so many other People that are going that working moms and I say working moms because all moms are working moms We're really 24-7. Yeah, we're doing it all all the time No matter what age your child is always doing it for the household and your family

Candice (15:32.206)

But that's why when I wrote Unsung Hero, I wrote it for my mom because I got off the phone with her at two o'clock in the morning and she's another one up all night. We used to say we just change her batteries once a month and she just keeps going like the Energizer bunny. But dealing with people overseas, then she calls Australia, then she's all over the place doing business and running a worldwide corporation. And I hung up with her and I wrote this song so quickly, like instantaneously.

And then later on, when I was in the studio listening to it, I started recognizing part of myself in the song. And the more I heard it, the more I recognized a lot of myself in the song. And it became sort of like a self-portrait. And then as I played it for other people, like my backing vocalist or my violinist, they thought exactly the same thing. They were all going through the same thing. And it's a hard job. It's the most challenging job in the world, but it's also the most rewarding.

Candice (16:28.52)

and every stage and every step is a blessing and you just keep going and keep doing what you have to do. And thank goodness I like a challenge. Thank goodness, because it just keeps coming up.

Tim Caple (16:38.021)

So the album, you described it as songs taken straight from the pages of a journal, an album of experiences and journeys. It is very, very personal. Did you realize at the time just how much of your emotions and your feelings you were actually revealing on this album and in these lyrics?

Candice (17:05.582)

I didn't make a conscious thought about it. I think those are the things that just inspired me so much. Again, when I write, it all just comes out as one flow. It's very different than when someone says to you, here's my melody line, here's the song. I'm thinking maybe a Renaissance Faire or another drinking song, where people swing their beer mugs too. So when you step into the...

the world of, you know, beyond the veil of what they're visualizing and you take it on as your own as well, because it is part of you too, but you kind of disappear into this other world. When the world is solely and 100 % your own and coming from your own soul and the depths of your heart and it's fueled by emotion and

love and loss and experience and your own personal journey. It's really, someone asked me the other day, do you write better songs about happiness or joy when you're happy and you're joyful or when you're sad? And appearing as this very, they say, Richie and I on stage, the light and the darkness, the yin and the yang, and appearing to the world as this very sort of light-filled person. And I am, I'm always very

Tim Caple (18:10.949)

That's interesting.

Candice (18:28.802)

But very positive, but I find the layers of melancholy and the layers of the depths of sadness, such an incredible catalyst to be able to write. Whereas I find happiness is sort of like you're experiencing it so you don't take the time to stop and write. You know, or you're, you it's just, it's, there, you know, and you're happy and that's great. But those different layers of like colors of blue, the darker they get,

kind of tricky to explain, but it's just these different layers of melancholy where I can really get into the depths of my soul. of course, having experienced loss when this last time this album, it's been 10 years. So within that 10 year period, we all lost two years to COVID. We were all enveloped in darkness in that period. And one of the good things about it is that because we all went through it as a worldwide experience, we can all relate to each other and we can't just say,

only that section of the world, so I don't get it. We were all quarantined, locked in our homes, not allowed to hug people, not allowed to go to concerts where great energy was. We all went through it for good two years and it ate two years of our lives. Previous to that, I lost my dad devastatingly. He fought cancer for a year, so brave, and he was an incredible light in so many people's lives and just the absolute backbone and strength of our family. And these songs,

A lot of them came from those experiences and those journeys. And so it's great that you can get something positive, like a song out of it. It's so cathartic to be able to write those words down and have a melody line and put it out there in a four minute or a six minutes band, something that affected you so much for so long and still does somehow fits into that little window of four to six minutes, which is incredible. and, but yes.

Tim Caple (20:24.869)

Angel and Jezebel. First of all the word Jezebel brings back memories, it's one of those words, one of those names that you heard when you were growing up. Your parents or your grandparents describing somebody of, I don't know, loose moral fiber who lived down the road. you've got two versions, the rock version and the back, the porch version.

