It’s been an eventful past year, to say the least, for singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tobias Forge.
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Up until recently, his band, Swedish occult-rockers Ghost, had been operating
It’s been an eventful past year, to say the least, for singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tobias Forge.
Up until recently, his band, Swedish occult-rockers Ghost, had been operating under a shroud of secrecy, with the multiple masked instrumentalists referred to only as Nameless Ghouls, while Forge, as frontman, assumed the role of Papa Emeritus (and Papa II…and Papa III), a sort of anti-Pope.
Over the course of three albums, Ghost rose to become one of metal’s hottest bands, with successful records (2016’s Meliora hit the Top Ten on the Billboard 200) and sold-out tours, multiple awards (including a 2016 Grammy for the Meliora track “Cirice”) and a worldwide fanbase that includes the likes of Dave Grohl, Phil Anselmo and the members of Metallica.
But in early 2017, the anonymity that seemed so vital to their story and music got stripped away when four former Ghouls filed a lawsuit accusing Forge of financial misconduct. As the suit became public knowledge, so did the identities of the parties involved, revealing Forge as the mastermind of the operation.
But rather than harming the band, this public unmasking seems to have only made Forge stronger. In addition to a new Ghost album, the excellent Prequelle, Forge (now in the guise of new frontman Cardinal Copia) and a new group of Ghouls are back out on the road, and the stages and theatrics have only grown bigger. Rather than pulling back, Forge has regrouped and redoubled his efforts.
“That was the point all along,” Forge says, speaking to Guitar World the morning after a show in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Ghost’s U.S. headline tour—their first ever in arenas. “I mean, I am following my plan that I’ve had years before any of those guys