NME sits down with the band’s frontman to discuss the “introspective” approach to album six, the possibility of him turning his sights to film, the struggle to find a space in the rock scene, and whether there could be an end to Ghost's lore.
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00:00You know, in 2004, it was all, like, short hair and you had to be, like, pretending like you didn't want to play music and it was like,
00:06oh, I can't play, but, you know, they came, like, I just woke up looking like this.
00:21Hi, I'm Libti from Enemy and I'm here with Tobias Forge from Ghost. Tobias, how are you doing?
00:26I'm doing well, thank you. How are you?
00:28I'm doing very well. I'm very happy to be here. So, last time you spoke to Enemy, it was around the release of Right Here, Right Now.
00:34Now we're back with two big announcements. We've got the new Frontman and we've got the new album.
00:40Let's start with the latter. Tell me about what we can expect from Skeletor.
00:45I mean, that's always a hard question for me to... I'm not a great salesman.
00:52The previous record was written with a very socially reflective, bigger picture, sort of shining a light onto society.
01:07So I felt that making a new record didn't feel very... I wasn't very enthused by the idea of writing another record that was going to be a follow-up.
01:21In Para 2, I wanted the new record to be something else, as I've always tried to sort of move along and do something that's different from the previous.
01:35So I felt that I wanted to make a record that was a little bit more based on introspection and maybe some more core...
01:45I am a believer that most history have a tendency to circle around both good and bad.
01:55So, of course, big societal and structural critique is probably an evergreen subject if you want to write a conscious rock.
02:13But then there's this eternal human elements of it that is equally important with more basic feelings.
02:28So I went into the writing process with the intention of writing a song, one love song, one hate song, one hope song, one regret song, and all kinds of basic human sentiments.
02:46Tell me a little bit about the new frontman. So what went into both designing him and also in terms of what he adds to the ghost lore in this ever-going story?
02:56I can't really say much until, in this case, he has been able to strut around for a while and found his place.
03:11So I can't really make a profile description of who he is.
03:20Weirdly enough, we have a real band story and we have a lore where the lore serves as some sort of humoristic commentary, but also follows along a little bit of the subjects presented on the record.
03:45As opposed to public sometimes misunderstanding that it's all about Satan, it's actually all about as a human being alive, which is a very simple but usually broad concept.
03:59And so is the characters within the lore. They are humans with the same treats, fears and needs as everyone else and also are searching for a sense of purpose.
04:16When it comes to designing a character like that, how much of yourself do you allow to seep in? Obviously beyond the storytelling and beyond the visuals, is there an element of wanting to keep yourself distant from the person who thousands of people see on the stage?
04:32My therapist would probably say that. I've always intuitively felt that I had a mission to act, but that anything I would act as on stage playing music was going to be in the form of some sort of character.
04:57I think that there are a lot of artists that does that, even though they are almost to the point of confusion very much alike their character, whereas I have created literally this other person that is not here today.
05:16I am just the spokesperson for this whatever it is, a band lore character.
05:26I think for me it's this idea that you want the end result to be something that more closely resembles what you or what I feel is an interesting thing.
05:44Of course when it comes to actual writing, when it comes to actual storytelling, writing songs, I as most other songwriters, you write what you see and what you feel and what you want to relay to others.
06:06Maybe on the first record that was a little bit more distant, that was a little bit more fiction, if you will. There was social commentary on that one too. It also had a certain sting of dual messaging that became much more evident going forward.
06:31But that was also because the first record was written in a vacuum where I had no idea that there was going to be anything. It was just a completely soul-driven, lust-driven project of writing songs.
06:47And then as that project, as that collection of songs with that image happened to become the one thing that made my dream come true of becoming a professional musician, I felt that one, I don't think anybody will applaud if I just start repeating that ad nauseum.
07:16Because that is, even though in metal circuits where sort of authenticity is measured by your repetitiveness, that's simply not true. That's something that a lot of people say.
