Traslated interview with Tobias Forge in Spain
So The Metal Circus posted an interview with Tobias on the 10th of July, I just read it today and since it’s interesting, I decided to translated it for you guys. Please have in mind that my English is not that good so I apologize beforehand for any mistakes.
We had an exclusive interview in Spain with Tobias Forge, the undisputed leader and mastermind of Ghost.
“I can exclusively tell you that, when we go to Madrid, we’ll do it with white robes”. A Nameless Ghoul, that was obviously Tobias Forge, was explaining that to us in 2012 a few weeks before they participated in the Sonisphere festival in Gefate along Metallica, Soundgarden, Slayer and many others.
In just seven years since that interview, Ghost has become a band of big venues preparing their definitive assault to the big audiences in the United States and Europe. But it’ll be “on the next album cycle”. In two years, at least, according to Forge. With “Prequelle” they’ve reached levels of success that were already glimpsed with “Meliora” and especially with the EP “Popestar", where the single “Square Hamer” made them cross into the mainstream in a place as complicated for rock as the United States.
Now they are comfortably installed in venues of 4,000 to 6,000 of capacity but already entering the macro places of 15,000 of capacity. All thanks to a tireless persecution of the vocalist and leader for an excellent production that honors his rock idols: Rolling Stones, Kiss, Mötley Crüe, Metallica. It’s precisely as a guest of the latter that the group visits Barcelona again, two years after the last time.
The venue is the Estadi Olimpic Lluís Companys of the mountain of Montjuic and Ghost play for an hour focusing on the best of their repertoire: far away are the concessions to their first and less refined work “Opus Eponymous”. Hardly sounds “Ritual” of that time. Much of the set circulates around “Meliora” and “Prequelle”, the two albums that marked Ghost’s rise to fame. With the Sabbath-like riff of “Cirice” they dazzle 42,000 people in a stadium who are not even Ghost fans. They confuse them with “Miasma” and its excessiveness. They make them sing with the pyrotechnic “Absolution”. Cardinal Copia a.k.a. Tobias Forge has the audience eating from the palm of his hand. And, I repeat, they are not even his fans.
That was at 7:30 p.m. But at 6:15 p.m., a completely unmasked Tobias Forge received this journalist in the interiors of a clean and well-cared for tour bus with which he is crossing the old continent - and will continue to do so until the end of August, when the tour with Metallica ends. This is nothing like those infernal tour buses with 30 people, smell of feet and drunken Scandinavians. Forge is alone - his tour manager appears from time to time to remind us that, well, it’s getting late and the Cardinal doesn’t get ready in five minutes - and he looks at you while offering the most elaborate and loquacious answers that a modern rock musician can give.
Ahead, the imminent confirmation of a European tour that will arrive in Spain at the end of the year. And an everlasting warning via e-mail a few days before: “No photo, no video”. The legal dispute with his former bandmates may have finally revealed that Forge is the man behind Ghost, but mysticism is still mysticism. Even in the age of social media.
One year after “Prequelle”, what is your assessment of what Ghost has achieved during this time? Have you reached the point you wanted?
I think so. One of the main goals I had with this album cycle and tour was to get to play in arenas or, at least, to be in a situation where we can play arena scale shows. Now we’re facing the end of the tour cycle and we know how we are going to finish. If nothing drastic happens, at the end of the cycle we’ll have achieved that goal. After this tour with Metallica we’re going to the United States to make another tour and they all are going to be arenas.
After that, we’re going to do a European tour at the end of the year and we’re returning to Spain, I can confirm it. Although the size of the spaces in which we play can vary from sports palaces to large venues. My goal is not to play in front of a certain number of people but rather that the show can be developed in a concrete way and under optimal conditions. I want to be able to bring the full production on stage and I can’t do that in Razzmatazz, for example. But if I go to Club Sant Jordi in Barcelona, where 4,600 people can fit, I can do it.
Anyway, we were lucky the last time we were here on tour. I think we came on tour just in Easter, which was a small suicide (laughs). We had no idea. If we managed to come to the Sant Jordi Club this time, I am confident that the next time, with the next album, we’ll make it to the big venue, the Palau Sant Jordi. I hope.
Do you usually plan each of these steps consciously and precisely?
Absolutely. I think many of my goals, many of the things I wanted to achieve in my life and in my career, were planned a long time ago. I was clear about what I wanted to do. Another thing would be knowing if all this was going to happen with Ghost and not with other projects or bands.
I’ll give you an example: when I was 8 or 9 years old, I was a big fan of the Rolling Stones. I’m still a fan but that was the highest point. The Rolling Stones were my favorite band, I knew everything about them, I saw everything that could be seen, I listened to everything that could be listened to. In 1990 there were not many things to see, certainly, although they were one of the first bands to make a documentary about their own career, something especially remarkable. It was titled “25x5”. As I said, there was not much to see but, in the summer of 1990, there was a great concert that was broadcast live across Europe and it was the one they did at the Estadi Olimpic in Barcelona during the “Urban Jungle” tour.
It must be a dream come true to play here today.
God, I’ve seen that concert so many times. It was the tour for the album ‘Steel Wheels’ and since then I’ve wanted to play at the Estadi Olimpic in Barcelona. Now I’m here, I’m playing tonight. It wasn’t the way I could imagine back then but I’ve been able to cross off the list one of my goals. I imagined this moment thirty years ago and it’s happening now.
The undeniable influence of Metallica
Metallica was one of the bands that supported Ghost the most on the early years. You have the same agent, John Jackson of K2, and you’ve been on tours like those of Sonisphere in 2012 and 2013, which served to position Ghost strongly in the European market. What role have Metallica played in helping to put Ghost on the scene?
