CANDLEMASS Guitarist Selling 'Piece Of Doom Metal History'

July 4, 2008

CANDLEMASS guitarist Mats "Mappe" Björkman is selling the white "Candlemass skull" Gibson Les Paul Junior guitar that he used on the band's Grammis award-winning (Swedish Grammy equivalent) comeback album in 2005. The axe, which was also used at a number of live shows that year, comes with a Seymour Duncan Invader microphone plus the original mic. The buyer will also get a signed photo with Mappe and the guitar.

The guitar will be auctioned via eBay beginning on July 31.

Björkman was sentenced in March 2008 to two years in a Swedish prison for grand theft. He was convicted of stealing CDs worth approximately $490,000 from the distribution warehouse of Entertainment Network Scandinavia AB, where he and an accomplice shipped the CDs to Stockholm retail outlets.

In a recent interview with Metal-Rules.com, CANDLEMASS bassist/main songwriter Leif Edling addressed Mats' current legal status, explaining, "There will be a hearing when he comes back from [the recently completed U.S.] tour, but it was totally OK for him to go on tour and things in the papers have been so exaggerated. I feel really sorry for him. It's really unfair to him, what's been said in the papers and on the Internet. I'm pretty convinced, you know, nothing will come out of this. He will be totally freed and we can go on and record the album and continue with CANDLEMASS. I don't see a problem there. If there was a problem, he wouldn't be allowed to go on tour. He wouldn't be allowed to go abroad. That's how it is, you know."

In an April 2008 interview with Sweden Rock magazine, Mats commented on his theft conviction by saying, "I am not a criminal, but sure, just like I've sold some CDs, I've helped [Mats' alleged accomplice] sell CDs. But these are CDs that I've been given or gotten through my dealings within the music business. It's not a secret that record label people in Stockholm sell boxes of CDs to different stores, but it's nothing people like to talk about."

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