Tim Caple (20:52.097)

You've got a sister as well, haven't you? Seven years younger than you. You have been quick to point out here that this isn't about you portraying yourself as the angel. What does your sister think of the track?

Candice (21:08.942)

Actually, it was my sister's husband that called me and asked me if I needed to make a confession about anything because he needed to know if this was in any way, shape or form about his wife. And I put him on the straight and narrow about that.

I feel like we all have a little bit of Angel and a little bit of Jezebel within all of us. It's that balance. It's the dichotomy between the two that keeps us human. But it is an interesting psychological experiment to see which one that poor boy would be drawn to. We all know there's the girl that guys seem to bring home to mom and the girls that guys know that they just like to have fun.

Tim Caple (21:56.983)

Yeah.

Candice (21:57.696)

maybe that are intrigued by them, we know, the girls know what's going on here. But it was just an interesting, fun little storyline brought on by the simple idea of my sister does have the dark hair and she has the dark eyes and I'm the blonde haired, blue eyed girl in the family. But as far as similarities, that's as far as it goes with.

with that, although interestingly enough, my backing singer who has the long dark hair and the dark eyes as well, her name is Jezebel. So on stage you have her and I standing there and it's like, and whenever I sing that part, I kind of look over at her and she loves it. She's loving that moment. It's just a-

Tim Caple (22:42.135)

Your children's voices heard here on Promise Me as well. Not the first time, by the way, is it that your daughter, Autumn, has offered a contribution? She was behind Ghost of John, wasn't she? Yeah. So how do they feel about, do they like to be involved when you go to meet with a suggestion? Is it something they want to do?

Candice (22:54.926)

That's right. That's right. She was. She was.

Candice (23:05.966)

Well, at that point when I recorded Promise Me, that was in 2021. So it's been a while. But I'm so happy that I captured their voices in that innocent way that they were back then. A year in the life of a child is like a lifetime. So you see them go from tiny to... They were toddlers, you know, then turned to teenagers in the span of making this album. And now I'm the shortest one in the whole household, which is very strange.

Tim Caple (23:24.057)

here.

Candice (23:35.554)

but I have a 14 year old and a 13 year old and my son who's 13, his voice has dropped probably to where yours is at this point. So him singing that at this point, I don't even think would work out, though he does have a great voice. And so at this point, think my son is, know, he's too cool to sing on mommy's stuff anymore as much as, although he does love Dark Carnival. That's his favorite song on whole album, his favorite.

Tim Caple (23:41.335)

Yeah.

Tim Caple (24:01.509)

That is a great track, it's an interesting... I was listening to it and it's got that sort of mythical middle eastern thing going on, but it did also have a feel of Shadows of the Moon album.

Candice (24:16.78)

Yeah, or even, you know, I find even, it's a very strange thing. When Richie and I first moved into the house, of course, you know, every once in a while I would attempt to try to play guitar. I don't play guitar. I can't play guitar in any way, shape or form. And he has no patience to teach someone who can't play guitar. So if you don't pick up on it right away, and I just don't. So I said, you know what? I was brought up playing piano. What if we get a piano?

for the house and that way I can at least tinker on the piano a little bit because that I'm kind of familiar with. I'm not proficient, although I am playing on dark carnival. That is me playing the piano on dark carnival. But so I can get out what I need to as far as demos and things like that or work out songs. And so we went to a place down the road. We read in the local penny saver, just a little paper that used to have, where an elderly couple was getting rid of their furniture because they were moving to Florida. We live on Long Island, New York.