07:30You know, I only liked them when they were, I only liked them. I'm like that too. I only liked that record. I only liked that. I preferred them when they were like this. But it's also comforting that they are moving ahead because then that means that you can preserve the thing that you like.
07:46And so even in hard rock and the more narrow Puritan circles of when they want things to be just stale and still and not move anywhere, you will not go anywhere if you just repeat yourself. So I felt like I'm not going to worry about that. I know my, I know I am authentic. I'm just going to follow my heart.
08:08And now when I have all these people interested in what I'm saying, I'm going to say something more interesting. I can't just repeat the same fictional stuff.
08:20Is that something that you predicted was going to happen or was maybe part of a plan? Because of course you had other bands before you had Ghost. When it came to starting Ghost, could you see this journey?
08:33No.
08:34You didn't have that in mind. It was just going with the flow and this is how it's evolved.
08:37Yes. I mean, for me, it was an absolutely explosive event simply because I had been in bands before. That was always like a slow tug as it should be, I guess. But I was moving around in underground circles for most of my adolescence.
08:59And even in underground circles, you can obviously, there's a difference between being completely unknown and being successful, even though if you're, you know, a death metal band. And of course, I've always wanted to be as efficient and successful as possible.
09:19When I was playing underground death metal, it wasn't like I didn't want to succeed. I wanted to succeed. I wanted to be on a real label. I wanted to be out touring. And then as I was sort of drifting away a little bit from the more extreme metal, at least from like what I played.
09:38And parallel to that, I started writing Ghost songs, but I also wrote different things. And for a long time, I think I was under the belief that one, I was going to be a guitar player only. I wanted to be, you know, to compare it to something like John Frusciante. I wanted to be like the guitar player behind a singer who sings like great harmonies.
10:04And, you know, in the 2000s, obviously NME readers know this very well. And in 2000s, when I was, you know, in my 20s, it was this huge rock wave. Like you had all the big strokes, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Sheeps, like it was just rock all over the place.
10:24And I was one of those who was sort of like, okay, I think that this might be something. And then I learned very quickly that if you see the wave, you've missed it. And so I was sort of struggling with that. Like, how do I find my place?
10:41The band that I was working with at that point was, you know, in 2004, it was all like short hair and you had to be like pretending like you didn't want to play music. And it was like, oh, I can't play. But you know, they can play. I just woke up looking like this. Not true. They made an effort. And we had a little bit too long hair. So we were a little bit too metal. So that was not like indie enough.
11:11So that was like a struggle. I was sort of struggling through my 20s. Towards the end of it, I think I had, you know, constantly writing songs for that and this project called Ghost.
11:27And, you know, from obviously being a teenager and a 20 something, you know, constantly available for the big career, single, no job, just waiting for the big break. I had sort of slowly transgressed into someone who was actually a partner and had two children.
11:55And somewhere there, depending on who you ask, you know, friends of mine who was like, just give up on that fucking dream. It's not happening. And no one really told me that. But I felt at a certain point that I probably will not be a musician.
12:21And if I'm going to live without having realized my dream, I need to have a hobby. I need to have some sort of outlet for my creativity.
12:38Albeit having a normal job and being a family father and all that stuff. Which was very much, you know, it was not an accidental family making. It was the children were planned and loved and very welcomed.
12:55But I myself as a professional, I myself as a, you know, father of a friend felt very, there was something amiss. And out of all the things that I was working on, Ghost was definitely the one thing that I felt like, if I'm going to do one thing for 5% of my life, I want to do that.
13:20That was the only thing that felt like, that's the only thing I understand. Everything else was sort of not really worth the attention. Whereas this I understood. And I think that part of that was because it was wrapped in another face.
13:43It was literally like someone else. Even though this box with this horror wrapping was containing basically everything that I am interested in. It's rock music, metal, AOR, vocals, heavy guitars, horror, occult imagery, all those things. Everything I like. Perfect hobby.
14:05I'm going to put everything, every spare hour I have, I'm going to put on that. And hopefully that can amount to something that will satisfy my creative needs.
