Interview with Tobias Tåg

In what part of Europe do you live?

I live on the west coast of Finland near a town called Vasa; I grew up in a small countryside village. My mother tongue is Swedish because I live in the Swedish speaking part of Finland but the rest of the country speaks Finnish.

What is your musical background?

I started playing classical piano when I was 9 years old, and I practiced a lot in my teens. When I was 17-18 I really got into fantasy, medieval music and all kinds of world and folk music. I worked a lot with synthesizers back then and made my own variations of medieval and cinematic music.

Some years later I picked up the flute and began buying all kinds of flutes from all over the world. I was experimenting musically a lot, and I made all kinds of weird recordings in my home studio. In 2007 I started my own band Thoby Loth and we made our first record in 2009.

Thus far we have two records and one live recording on DVD, and now I have my YouTube channel going on. The production part of music is interesting to me, I love the process of making music, going from an idea to finished product fascinates me. I like working with instruments, gear and equipment, and I find the studio work really fun.

How best would you describe your music genre?

Hard to say…but I would describe it as rock music with folk and world music influences.

Do you travel to perform?

Currently I play 40-50 gigs a year with a folk band, and we play irish traditional music around the country. I play the flute, tin whistle, guitar and sing.

I also work with my progressive rock band, Thoby Loth. We do not play that many live shows but we have appeared on Finnish television a couple of times.

This solo project is quite new for me so I have not played any live shows yet. As soon as I have enough material I will start playing live.

Do you have any specific message that you would like to spread with your music?

I want to communicate with people through the music and my songwriting. I do what I like to do musically the most, and I hope that people will enjoy it; if people connect with my music I am happy.

What is your heritage?

As far as I know (150-200 years back) my family comes from the western part of Finland on both sides of my family so I would say I’m Northern European.

Your english is very good, where did you learn it?

I learned some English in school but I mainly learned it from watching movies and listening to music.

Do you have a family, are you married, do you have children?

I have my parents and two younger brothers but I do not have a family of my own. I’m not married and I do not have any children.

How can people stay in touch with you and your music?

I keep people informed through my YouTube channel, my personal Facebook page, and on my Instagram account. I accept friend requests on Facebook if you want to receive my updates.

Tobias Tåg’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheFlutePhantom/videos

Tobias’ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/tobias.tag1

Tobias Tåg on Instragram: http://instagram.com/tobiastag