A huge influence. We wouldn’t be where we are if it weren’t for them - not just geographically, but at this level of popularity. They were the first great artists who promoted the band and showed their support publicly. They were a great influence and if it had not been for them … well, I could’ve had the influence of the Rolling Stones, of course, but Metallica had a huge impact on my youth because I discovered them after the Stones.
I listened to Metallica at that time but not as much as I would later. When they released their films, “A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica 1 & 2”, they had a great impact on me and my way of seeing a band. When the Stones talked about how they came to be big in their documentary, it seemed like a distant speech, realistic but distant. In the case of Metallica, we’re talking about a more contemporary band, closer in time for me at that time.
I come from a metal background. My first idols were not Muddy Waters. I didn’t aspire to do something derived from blues. I wanted to be a rock star. The Stones began when the rock stars were something embryonic that didn’t even exist, while Metallica and I are closer in the sense of having developed from the same musical approach.
I’m not ashamed to say that Metallica, directly or indirectly, have influenced me to become everything I am today and that they’ve been instrumental in achieving many of the things I wanted. This tour is a good example of this. They were the ones who asked us to accompany them on this European stadium tour. It was their initiative.
Would you say that “Prequelle” is Ghost’s ‘Black Album’? It’s the album that has brought the haters but also a more mainstream audience. Would it be a valid comparison?
No. I think if we can compare it with something it would be with “… And Justice For All” regarding Metallica’s career. It’s a therapeutic album and it’s not the best record I can make, but it was a necessary record.
Do you see “Prequelle” as a transitional record?
I could say that. If you want me to make an analogy with Metallica, I can point several factors with which there is similarity with respect to their fourth album. It’s a record they made in response to a tragedy. Obviously, theirs was a real tragedy, the death of Cliff Burton. Mine was a concatenation of legal problems, a severe bombing. I had the wind against me and a lot to prove. “… And Justice For All” took Metallica from one point to another, elevated them to large arenas and turned them into a much more autonomous band. In that sense, “Prequelle” has done the same for Ghost.
Now, with several years of career behind me, I’ve learned what I want and how to get there. Therefore, our next album could potentially be the equivalent of a 'Black Album’, so to speak (laughs). I don’t know, it’s hard to imagine. I don’t like to make those comparisons because the “Black Album” was released in another time, in another era and went down in history as one of the greatest and best-selling heavy metal albums of all time.
There is a thin line between love and hate
I remember reading how you explained that the character of Cardinal Copia caused you a certain displeasure, that he was an impertinent character even for yourself. A few months ago, it came to light that an alleged friend had 'ceded’ the character of Papa Emeritus and that there was some legal dispute about your use within Ghost. Is Cardinal Copia a way to put aside Papa Emeritus and to overcome some legal impediment?
Not at all. To be totally honest, that person never gave me the character, but the name: “Papa Emeritus”.
You said that everything that happened last year was like “a bombing”. Behind the character is the person. How has Tobias Forge lived the harassment and demolition to which he was subjected? Did you consider leaving all of this?
I never thought about quitting, to be honest. It’s not even on the table to do something like that. I think that, analyzing what happened and paying attention to small specific facts, it was inevitable. Socially I was within a group of people – I’m not talking about the band, but socially. I have many friends but in a specific group of them it happens that we were all the same. We all had a similar income, a similar educational level, etc. Within social circles like these it becomes very problematic that one of its members grows more than the rest. In my head I was still the same person. When I returned home, I tried to hang out with them and for me things were going as usual, but I wasn’t the same person for them.
Another problem is that within that social group, which was not the band itself although there were some members of my band, I was the only one who had children. When I returned home after six weeks of touring, I wouldn’t go to the bar with them, but I would go home. That means time was passing, even years. It seemed to them that I was changing, that I was disengaging. Of course I was, because I was working hard and when I came home I wanted to be with my family. But then, five years later, I gave them an excuse to be angry at me.
When all of that happened, I couldn’t believe that the ones I thought were my friends were doing all this to me. Some were very nice to me and gave me all the support, but others stabbed me in the back with no hesitation. They didn’t call me to tell me anything and try to know my side of the story. No. They went on social media and wrote posts saying 'oh, he used to be my friend but now he changed’. I didn’t even know what changed! We didn’t even talk to each other for three years. Then I stopped to think about what the problem was, and I understood that the problem is that I hadn’t had time to be close to them and to maintain friendly relationships afloat.
What happened to me is not original. It’s a classic and it’s inevitable. That’s why I look at it with some distance, because it seems inevitable to me. Had it not been that incident, it would have been another. It was inevitable. I couldn’t have done anything to prevent it. I was more worried about the people in that circle than about the band. There was only one of my friends in that social group that I refer to. The members of the band that were denouncing me last year were not even my close friends. What hurts is that people you trust, people you’re close to, come to have a big problem with you that comes from afar and that they never told me anything. Being in the middle of all that is very confusing.
When you are reaching a certain age, time goes by very quickly. People like you or me see how one year, two years, five years … fly by. When time goes by, you meet people you may not have seen in two years and you think it was yesterday. In my case, having been around doing 'funny things’, I was like a traitor to them. I had preferred to do 'my things’ rather than foster those personal relationships. But it is what it is. I can’t do anything to change it.
What’s the next step for Ghost?
Now I’m going to be with Metallica all summer, and in the fall we’re going to do the American and European tour. This summer is a little relaxed because the shows are outdoors and we play only one hour, even at festivals. At the end of the year, when we have finished the European tour, I’m going start recording the next album. In January of 2020 I’ll start to work progressively on it and 2021 would be a good approximation regarding the release date.
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