Leif Edling

Leif Edling (born 6 August 1963) is a Swedish musician, best known as the main songwriter, bass player and one of the founding members of the Swedish doom metal band Candlemass. He's the only constant member of the band since its inception to the present day. Nevertheless, since band's second reunion in 2002 Edling has been backed up again by founding rhythm guitarist Mats Björkman, who had been absent from 1997 to 2002 and was replaced by Michael Amott. Edling started his musical career in the band Trilogy, then under the name of Toxic, as a singer together with Ian Haugland (later the drummer of Europe) in 1979. He then played in a band named Witchcraft but left in 1981 and formed Nemesis in 1982. Before the Candlemass official releases, Edling also handled vocal duties in addition to playing bass. After the departure of Messiah Marcolin, Candlemass became his solo project, until the band reformed in 2002. In 1994, when Candlemass fell apart, Leif had started the band Abstrakt Algebra with Mats Levén on vocals and Mike Wead on guitar. The band met with limited success and split up after one album. In 2002 he founded another doom metal band, named Krux, also with Mats Levén on vocals, and in 2013 founded Avatarium with Marcus Jidell on guitar and Jidell's wife, Jennie-Ann Smith on vocals. Since early 2014 Edling had been unable to tour with either Candlemass or Avatarium due to unspecified health problems, though believed to be chronic fatigue syndrome. A variety of replacement members were used, including Grave/Entombed bassist Jörgen Sandström and keyboard player Per Wiberg switching to bass. He has returned to performing with the band as of 2019.