Written & Photographed by David Booth @hellbenderbluesmedia
“Belial, Behemoth, Beelzebub.
Asmodeus, Satanas, Lucifer.”
The words sung by a men’s choir echo through the unlit stadium while a band in matching black suits and silver masks stare into the darkness. The audience, shrouded in darkness is shouting each name back in unison. The stage lights up to reveal the band and their frontman, a somewhat creepy looking character wearing a black tux with tails featuring an ornate inverted cross on the left breast of the tail coat as the band breaks into their track, “Year Zero”.
When the chorus hits, the stage lights up with pulsing columns of smoke and flame, while the singer, “Cardinal Copia” sings.
“Hell Satan, Archangelo.”
“Hell Satan, Welcome year zero.”
Welcome to a Ghost concert, or ritual, as they’re known to the band and fans. The show is equal parts theatre and over the top metal concert played to the most diverse cross section of fans you’ll find under one roof. With the religious themes that make up the costuming and set, a Ghost show looks like something designed to make your grade three Catholic School teacher run for the nearest exorcist. It’s the sort of show some bible belt televangelist would launch a crusade over when they need to fund raise for their next private jet. They would call it Hell on earth. Ghost fans call it a Hell of a show.
By the time Tobias Forge launched the musical project that became Ghost in his native Sweden in 2006, he had been involved in a number of different projects with various musical styles up to that time, including death metal band Repugnant, Glam metal band Crashdiet, and pop rock band Subvision. Ghost’s combination of musical influences certainly spans all of these, with some doom and psychedelic rock thrown in for good measure. Ghost was designed to be a Theatre Rock band with anonymous members and an image centered around the characters portrayed on stage, namely a demonic Pope named Papa Emeritus I, and cloaked musicians referred to only as Nameless Ghouls. The sound and image brought together an accessible and catchy music paired with sinister lyrics and a heavy edge that worked well to the religious iconography and Satanic theme. Each album brought with it a new “Papa” as singer. Papa Emeritus I, II, III, Nihil, Cardinal Copia, and the newly declared Papa Emeritus IV are all Forge in different masks and outfits, with the common theme of the Anti-pope in death metal skull themed corpse paint.
The sinister lyrics are offset by the live show which has a light and humorous feel, with each new singer getting progressively less serious in their demeanor than the last during the live shows. There’s something about a Swedish guy talking in English affecting an Italian accent that just tells you this is going to be an interesting show. The band is quickly turning into one of the biggest metal bands in the world. They have some of the most significant names in music, including Phil Anselmo, James Hetfield and Dave Grohl, professing to be avid fans. In fact, Grohl produced the If You Have Ghost EP and has dressed and performed as a Nameless Ghoul.
I had the chance to talk to Tobias Forge, the man behind Ghost, to discuss religion, music, and the next steps for the band.
DAVID BOOTH: Thanks for taking the time to talk with me. It’s Dave Booth from ANDIVERO Magazine. I saw your show in Hamilton a little over a month ago. I also saw you in Columbus last year. You guys are amazing live.
TOBIAS FORGE: Thank you very much.
DB: On the way to the first show, driving down to Columbus, it’s a 6- or 7-hour drive. Before I left, I got your live album, Ceremony and Devotion. The studio stuff I enjoy, but I find the live album even better. There’s just something about the sound live that captures something different. How much more of this tour do you have left? You’ve been on this one for a while now.
TF: We have. We don’t have a lot left. We started in April last year, so it’s a good what, 18 months almost? I guess, so we just have two or three weeks left. After we finish up on December 19th, we’re home on the 20th. And one show in March. That’s it. We’re really closing in on the end now, so we’re currently talking about the next album cycle and starting to work on the production for the next tour which is going to be 2021. They just sort of connect with each other. Although we have a year, I put in brackets, off, it’s going to be a very active year but we’re not going to tour in the year.
DB: With the stage production you guys have. It’s so much more than just doing an album up and touring it. Will you be retooling the live show as well?