So we went there and they said, listen, we're going to apologize. The piano is not a great instrument. The soundboard is cracked, but it's more, we can't just get rid of it because the family has sat around this for decades and sang songs at the most wonderful occasions and we can't just leave it behind. We really want to make sure it has a good home. So of course we stepped up and said, we'll give it a good home. And so we took the piano, we put it in downstairs off the bar room, the dungeon bar room

and it's very dark down there. the first time I went down there to play it, I remember because it is off the dungeon bar room. Richie always said he didn't want a studio in the house. He wanted to be the first musician who only had a bar and no studio. He only has a dungeon bar room here, literally with medieval torture devices hanging on the walls. Hardly any lights down there at all. The walls are all very like stone and it's, which is why my children will never have any fear.

because if you're brought up in a house like this, then you're the Addams family at the end of the road. So you just don't fear anything anymore. So we put the piano off the room down there, but it's very dimly lit to the point where if there are any bulbs, Richie will color them in in Sharpie marker. So it's even more dimly lit. You just can't really see down there. And I was playing and I looked up because that one room is surrounded by windows and I saw a reflection behind me.

of a man standing there in a jacket with a hat. And I thought, Richie came to hear what I'm doing. So I continued to play. And then when I finished, I looked up and he was gone. And I went, he didn't even say anything. Well, maybe he didn't want to disturb me. And so I came upstairs into the den and I said, hey, how come you didn't say anything? And he said, what do you mean? And I said, well, you were just listening, know, weren't you just down there? And he said, I haven't left the couch all night. So now I think that the piano came with its own ghost

that just appears when I'm down there. And for some reason, when I'm channeling what the piano wants me to play, I come up with these sort of like Eastern European melodies. So Black Roses came from that, Alone with Fate came from that, In Time off of my first album, Reflections. And of course, this is another one, Dark Carnival. This is where it just came out, just from that piano. So somehow I am channeling some Eastern European

spirit that has come with my piano that gives me these wonderful songs that I probably would not normally hear here on Long Island, New York. You're not going to hear that kind of those kind of scales. So, that's, that's the source of that. I have to give credit to the piano credit where it's due.

Tim Caple (27:53.124)

I want to just touch briefly on your vocal and how it has changed over the years. how do you feel when you listen back to Shadow of the Moon? And I did it earlier on today, which had this very, very innocent feel and then hearing this depth and quality and rich timbre of what you produce now. How do you feel when you look back then and look and

Listen to what you do now. it is said by the way, you have a voice that could make angels weep.

Candice (28:31.22)

that's beautiful. I love, you know, when you sing, and I tend to, honestly, I tend to just close my eyes and just try to channel the songs to the point where even in concert, I will often just close my eyes in a song that I am feeling so much. And I even forget that there are people out there watching, you know, or the, you you'll finish a song and you'll open your eyes and the audience will just be deadly silent.

Candice (29:01.206)

And you know at that point that you've sort of cast a spell through your voice, through the most primal of instruments, you know, the very first instrument ever existing before drums, the voice, which can just strike these incredible chords, these deep emotional chords in people and can bring people to tears. And it's just amazing because it's not like a power that you have. It's like you're...

you're part of that spell as well. It gets cast on me as well. We're all together. We're all feeling that same energy and that same vibration, I guess. But listening back to the earlier songs, and keep in mind, had never formed a band. I was never the one saying, I'm gonna be in the music industry. I I wanted to be in the music industry, but probably doing what you're doing, not doing what I'm doing.

Tim Caple (29:33.06)

Sure.

Tim Caple (29:54.341)

Well you did didn't you you were working for the radio station.

Candice (29:58.572)

Yeah, I did. was working for a year and a half, but I was in different departments seeing where I could fit in, where I could help, because I just needed to be around music. Even in college, I had my own radio station where I was, my own radio show where I was like playing all this rock music and the rock candy cafe, I called it. So I had my power there. But I loved music so much and still do. So to me, was my breath. It was my religion. It just meant everything to me so deeply.

Candice (30:27.848)

And I just never had the confidence or thought that I would be the one front and center stage. And so when Richie asked me to sing some of these songs, I didn't have the history of, you know, the stage performance or that persona. I just was being me and, and I still am me to date, but my voice was not, your voice is a muscle. And so it wasn't trained to the point where

it is now after all of these years, as you said, 30 years being on the road, singing, whether it's backup or collaborations or front and center or solo or a Blackmore's Night. And I've just pushed it further and further and further. And I think it's just warmed up so I can still hit the high notes, but I think it has more of a comforting, calming, stronger quality than the Innocence at the beginning. Although at the beginning, I felt like those songs perhaps

when we first started needed that innocence. It almost feels like a different person, but it's a different application, but I feel like they were true to that time. So it's interesting to hear that girl back then, like looking at the scrapbooks or photo albums of you 30 years ago. It's the same thing for me.

