In a new interview with Markus Brandstetter of Rolling Stone Germany, GHOST leader Tobias Forge was asked if religion played a “big part” in his upbringing. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Yes, but not in the traditional sense… We all know people who grew up in religious homes, or maybe in times where religion was more part of the mainframe. However, I grew up with religion from a cultural aspect because my mom is just a very cultural person and very interested in art and films. And so there was a natural sort of influx of more the cultural aspect of…”
He continued: “Whenever we were traveling someplace, we would always go to a church — not for religious reasons, [but] because of cultural reasons, for the artwork, like a museum. And as an imaginative kid, of course I was interested in the fairytale aspect of it. It was almost from an Indiana Jones point of view, because it was magic. But that was a positive thing. That felt historical, that felt magical, that felt ancient and cool. And then the other aspect of it was people in my vicinity that were religious who weren’t necessarily very nice, or at least I didn’t find them to be very pleasant. And one of them was my teacher in first and second grade. This was late ’80s, and she was probably around retirement age at the time. So, she was born in, like, 1915 or something, or ’20. I don’t know. I don’t remember. But she was very much like an old-school disciplinarian — very unmodern, mean. Everybody hated her. And even before I started school, just because in my kindergarten, there was a lot of kids who, who were older and they were, like, ‘Yeah, you’re gonna end up in her class. She’s a real bitch.’ So it was sort of served that way as well, and as soon as I started, we immediately clashed. And I remember her so clearly telling — I mean, anybody who was in my class might say that, ‘Oh, she never said that,’ but I remember clearly that she was, like, ‘Had this just been a few years ago, I could have hit you.’ And she was, like, ‘Back in in the day — it was not very far, very long ago — I would’ve been allowed to hit you kids.’ And you could really tell that she wanted to be that sort of physical disciplinarian. And you can argue maybe that maybe someone like me deserved it. I was very stuck up. I didn’t like authoritarian people when I was a kid, so I didn’t like it at all. And she was very deeply religious.”
Forge added: “As my memory of it, and this might go against what anybody else’s memory of it was, but there was a lot of singing psalms, or hymns, and there was a lot of biblical… I think she went off course in the amount of biblical study that we did. On the other hand, that served also my interest in history. So it wasn’t like a waste, but she was definitely like an embodiment of, to me, the paradox of her self-proclaimed representing the good side and she was actually evil. She was mean and petty and bitter and represented negativity and regression, and I’d say that skewed me a lot. But I definitely, obviously fell out of favor of her. And then that sort of continued throughout school. We had another [teacher]… When I started seventh grade — I don’t know to whatever extent she was religious, but she was definitely a righteous woman and she hated me. And this was right when I was in my most blooming satanic adolescent, 13-year-old kid. And I came into her class and she was, like… I know afterwards, because when my kids started school, for a brief time they actually went to the same school that I attended in seventh grade, and they had the same teacher as I had at the time, and he [told me], like, ‘She was really mean to you.’ ‘Oh, that was not just in my head?’ He was, like, ‘No. She went around to other teachers trying to color their perception of you and how she wanted you to fail.’ But I was very, very opinionated and I tried to diminish her thing with the class. I was the sort of kid that that would stand up in the middle of class and, like, ‘Nobody here likes you. You’re just a dumb cow.’ [Laughs] So I was also a little shit. But as a kid and a teenager, I was in constant sort of collision with the world. I also have a great respect thinking about my own role in it. But if I wanna give myself a little slack, I would say that had I had nicer teachers, it would’ve been better. There are definitely others that I knew that had other teachers — had I been in their classes, I probably would’ve succeeded better. Succeeded with what? Things turned out okay. So it’s, like, it’s fine. But, yeah, that’s the short answer to your question.”
Forge previously spoke about religion while discussing GHOST‘s cover of GENESIS‘s 1992 song “Jesus He Knows Me”. He told Australia’s The Music at the time about the song’s subject matter — a satirical look at televangelism: “It’s frighteningly horrible. It’s easy not to laugh about the accuracy in which Phil Collins wrote a lyric that ten years ago felt almost dated, even outdated, which now feels so contemporary and important.”
He continued: “When we started touring America, I was asked so many times, ‘Do you have a problem with the Christian fundamentalists or picket fencers or any of that stuff?’ I was, like, ‘No, never.’ Like, there seems to be a sort of undercurrent of that stuff over there. I didn’t see that, we were all over the place, even in the South, and definitely a lot in the heartland.
“My impression of those cities is just wonderful — a lot of nice people who come to rock shows, and they’re super friendly, and everything is just fucking dandy,” he added. “And then, obviously, the last five or six years, the people are still the same, I still feel that they’re in the same climate. But obviously, parallel to that, there is this complete Flat Earth cult that has just decided to throw in the towel. I don’t know what their aim is.”
Referencing the fact that some televangelists ask people to give cash to earn financial favor from God, Forge said: “I cannot neglect to underline the fact that the followers, they are people who don’t know better. I pity them — they are being used and humiliated and the leaders are just completely exploiting them. The exchange is supposed to be: ‘Give me money, and I will give you the past back’. Look, I’m a nostalgic person as well. I wish it was 1985, too, believe me. But if anyone would come to me and say that, ‘If you pay me $1 or $10 — anything you can spare — and I will give you 1985 back,’ I would know you’re lying. You’re obviously lying. You’re obviously telling me something that is not true. But yeah, such is the world now.
“You never reach the status quo. Unfortunately, the pendulum swings and sometimes you’re in the shitter and sometimes the opposite side, that’s how it’s always been,” he said. “That’s the horrid thing about the shit that they’re trying to sell you, especially when they’re trying to sell it as some sort of religion sandwich because they’re telling you that the world is linear, and time is linear. In this case, they’re talking about heaven or hell. That is not how it really works. Everything else in this world is circular. So why wouldn’t that also be circular? That’s the true essence of evil — tricking people into believing something in order to get something out of them and trying to sell them salvation.”
Earlier this month, GHOST‘s new studio album, “Skeletá”, landed at position No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 86,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the LP’s first week of release. 89% of that figure (77,000) consisted of traditional album sales, with vinyl purchases accounting for over 44,000 copies. Notably, “Skeletá” was the first hard rock album to reach the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 since AC/DC‘s “Power Up” in 2020, according to Billboard.com.
“Skeletá” arrived on April 25 via Loma Vista Recordings.
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.
Source: blabbermouth.net