14:20It feels like film has always been a big source of inspiration for you. Was that either a point when you were younger, when you contemplated taking that as a route, or maybe even more recently thinking that maybe you can juggle the two going to working in film, maybe doing scores, playing a bit of a Trent Reznor. Has that cost a mind?
14:41Absolutely. I mean, I have always been almost equally interested in film as I've been in music. And I don't know really if I, it's hard to say sometimes how you thought. Simply because I'm not a very scholastic person. I've never been and I am sort of self-learned, if you will.
15:06I'm very interested in a lot of things. So anything that I'm interested in, I will focus on and I will absorb. But anything that I'm not interested in, I'm simply not able to learn.
15:26So quite quickly in school, I hit the ceiling in terms of how far I could evolve scholastically. Simply because the more human subjects, language and history and things, obviously history is frozen in time, if you will.
15:56But there's still an interpretational aspect of it. Whereas in math, there is not. Biology and chemistry and all that stuff is not. And I have a hard time with that sort of thing.
16:11And when you're bad at math and those heavy subjects, you simply disqualify yourself pretty quickly from going forward scholastically. Unfortunately, I think that that is wrong. But because I think that there's a lot of brain power and a lot of potential and a lot of kids who are good at other things.
16:36I knew that there was a certain degree of scholasticism that needed to go into making film. I know now that that's not necessarily true. The same way that you don't have to be technical to become a record producer because you always have someone else there who knows how to handle the studio.
16:59I am very much like that too. If I come into a studio and someone asks me to turn it on, I don't really know how to do that. But once you get everything turned on and everything is on and you have a technician, I know exactly how to make a record.
17:14If a band wants me to produce them, I can do that. I know how to do that. But I don't know how to record you. And I know that there are directors or scriptwriters that have the same thing. They never went to film school.
17:29But earlier in my life, I saw a venture down that route was like, that's going to take away from my music. And that means that I need to start studying beyond my more technical stuff. And I'm not interested in that. So that was a hindrance.
17:47Nowadays, though, when I have dipped my feet a little into the film world, and I think I'm beginning to recognize where there might be a spot for me, where my strength, my usp can be valuable, I believe that I can go down that route a little.
18:15Looking at Ghost, I feel like anyone who's come across Ghost has seen the massive impact that they've had on the metal scene. And it's in a way that I don't think any other bands in recent memory have had.
18:28Looking at the growth, so from the early days and all the way through to now, the production, the music, the way it resonates with fans, is there an end site that you can think of or a milestone that you could hit and think, okay, I've done everything I wanted to do with Ghost? Or is it always going to be a continuous journey for you?
18:50There might be an end of the storytelling, because it's just simply not productive to sort of have this endless soap opera. If fans need the lore in order to like the band, then that'll probably be over quite soon.
19:10If there is a way where the music and everything I have created is enough, and that is enjoyable, I think I am as needy as any other artist in the sense that, what do you call it, like a statistical milestone that you want to achieve?
19:36Or in this case, there are places that I want to play, venues, things you just want under another feather in your hat of having done that. I am very lucky that I've been able to achieve many of those things.
19:55But of course, there are levels of success that you still want to achieve for the last decade or so. I don't know if there's been this ongoing chatter in the music business, and especially in the rock business, that, oh, there's no new bands coming, rock will die, rock is dead.
20:18No new bands can become big, and we, as well as a few others, are living proof that that is not true. I'm not saying that you can become a new ACDC, you cannot become a new Metallica, but I think we are living proof that you still can do it.
20:46There are other bands around, like very much more recent, like Sleep Token, who's obviously, you know, they're succeeding, so obviously you can become a bigger band.
20:57And then Rammstein, for a long, long time, has been a household name for many, many years. But they were, in the greater scheme of rock, where there are levels, they were just an arena band for a very long time.