Tim Caple (31:41.882)

What about the potential to take this out live? would you like to go out yourself with your own select band of musicians? I know you were at the Long Island Hall of Fame the other night and you were performing there. Would you like to take this out and take it on the road for a few select dates?

Candice (32:06.552)

That's interesting. It would be an interesting thing to do. What I actually did, we had about six dates we were doing with Blackmores Night here. We did Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, some in New Jersey, a couple of them upstate. So I opened for my band. So I had the violinist on one side and the rhythm guitarist backing vocalist on the other side and the three girls, the ladies of the band, which is also a great visual because you have the

the red haired violinist, gypsy violinist on one side and you've got the dark haired Jezebel as we said on the other side and then the blonde girl in the middle and the three of us just went out and we played a couple of songs off of Sea Glass. We did Promise Me to which every time there were, every time my children came in the audience or my sister brought her littles there or my violinist had her little girl there, they would come up on stage and they would sing that part.

at the end that you would hear on Sea Glass. So we would always have the children's voices within it, just showing that that message resonates to the next generation and hopefully continues on. Because it really is, even if you don't have children, it's a strong spiritual message for people to follow those words and that path. And then we did Unsung Hero. And the audience loved it because it was sort of like a sneak preview.

of what the album was coming out that was going to be out, which is out now. So they were able to hear a couple of songs that hadn't been previously released off of sea glass. But it is an interesting concept. It's so easy to be able to just grab the girls, go out there and do it, and then go back off stage and come back on two minutes later and sing with your band as well. Everybody's consolidated in there. And as far as doing it on my own,

It's an interesting concept and I'm still thinking about how I would work that out with travel and band members. It might be easier to open for someone, but always in the works. Everything's, I'm thinking all the time, all the time. So I'm never going to say no. It's definitely, definitely a possibility that I'm thinking about at this point.

Tim Caple (34:17.229)

And lastly, then, what is the secret of your success with Blackmores Night and you and Ritchie living together and continuing to work together and this relationship which has just blossomed to even greater levels over the course of the years in an industry which, let's be honest, things like that don't usually happen

So what is your secret? How did you make it work for this length of time? Because you might well have only been married for what, 12, 15 years, but your relationship has lasted over 3 deades so it's unusual. so why and how could you, did you make it work

Candice (34:54.956)

Yeah.

Candice (35:00.302)

It's Richie and I have had our meat-iversary, my daughter calls it our meat-iversary, 35 years ago. 35 years ago, because it took us so long to get married. I'm like, I'm not ignoring all of those years before and starting from scratch now. That's a lot of years of service before that. So I need credit for the day that we met and then it blossomed and bloomed into, you know, like a natural relationship like they should. Friendship and then more than that. And then I moved in and then he took me on the road and it just blossomed.

Candice (35:30.766)

I think it's important to recognize the differences between you and your partner, to know that they're not psychic, that they can't read your mind about your own needs and things that are going on in your head. The sounds are so loud sometimes in your head, the voices, you've got so much happening. Sometimes we forget to verbalize what's going on before we sort of lose our temper and then

why doesn't anybody understand? It's like, because you didn't talk about what's going on. And I think it's really important to recognize the differences between you and the other person. Don't try to force them into your happy place or your world. know that they are with you spiritually, with you in your life. For example, I love to travel. Richie hates travel because he's been doing it all his life since

He's 16 years old living out of a suitcase. He can't stand it. He'd rather sleep in his own bed than sleep in a loud hotel. And I get that. If I dragged him with us, he would be miserable and ruin it for everybody. If I stayed at home, I would be miserable and ruin it for everybody. So you have to recognize, okay, honey, I'm going to go do this. He has peace and quiet in the house. I go have my adventures with the kids. I come back.