TF: Essentially that is what we do collectively, professionally. I think you’re onto saying what I’m getting at. The live show is one thing and the record another. The records are generally I try to make them a little bit more… I like to compare them to if we were a religion, the albums are a little more like the scriptures and the shows are a little more like the masses. You know how it is when you go to a wedding or mass? Everyone is sort of like “so what do you do now? You do it like that? Oh, I fucked it up, ok. They won’t see that. Cool. Cool.” Everything is slightly humorous. It’s an interpretation of the scriptures. It’s like when the priest wants to read something in Latin, and mumbling through it because he’s not really certain how to pronounce it? It’s like (hums in Latin-ish sounding non Latin) and no one corrects him because no one really knows. Kind of like how the term hocus pocus came about. Hocus pocus filiokus. I can’t recite it off the top of my head but hocus pocus filiokus comes from one of the most commonly used phrases in Latin during mass. It was something along the lines of hocus pocus filiokus… which means kid. You hear it. The punters would say it’s hocus pocus filiokus and that would mean uncertain magic. That’s the term hocus pocus filiokus. That’s sort of the approach to doing our live shows. It’s supposed to be according to the scriptures. According to the albums, but it’s still a little free form a little bit of an interpretation and we fuck it up slightly. So, it makes it humoristic. Humoristic in a way that the albums aren’t, because the albums are not really comedic at all. But that’s the point, they’re supposed to be a little bit of a divergence between the two.
DB: Speaking of the mass thing, one of the things I noticed live, especially during a song like “He is”, when that came on. It’s amazing to hear everybody sing that in a theatre or stadium. It does have a very evangelistic vibe to it. It just has a very interactive, participatory thing with the crowd. With the trappings of the show and being a neo religious thing. Are there things that you saw preachers do from organized religion where you went “that’s interesting. That would be an interesting thing to incorporate in. After all, it is a performance of one sort or another. And it is something that they’ve had a couple thousand years of practice to refine.
TF: It’s very inspired by it. We’re doing the same thing. You create this environment that people come into. It’s not to say they’re afraid of it in the same way. I think that people were probably afraid of the house of God until 50 or 100 years ago. Churches in the cities, especially in the 1400, 1500, 1600’s was without a doubt the biggest building in town and it was imposing in so many ways. It was probably the only straight building. The only ornate building. It was such a massive cock show off that it probably made most people very afraid. Remember back in the day they believed in hocus pocus. They believed in superstition. They bought any message that was conveyed by this building and the people within it, probably because they were the only people who were able to afford to have a bath. They were clean and dressed nice with very ornate and expensive clothing. They seemed to have a direct line — the red telephone to God. Of course, whatever they were saying was gospel. One thing that is kind of funny looking back at it, especially considering we’re a rock act sort of emulating it in performance, but it’s orchestrated the same. The bowing down, taking orders, orchestrating, rehearsing. Trying to orchestrate this sort of thematic sort of ritual the same way you’d orchestrate a film or a play or a ride even at a theme park in order to achieve a feeling. An arousal of sorts to whomever is subjected to it. I think people have failed to realize to this day to some degree that it was all just as any rock and roll band. It was just man made in order to make people essentially pay for it. As much as I don’t want to see rock and roll that way, essentially that’s what it is. It’s entertainment. We’re obviously openly saying it’s an entertainment thing. We want you to come through that door. Come in and feel fucking great about yourself and leave feeling fucking better. Whereas obviously their idea is we want you to come in here, empty your pockets and feel absolute shit about yourself so that you will come back, and we will give you the idea that if you come back you will repent gradually. At the end of the day, at the end of your life you might be rewarded for it.
DB: Eventually you might be good enough
TF: Yeah. eventually you will sort have done right, but you were very far from that now. Don’t you forget that. People neglect that the Vatican was a corporation, it started as a corporation and they had a corporate agenda. They still do. That’s the point. Nothing to do with a greater power. It has to do with psychology and theater. That’s what it is. It’s something I find on the one hand it’s appealing, on the other hand I find it very appalling but it’s also something I find entertaining. Inspiring.
DB: It’s fascinating what the church has done and how they’ve done it for the last few millennia, they’ve certainly had their ups and downs as to what they’ve done to their adherents.
The first thing I thought when I heard you guys is “these guys could be HUGE” the second thing I thought is as soon as you guys had a runaway massive record, televangelist or someone in congress is going to raise a big fuss about it because it’s a great way to make hay. It’s a great way to raise funds. They did it in the 80’s with the whole Satanic panic thing. As you get bigger, is the way the band is set up with the act around it, is it pushing the limits for growth? Could it be self-limiting?
TF: I think I know what you mean. I don’t know. In one way, I hope not because my active self-meaning me as an entertainer who is here to make people have a laugh, I want people to have fun. I’m also the boss of a corporation with a lot of people depending on me. I’m a father and husband and from that point of view, I’m very happy. Even though it might be quick in comparison to other bands in our genre, it might be disproportionately fast, I’m quite happy about our very organic growth. Over the last 10 years we have grown. People talk about how fast things grow but we aren’t moving any faster than most bands. Maiden had their first album out in 80. In 84 they were already headlining arenas everywhere.
