GHOST's TOBIAS FORGE Says 'Magical Upside' Of Making Albums Without A 'Traditional Band' Is 'Not Having Worn Each Other Out'

In a new interview with France’s Oüi FM, GHOST mastermind Tobias Forge spoke about what it is like for him and his bandmates to return to the road for the first time in a year and a half after making a new studio album, “Skeletá”, and releasing a concert film, “Rite Here Rite Now”. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I love being on tour. I love my job — most aspects of it. I’m very interested in stage production and conceptualizing. If I have one USP [unique selling proposition], it’s that I’m pretty good at wholistically com[ing] up with a concept. That is definitely something that my job is giving me an opportunity to do. That is fun. The traveling aspect I like too, a lot. Especially now when you’ve done it for a while. And I can’t help but to feel that little ‘world citizen’ sometimes. When you come to certain cities that you’ve been to many, many times and you have friends there and you have your favorite restaurant and you find your ways. And that is a very life-affirming aspect of touring.

“We had a few weeks in December where we had the band together, and we were rehearsing,” he revealed. “And that felt also good because we hadn’t really seen each other for quite some time. I saw some of them as we were gonna release the film, at the film premiere. But we hadn’t really been together for almost a year.”

Forge, who recently said that he operates “technically” as “a solo artist” while fronting GHOST, added: “Even though I’m sure that there might be individuals feeling that it would be great for us to work a little bit more like a traditional band, and personally I do miss sometimes the the idea of being one out of four people in LED ZEPPELIN or even BEATLES, being in a group where everything you do together just feels magical just because you have a sound together. But I will never really have that, so that’s fine. I have a lot of other things.

“Going through a whole album production and simultaneously making a film and then being able to come back into the group setting and not having worn each other out is a magical upside,” Tobias explained. “Because that means that once the touring starts, we start anew. We haven’t been fighting for a year. We haven’t been at each other’s throats. There are a lot of bands that go through that. Making records is hard. And once they go out on tour, they don’t talk, they don’t wanna be together, whereas the novelty of being on tour and being together again is usually quite invigorating.”

Back in April 2017, Forge was sued by four ex-members of GHOST who accused Tobias of cheating them out of their rightful share of the profits from the band’s album releases and world tours.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the district court of Linköping, Sweden, where GHOST was originally based, claimed that Forge solely controlled the band’s business affairs without input from anyone else in the group. The four musicians furthermore stated that a partnership agreement existed between them and Forge which put Tobias in charge of carrying out the company’s management duties.

In a statement explaining the lawsuit, the musicians officially revealed their identities as Simon Söderberg (Alpha; member of GHOST from 2010 until 2016),Mauro Rubino (Air; member of GHOST from 2011 until 2016),Henrik Palm (Eather; member of GHOST from 2015 until 2016) and Martin Hjertstedt (Earth; member of GHOST from 2014 until 2016).

In June 2017, Forge filed an official response to the lawsuit, claiming that “no legal partnership” ever existed between him and the four musicians regarding the activities of GHOST and explaining that “none of the plaintiffs were present at the time of the” group’s formation and that their sole task was to “perform” and “execute” the musical works and the image that Forge had created, produced and decided, all according to his instructions. For their efforts, he said, the musicians were paid a fixed salary.

At the end of August 2017, the four ex-GHOST members presented an answer of their own, dismissing Forge‘s claim that GHOST is a solo project as “not [being] in accordance with the truth.”

The four ex-members, known previously only as Nameless Ghouls, claimed that between the years of 2010 and 2016, Forge never told them that he viewed GHOST as a one-man business and solo project. “To the contrary, Tobias Forge has always emphasized that it was a collaboration that everyone was involved in and would share in the profit of once the business became profitable,” they wrote. “The first time Tobias Forge, through the band’s management, mentioned that he saw them as hired musicians rather than full-fledged members of GHOST was in the context of a contract proposal presented in April 2016.” This proposal was later rejected.

The trial in Linköping District Court lasted for six days, and on October 17, 2018, a 108-page decision was released dismissing the case. The four former GHOST members were also ordered to pay Forge‘s legal fees, which at the time were said to amount to approximately $146,000.

Forge was previously asked in a 2017 interview with CBS Philadelphia if he considered GHOST a solo project or a band. He replied: “I actually refer to it as the earlier of the two options. Even though I’ve never wanted it that way, but at the end of the day, that is what it is. So I think it speaks clear for itself. I mean, I started it in 2006, and no one that was ever in the band in 2016 was even on the first record. Call it solo, if you want to, but I call it a project.”

Forge, who previously did all the band’s interviews as a Nameless Ghoul, dismissed the entire lineup at the end of 2016 and brought in a fresh group of players. He explained: “I have been in the band since I started the band. I started writing songs for it in 2006. Nowadays there’s a handful of very new members, yeah. But there has been about 10 to 15 people now going in and out of the band, so there’s been a lot of rotation.”

He added: “People have a tendency to want to feel that they’re very important for something, and if it’s not crucial that they’re there, there will also be a little bit of a friction there.”

“Skeletá” arrived on April 25 via Loma Vista Recordings. The LP’s first single, “Satanized”, was made available in early March.

The “Satanized” music video introduced the new character who is fronting GHOST for its 2025 touring cycle: Papa V Perpetua.

Forge performed as a “new” Papa Emeritus on each of the band’s first three LPs, with each version of Papa replacing the one that came before it. Papa Emeritus III was retired in favor of Cardinal Copia before the release of 2018’s “Prequelle”. In March 2020, at final show of GHOST‘s “Prequelle” tour in Mexico City, Mexico, the band officially introduced Papa Emeritus IV, the character who fronted the act for its “Impera” (2022) album phase.

The European leg of GHOST‘s 2025 world tour kicked off on April 15 in Manchester, United Kingdom and will conclude on May 24 in Oslo, Norway. The North American leg of GHOST‘s 2025 tour will launch on July 9 in Baltimore, Maryland and wrap up on August 16 in Houston, Texas.

The physical home video of “Rite Here Rite Now” was made available on December 6, 2024.