And we all get to share the excitement of what we just went through. And that's just one example. But relationships are like a garden. don't just bloom and blossom just because they're there. You have got to get your hands dirty. You have got to pull those weeds out. You have got to tend it. You've got to water it. Communication's important, but also leaving people to have their silence and their quiet is important. Recognizing that and understanding the differences doesn't mean that they're

different than you to the point where everything has to split completely. It just means they're different humans than you are. Nobody's going to be like you are. I think trying to force people to do that is not a great idea. So there's a lot of different ways. And I'm still learning. We're all still learning. As humans, as we're evolving, as we're getting older, as we're at different stages of life, we're not the same people we were five, 10, 15 years ago.

And you just hope that as you're growing and changing, you don't do it separately to the point where you don't come back together. I try to explain to my kids, even, I talk to them about trees and I say, you know, we're all, because they're very different. My son is all sports all the time. My daughter's all music all the time. And I try to, they have a hard time connecting. And I said, you know, if you look at a tree, we're all coming from the same root system. Your roots are your ancestors.

That trunk of the tree, that's your family. And it's okay to go off on different branches because we're still all so connected by that trunk of the tree. that's what there's a song there. There's another song there. Exactly. Exactly. I've got more of them. all they're in here. They're all in here. I need to get them out again.

Tim Caple (38:41.061)

I've got to say one final thing, because I know we have slightly overrun, but it would be remiss to conclude without just asking how Richie is. I mean, you did drop something of a bombshell on the world a few weeks ago in an interview. Yes, and the new album's coming out and whatever. yes, Richie had a heart attack a year and a half ago. Sorry., lol

Candice (39:03.906)

Well, I have to say though, so he does this thing called Tales from the Tavern because I can't get him to write a book as much as, there you go, like me trying to force him to write something even though I would love for him to write it and the world would love him to write it. It's not his comfort zone. And he says to me, a lot of the stories that I know maybe aren't the nicest things about people. And so I can't just write everything and he doesn't have a filter.

Candice (39:31.884)

So once he starts talking, everything, and so he says, you know, I'm not, that's not my medium. I'm not comfortable with that. He's much more comfortable playing the guitar than he is talking to people. So I get that. So what I try to get him to do after he's had a few drinks and he's comfortable is, hey, you want to take some questions from people? Then I sit on the bar and I crack my neck like this so I can read the words that are this tiny on the screen. And I'm reading to him as people are sending questions in and.

And he is in his comfort zone down in the Badger and Pussycat Pub downstairs in our minstrel hall here. And so he's happy down there and people get some information and some news. So he actually did give that information out himself. I would never say something that he has already put out there. although I got more of the attention for saying it, it actually is when you read, when you listen to Tales from the Tavern, he did save that himself. So, but.

Tim Caple (40:24.847)

So is he in a good place? He's in a good place though,

Candice (40:28.7)

he's in the den watching television and having coffee right now. It's two o'clock in the afternoon, so this is musician's morning. This is musician's morning for us right now. He just woke up. Yeah, he's walking around the house. There he is right there. Hey, Rich. Say hi.

Yeah Hi .

Tim Caple (40:47.947)

Hahaha

Candice (40:48.942)

He's alive, folks, he's still there. I don't have him locked in a cage, I promise you. He's just enjoying, living his best life. He's playing with the cat, he's playing his guitar, he's watching his TV. The weather is starting to change to springtime, he's going out for his walks here. last night he came to me and said, I just wrote a new song. Do you think we should get the producer in? I said, yes, let's get the producer. I'm waiting on you, let's do it, let's do it. So we will be heading into the studio again. Look, he's 80 years old.

Well, he doesn't look it, does he? Let's be honest.

Candice (41:27.66)

He doesn't act it. Let's be honest about that., lol