DB: When you think about Metallica, the black album came out about 10 years in and you guys are about the same length in. I was talking to Jared James Nichols about this a few months ago. It just seems that the paying one’s dues phase is longer than it used to be. Even bands your size. It takes a lot longer to get there
TF: Definitely. And there seems to be a clear divide between old and new.I think the old and new world seems to be before and after the internet in a way where everything that came after 2000-whatever is regarded as new. We were debutantes in 2010 so people regard us as a new band, which is fine. I have no problem with that but it’s interesting because we are approaching …next year, I’m having my first year not touring. And that’s my first year not touring in 10 years. So, by the old standard I’m a veteran, but now in the new world I’m a debutante still. Regardless, what I was getting at before that. Controversy. I am very happy about how the band has organically grown on its own merits to where we are right now. At this moment we’re going to take the next step. And I’d rather take the next step based on our own merits being a very good entertainment act and making good records rather than some fucking bible thumper to throw it in the face of Trump voters saying we’re a threat to society and suddenly all the kids coming out just because we are controversial. As much as that is a boost to ticket sales and whatever if all the parents think we’re fucking mutants, I don’t want that. I seriously don’t want that because that’s not really the point. I know this might seem contradicting or even borderline hypocritical because what I’m saying is although I understand perfectly well that we’re controversial. The intention was never just to be controversial. I don’t know if it makes sense to anyone reading this. Ghost rose 30 years after, 40 years after the golden days. If you just wanted to be controversial, you could do what Alice cooper did. It was in a time where the parent generation had never ever ever heard of rock and roll. Everything with rock and roll was fucking Satanic. Everything with Bill Haley and Elvis Presley and all that was just Satan Satan Satan. On top of all that, when it couldn’t get worse in 1969, 1970, you have someone like Alice cooper coming in and pooping all over the place. That must have been what it felt like to that parenting generation. You know the parents from then were born in the 1930’s. In the 20’s. You know? That was a completely different generation. Whereas now the kids who are coming to our show, when were the parent’s born? In the 60’s? The 70’s? It’s like a completely different thing. What I’m saying is Ghost was never designed to piss people off. It was there to entertain people. To make people happy, so I have no intention of just pissing people off. That’s not the point. However, my inactive self, my lazy self that’s interested in politics, that’s interested in the world and the well-being of the world and progression of the word. The person who idealizes things that my active self doesn’t necessarily practice. Ideologically, I’d love to be a beacon. I can’t because I’m an entertainer. Just like everyone else, I have an active self and a non-active self. In my non-active self, my political self I really wish the things I say could rub off in the world. I really wish people would understand that fucking linear religion is a threat. It’s bad for you. It’s bad for everyone. And really embrace circular thinking. For nature and for the well-being of our soul, whatever that is. I do believe in some force though. And I do believe there might be some sort of supernatural unknown that we don’t know of, and I have great respect towards that. But I know one thing. I know that any linear religion that was created to make money off others does not know the answer to that. Anyone who tries to tell you what happens after death, they are lying because they want something off of you. It means we should ignore linear religion.
DB: It’s a great control mechanism. It has been forever.
TF: Do I want to be a poster boy for that? No. I want to be an entertainer.
DB: Rock n’ roll has always had a certain dichotomy. It’s always drawn one group and repulsed another. I think there have been certain points where it can threaten to overstep the art as well. The dichotomy of business and art too. I get what you’re talking about as an artist. You don’t want the tail wagging the dog.
TF: And now more than ever the confusion as to what’s right and wrong is amazing. Even in rock and roll. In my world, rock and roll is about liberation and intellectualism and freedom to be whomever you want. Freedom to feel good about yourself, whether you were born Hispanic or black or homosexual or transgender. And that’s what we’re trying to promote. In a subtle way. We don’t sing about these things, but we want to. I have a feeling that people do understand that, because we have lots of fans who are all those things I just mentioned.
DB: One of the nicest crowd’s I’ve ever been in was at the Ghost show in Columbus. I had lost my ID and I was from a different country. So, losing my ID is a big deal. Someone dug through the crowd to find me. I’ve never seen somebody do that before. There is a certain comradery at a Ghost show that I find interesting, that is unique. Considering the number of shows I go to, that’s saying something.
