ANTON KABANEN On BEAST IN BLACK's Upcoming Fourth Album 'Fear The Beast': 'It's Near Completion'

In a new interview with "Soundcheck", Altnote's interview series with the artists behind heavy and alternative music, former BATTLE BEAST guitarist Anton Kabanen spoke about the progress of the songwriting and recording sessions for the upcoming fourth album from his current band, BEAST IN BLACK, titled "Fear The Beast". He said about the follow-up to 2021's "Dark Connection" (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):  "How it goes for me, I'm always thinking of the next project while I'm finishing one. So when 'Dark Connection' album was in the finish line or about to be finished, I'm always thinking of the next, to some extent. But also after that, we decided, 'Okay, now we're gonna tour as much as we can, more than we've ever done before.' And we did. And, of course, in between I tried to make some composing works and stuff like that. And usually I write quite a lot, and same happened this time. Well, I don't know how many songs I wrote — 40, 50 or something like that — in this time. And that's always been for me just a — not a hobby, but I just do it, even if some songs don't go on the album, not because they're not like good enough, but you just have to choose at some point. At the same time, the band grew, and we had a lot of responsibilities, bigger weight on the shoulders and not enough time for myself to rest and stuff. And indeed tour after tour and then summer festival, then again some tour and there hasn't been proper peace and focus for making this album. That's why it's been taking so long and gone so slow."

Elaborating on why BEAST IN BLACK hasn't released a new album in five years, Anton said: "It seems like it's been a long time but most of the time, the focus just purely for the album has been a very pathetically small amount. People just see, of course, that timeline and think [it's taking a long time], but behind the curtain stuff happens and how we wanna make the band grow. But at some point you gotta learn also what things to let go. And now so many fronts are open. You gotta do this, this, this, this, big, big things. And some things were finished just before this tour. But when making an album, what I wanna basically wanna say is like I hope I could have proper peace just to focus on the process of making it. In the past we did it faster and there was more energy left. But when you do it for, like, I don't know for how many years, because I started with my previous band BATTLE BEAST, and I always put all my heart and soul into that kind of creative work. That's the reason for me to kind of live in the first place, just to ... I love doing that. But yeah, it's going well in the sense that it's near completion. But, as I said, now we have this [fall 2026 European] tour going on, so I can't do anything about it, about the final steps of the album and stuff like that. So let's see. I'm not giving any dates or any promises, to be honest."

Referencing the fact that BEAST IN BLACK released two new singles in recent months, the "Fear The Beast" title track and "Lost Children", Anton said: "For this [European] tour, we decided that 'let's play some new material'. We released, in advance, way in advance, two singles, and we also play one song that's not even released. The opener of the set is a song called 'Mighty Dragon', and it seems people like it.

"It's very unusual thing to do, to play something that you haven't even released," Anton acknowledged. "So it's kind of a bootleg, like YouTube bootleg, so to speak. So, it was a risk, but we thought it's important to kind of find a way to compensate this long wait for the new album to give something, at least something new. And we also did the bigger stage production, the biggest maybe so far that we've done on a tour. And we're pretty happy with it. It looks very good. I personally like it very much. My favorite tour production we've had so far. And we have a new guy, Markus [Venehsalo], a new guitar player in the band. He is very well-motivated and hungry and a great guitar player."

Asked about his decision to sit out BEAST IN BLACK's 2026 North American tour as the support act for HELLOWEEN in order to focus on the making of "Fear The Beast", Anton said: "Well, I checked maybe a couple of videos [of the BEAST IN BLACK performances on the North American tour]. That's it. As I said, the focus is the thing that suffers the most in this particular album, all the things there. So I just try to focus on it as much as I could, but, of course, I'm concerned what's going on there. And it went well, luckily. It went really well. I heard from the guys also through WhatsApp, some texting and stuff… Luckily, it was a very good tour, even though I wasn't there."

Regarding how hard it is to whittle 40 songs down to a dozen or so for a new album, Anton said: "It's a spiritual process, I guess. Intellectual, spiritual and based on experience — all things combined. I can't put it into words instantly, but, yeah, you just go through [all the songs] many times and then you start to feel something and let some ideas come to your mind and why those should be on the album, how they fit there for some reason. As I said, it's really hard to explain why. And it's also time-consuming. The more you have done this, the more songs you have written in the past. For me, as I said, to me it's kind of a hobby that I just keep writing. And after more than 20 years, there's so many songs. Always when there's a new album I go back and start going through some old stuff: 'Hmm, maybe this one.' And then also when you're tired mentally, decision-making becomes so much worse, and, I mean, slower — you just can't decide because there's not enough mental space here anymore. You need to kind of find time to recover, give more space for your other thoughts, and then the album making and everything with the band will go also faster. But this is a good lesson for us, how we've grown pretty well in this 11 years. But we have to also learn to... I'm speaking for myself at least, that I have to learn to also sometimes be very clear with 'yes' and 'no'. You know, boundaries. This is, actually, I think, one of the most important lessons, to be able to say 'no'."

BEAST IN BLACK's current European headlining tour kicked off on October 26 in London, United Kingdom.

"Lost Children" was released in October, accompanied by a stunning and cinematic music video helmed by award-winning director Katri Ilona Koppanen.

In September, BEAST IN BLACK released the "Fear The Beast" title track. "Fear The Beast" was written and produced by Kabanen, with artwork by Roman Ismailov. The epic video for this banger was also created and directed by Katri Ilona Koppanen.

BEAST IN BLACK is known for its dynamic blend of power metal, 1980s pop, and electronic music. Their critically acclaimed albums "Berserker", "From Hell With Love" and "Dark Connection" have solidified their global presence, along with notable tours and festival appearances. Their energetic live performances and unique sound have made them a standout act in the modern metal scene.

Kabanen was dismissed from BATTLE BEAST in February 2015 due to what was described at the time as "insurmountable disagreements" with the other members of the band.

Photo credit: Jarmo Katila / Toni Kilpinen