21:17They sold out arenas all over the place. And they were very well known for their big show, but they were playing arenas. If they were playing outdoors, there would be a festival. And then all of a sudden, they decided to do the stadium tour. And all of a sudden, they went from, you know, 10,000, 15,000 every night to 55,000 three nights in a row. Where did all those people come from?
21:41If you just want to talk sheer achievements, I would love to make that a journey. That would be fantastic. Simply because I'm very interested in stage production.
21:56And where I started with stage production, where my fascination really exploded into obsessive fandom, was in the 80s, when I saw, specifically Rolling Stones.
22:18First, I saw the, you know, Let's Spend the Night Together. Production of that outdoor production wasn't, it was cool. It wasn't elaborate. But when I was eight years old, they released Steel Wheels. I was a huge fan at the point. And they did a tour called the Steel Wheels tour through America.
22:42If you guys think that Rammstein's stage was cool, Steel Wheels tour, that's the absolute, the biggest behemoth of industrial staging I've ever, ever, ever seen.
22:57And that's basically where I sort of set the standard. Like, that is the pinnacle. Like, being able to build this giant thing that people come and it just takes over a city.
23:12And ever since I started going to shows and going to see big shows, you know, bands like Rolling Stones in the 90s and Metallica and all those things that I was coming through.
23:30I've always been obsessed with, you know, that idea of being that traffic diverting turmoil that comes in and disrupts a city the way that they did.
23:44You know, when Metallica played Stockholm Stadium in 1993, it was like the show wasn't there. The show started, I mean, we're talking blocks, we're talking like miles away, because all over town, Metallica fans were sort of coming on the subways and trains and buses walking.
24:04And the closer you got, every bar was playing Metallica music. And, you know, it was a beautiful day.
24:12Speaking of these massive bands, just to wrap up, because I think we're running out of time. We've got one coming up with that massive Black Sabbath show. Tell me, why was it important for you to say yes to that? What does the band mean to you? And what can we expect from your start then?
24:29Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne has been a tremendous influence on me. Ozzy as a frontman, Ozzy as a solo artist. And I put a little bit of a divide between them because he was, you know, I grew up in the 80s and he was much more of a present rock star of the 80s than Black Sabbath were, even though they were obviously active.
24:55But they were, you know, if Ozzy was like on a big widespread in OK Magazine in Sweden, you'd have Black Sabbath with a new singer, it's sort of tucked in the back. So as a kid, of course, I sort of gravitated towards that. But I also grew up listening to the old Black Sabbath records.
25:17So the rock starriness of Ozzy's 80s combined with especially the writing of I quickly I mean, I love all nowadays I love most Ozzy or most Black Sabbath records, a lot of the 80s stuff, even the 90s stuff.
25:36I love them for what they are. And Dio era also has a very special place in my heart. But that's like that's Dio, Sabbath, Black Sabbath with Ozzy is like it's just for me, it's almost two different bands, like it's two different things.
25:52But I very quickly when I was a kid, just because I always loved quite elaborate music. I like kinks, too. I like like simple, like easy, like quite quick songs. I like punk rock.
26:06But I've always loved when when Black Sabbath just went from the two first records that sort of sludgy to when they became the big, progressive, more mature.
26:26I understand now that it was obviously very infused and fueled by by a lot of substance. I'm not sure if they knew what they were doing. But Volume Four, Sabbath, Black Sabbath, Sabotage are absolute milestones.
26:42And have been for for as long as I've been writing music. They've been very influential, even though it might not be super evident. But I've always listened to that. I've always had, I've always been inspired by and you might say that, you know, as far as introspection goes and being a little bit more brave, lyrically.
27:05I find like Geezer's lyrics have always been much more naked and brave than he's getting credit for. You know, most metal fans are like, yeah, Sabbath. And it's like all only the heaviness, but it has so much more.
27:24Heaviness is great, but there's so much more on that in that kitchen. There's not only meat and potatoes. There's a lot of other seasonings and very nice wine.
27:39Lovely. Tobias, thank you so much for taking the time. It's been really nice to talk to you.