TF: That really gladdens me. I’m really happy to hear that. The most comments about the overall ambience of the show when it comes to the audience is that people have a good time and they feel very welcome and there’s not the sometimes hostile environment, especially when you’re a kid and you go to a hard rock or heavy metal or black metal show. There’s a sort of hostility that radiates from people sometimes. Especially going to hardcore shows. Go to an ICP show. There are definitely certain genres that have a vile sort of vibe and especially when you go to other genres or themes, it can be very macho, very rapey, and a lot of bad things happen. For one, I have a feeling that we have a certain magnetism towards people who are generally quite humanistic and sort of philanthropists in a way. It’s kind of funny in a way, a lot of the people who I know who are the most misanthropic, myself included and I have moments of disbelief in all mankind. “I fucking hate people,” you know? Most people who are like that are actually the most caring. The most lovable humanists that I’ve ever met. And I think a lot of our fans are like myself. People who have a similar background — kind of at odds with society or the dogmatic rules of society, who didn’t really fit in in school.
DB: Metal has always been sort of a haven for the broken toys.
TF: I guess so, yeah. I think that rubs off on the overall ambience of the show as well, and we’ve been trying to cultivate since we started that we don’t want any violence at our shows. If you want to move around, that’s fine, but you can’t body slam in the front row. We have kids in the front row, we have little girls in the front row. You can’t fucking do it. You have to take care of people. You have to be nice to people, and just because you’re a 200lb dude, you can’t throw yourself over, you can’t stage dive. You won’t get up on our stage, you can’t stage dive no matter what you do because someone is going to get seriously fucked up if you do that. That’s absolutely not fine.
DB: Yeah. The crowd at both shows were very good to each other in general. In Hamilton there were a couple of drunk idiots. Security did a great job of keeping the crowd in a condition where everyone enjoyed the show. That makes a big difference. I find that some of the shows I think the crowds are going to be the least accommodating on can be great. I was at Phil Anselmo’s show last month, and there was no photo pit. No photo pit. And for a crowd, even a crowd that was relatively rough, when they saw a guy with a camera, they were really good about it. It wasn’t “get the guy with the expensive equipment.” It was “protect the guy with the expensive equipment”, which was really nice. There are certain bands and shows where there is a cohesiveness to the crowd. When you share that common thing, there’s a draw there. People want to help each other out. I think some bands encourage that culture better than others.
One of the things I was going to ask about. Cardinal Copia is at the end of this portion of his run anyway. Are there any characters you miss playing, or are there any regrets with having the new face with each album? What are your thoughts on that, starting with a new chapter, with the new album?
TF: No. I’m looking forward to having sort of a skeletal pope again but missing any of the old stuff. When it comes to my own things, my own path, or at least my own professional path, I’m very un-nostalgic so far. I’m always sort of looking forward to the future more than the past, which is obviously completely opposite of my cultural traits because I’m very backwards thinking. I always embrace the past ways more than the future. But I guess the short answer is no. I’m looking forward to the future.
The future for Ghost does seem to be headed in a steep upward trajectory. Over the course of their last tour, they’ve taken that step up from 1000 person venues to arenas. 2021 will see the band embark on what will likely be their first stadium tour, complete with the recently promoted Cardinal Copia, now to be known as Papa Emeritus IV. The combination of fantastic stage show, controversial and fascinating themes, and consistent output of some of the best written songs that the genre has seen in some time has made the metal community and publications take notice. The band took home the 2016 Grammy for best metal performance and were nominated for two more last year for their latest release, Prequelle. Loudwire has named them the top metal band of the 2010’s. Between Loudwire music awards, Metal Hammer Golden Gods awards, Swedish Grammi’s, and Bandit rock awards, Ghost has won more Mantle candy than any other band in recent history. It will be interesting to see whether a band with imagery and music that courts as much controversy as Ghost can break through to the mainstream. Ghost has brought an energy and creativity that has been in short supply and it is often the hallmark of the next great movement in music. Heavy music has always been a refuge for the black sheep. It seems fitting that a heavy metal, corpse paint wearing, newly ordained anti-pope will be on tour next year to tend to the flock.
Both blues music and it’s bastard child, Rock music have always worn the mantle of the “Devil’s music”. Robert Johnson was rumored to have sold his soul to the devil at the Crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The “Devils music” has always been leveled as an accusation because it is an easy way to keep the disenfranchised, the youth, and the adversaries of the establishment in their place. The fun thing about rock music is that it’s always enjoyed turning sacred cows into hamburger, and that sense of danger has always been part of its allure. Even so, the relationship with controversy has always been somewhat ambiguous. Ghost unapologetically carries Satanic imagery as their banner. Bands like Slayer and Mercyful Fate have labelled themselves as Satanic, but they are well out of the spotlight of mainstream music. Ghost is the first band with a real potential of mainstream accessibility that tilts into an image that works at cross purposes to that fame. At the crossroads on the path to being one of the biggest bands in the world, 2021 will see whether the image and narrative that propelled them will be the devil’s bargain that prevents them from mainstream fame.
