“It’s our strongest effort to date” – The Privateer’s Eric Tobian discusses about their upcoming album

Germany is a country flourishing with metal bands, and one clear example of the outstanding artists that this country offers is the death folk metal band The Privateer. We interviewed their bass player about their fourth full-length release, “Kingdom of Exiles”, which we have already reviewed here and life after the pandemic.

Hello, and welcome to Chaoszine! How are you doing at the moment?

Eric Tobian: Hey Chaoszine, thanks for having us; we feel great about the upcoming stuff!

To start the year properly, you will release your fourth album in January. What do you feel when you present your work to the audience

Eric Tobian: As always, presenting a new album is a lot of fun. I think it’s our strongest record yet (as is every new album, right?). But I can say that it definitely is our most refined album. It’s a bit more heavy and has a stronger melodic death metal touch to it than our previous records. I really hope our audience will like that, but it still has that typical Privateer vibe to it, so we feel very optimistic that our fans will enjoy it.

Can you share with us a funny moment that happened during the recording of “Kingdom of Exiles”?

Eric Tobian: I don’t think I can name a specific funny moment. We spent a whole month in the studio recording “Kingdom of Exiles”, with a lot of work and a lot of fun.

Has your creative process evolved since the formation of the band?

Eric Tobian: Well, we have our standard way of writing new songs. Usually, our guitarist Chris works out the song ideas at home and creates a very advanced version of the songs. Then every other member adds some stuff, and that’s it. But that doesn’t happen with every song; for example our opening track, “Madness is King“, the drum tracks were created first, written by our drummer Kim before the rest of the song was added, and it turned out great. 

When you started The Privateer, were you inspired by any of the big Finnish folk metal bands like Finntroll, Ensiferum or Turisas?

Eric Tobian: Yes, of course, and I would say we still are. We don’t see the band that much as a ‚real folk metal band, but we still have many folk influences, including those you named. Other non-folk influences would be something like Iron Maiden or Amon Amarth.

What is your favourite part of being an artist?

Eric Tobian: For me personally, it’s playing the music you like, seeing other places and people, and spending time with my bandmates. I think the others in the band feel similar.

Throughout 2022, you have been performing in various countries and venues. How did the pandemic affect your work?

Eric Tobian: The pandemic slowed us down. Making music is not our main income, so we didn’t struggle to pay our bills or something like that. But we couldn’t play some important shows that would have been necessary to pay for the recording of our forthcoming album. So we had to improvise, and we started a crowdfunding, which turned out great. We are very thankful for all our supporters! Anyway, it didn’t stop there; the pandemic slowed the production process as well, but we are finally ready to present the new album now, and that is all that matters! The shows we could play all went well, especially those this year felt like before the pandemic.

Will you tour to promote “Kingdom of Exiles”?

Eric Tobian: So we will definitely play many shows to promote it! We are working on touring plans, and we hope that it’s going to work out, but I can’t say more at the moment. Better follow us somewhere on Instagram or Facebook to stay tuned for that. 🙂

You are a folk band, so this question is mandatory: if you were the captain of a pirate ship, what would the ship be called?

Eric Tobian: Oh, there’s a good question! I think we would name the ship “Goldsteen”, named after the explorer who discovered the island of our last record, which was never shown on any map.

Thank you very much for spending the time to do this interview! Is there anything else you’d like to add to Chaoszine’s readers?

Eric Tobian: Thanks a lot for having us! We hope you readers give our new album a try when it’s out, or check out our singles “The Darkest Shadow of Life” and “Ghost Light“! Maybe we’ll see us at a show! Cheers.