I grew up in a very music-loving home with a lot of records, a lot of TV, a lot of radio, a lot of video - VHS cinema, basically.
— Tobias Forge
The music comes first. Final lyrics are usually written very close to recording the vocals.
I have a fascination for well-produced '70s and '80s rock with a lot of harmonies. AOR bands like Journey, Jefferson Starship, Toto, Kansas, Boston.
I love pinball.
Even the biggest bands - and I hate to break the magic - but even the band that sold out 90,000 tickets in your football stadium, they might come back two years later and do an arena. It still feels huge, but there's a difference - there's a big difference. And there's a big difference playing a 30,000-seat stadium and a 90,000.
I always hate starting tours, especially when it coincides with an album coming out.
I am an old-school guitar player. I'm not an '80s-'90s sort of shredder who plays a million notes a minute. I am way more '60s-'70s kind of style, and I write very '60s-'70s.
I was told before that one of the hardest jumps to do, painlessly, is the one from playing clubs into playing arenas. I am completely aware of that now.
The belief in something bigger and supernatural is not the same thing as linear religion.
In grade one and two, I was definitely into heavy metal and Satanic rock music, bands that had attributes that were quote-unquote 'Satanic,' even things like the Rolling Stones with 'Their Satanic Majesties Request' and 'Sympathy for the Devil,' but also like Motley Crue and Kiss and Alice Cooper.
Artistically, or just performance-wise, I love playing arenas. I think that is my favorite form, because it's big enough to feel like a big, grand show.
When you have a fruitful relationship with someone, and you've both chosen to work together, then it can spawn really good things.
I'm a big fan of the first one, but one of the first horror films I ever saw on my own was 'Halloween II.' That was my first real experience of Halloween as a concept because in Sweden in the Eighties, we didn't celebrate Halloween.
I like the fact that my work in Ghost is famous, and people know it, and we have our crowd. But I am not as antsy about getting recognized on the street as I might have once been.
For us, if you're a rock band, there's no way around it. You have to tour. You have to tour a whole lot.
At the end of the day, one of the biggest misconceptions of Ghost is that it's just about the devil. It's always been about mankind and living.
Even though I like speaking freely, I don't really have a desire anymore to profile myself as the individual wanting to be recognized.
Even when I was a kid, I always sort of identified myself with Keith Richards and Slash more than the singers of the bands.
I don't want to do Ghost as a normal, unmasked band standing around in, like, denim jackets. That was never the plan, regardless of whether people knew who I was or what size shoe I wear.
Most bands that don't want to become big at all, they don't play. If you don't want to be known, if you don't want to make it, don't play. That's the easiest way not to do it.
I am not a big artist myself. I am, I guess, a somewhat successful songwriter now, but I think that my value is Ghost and my writing via Ghost.
Since I remember still very clearly what it was like not being popular or in a successful band, I know that things go up and down, and you cannot expect this to be on the same trajectory forever. It won't be. Because even if you get to be the biggest band in the world, it's gonna change.
You need to have spent your time from playing Top 40 pop rock in order to know how to play a song like 'Ritual,' a song like 'Absolution' or 'Idolatrine.' You need to know your classic drumming and your classic guitar.
From my point of view, a lot of the things that we've done over our entire career have always been a big failure because it was never the way that I planned it. But then there's always upsides with it that turn out to be better or greater than the original plan.
I always layer my vocals a lot. I sing a minimum of three layers of the same line every time, and then it's always one or two or sometimes even more harmonies.
The problem with religious doctrine, as with politics, because of its ability to give people authority, it has a tendency to attract people that want authority for all the wrong reasons, and that is what it has done across all time.
I definitely believe that tormenting other people because of the Bible and for that to be - for lack of a better word, Gospel... I think that is not very nice.
It's always ideal if the production that you're taking out on tour is the one that you spent two weeks rehearsing with, and you just do the same show thirty nights in a row.
I'm a band dictator.
I never, ever, wanna see 'The Conjuring' again - ever. I don't wanna see 'Annabelle' again.
With Ghost, I never really foresaw that it was going to take off the way it did.
Even though 'Prequelle' is a record about death, essentially, it's a record about survival, and I think that that is something that's gone through all the records. Even back to 'Opus Eponymous,' there was a double meaning to things that doesn't necessarily have to do with evil sermons out of some old grimoire somewhere how to summon the devil.
If you'd asked me when I was six, 16, and 26, I wanted nothing more than to be a big, recognized rock star. Especially when I was six and 16, because I thought that if I was a known guitar player in a known band, only cute girls would talk to me.
As long as I've been doing Ghost, at least, I've been very keen on maintaining not necessarily an anonymity but a low profile. But on the other hand, I spent 25 years not doing Ghost, where, 20 of those years, I wanted to be nothing but a famous rock musician.
My ability maps my own writing. I haven't spent a whole lot of time biting licks from the really quick masters. That's why I'm not very good at that sort of super-fast, shreddy sweeping. So I've never considered myself a traditionally good, fast-playing guitarist.
It would have been easy to try to make 'Opus Eponymous II' and just stick with a routine. But it just felt like, if this is going to go anywhere, we need to take big steps every time.
You don't accidentally turn into a big band. Not even Nirvana accidentally turned into a big band. They toured - they wanted to become a big band. They didn't necessarily want to become that big of a band, but they still wanted to make a really good record and wanted to come out and tour.
I would like to say, and I think I am truthful, and I think I am honest when I say that I love doing Ghost. And if I didn't feel as passionate as I am and have been, about it, wanting to focus, basically, all my time on it, I don't wanna do it.
If we see someone, an artist who just does magnificent art, and especially if they're already doing Ghost-related art, we just reach out and start collaborating. But when it comes to the record sleeves and the tour posters, I'm usually quite particular.
If you come in like a typical modern drummer who is used to playing only with tricks and double kick and, like, big, big, big, fast rolls, but you can't play a swinging shuffle, then you can't play in Ghost whatsoever.
I love playing arenas; it's the best thing.
I'm a big fan of '80s music, for lack of a better word.
I sort of found King Diamond in second grade, but I didn't become a devoted Satanist until a few years later, but that was very much part of my adolescence as well.
I do believe in the idea of a historic person named Jesus that was a kind of chill dude who was just telling people to chill and be nice to each other. And he got penalized for that.
I wasn't letting people in with the music writing process, and for a long time, I thought I was hard to work with.
I think you need to see parts one, two, and three of 'The Omen.' And then just skip the ending of number three - it's so bad it makes me want to put my foot through the TV.
I like horror movies that have a degree of coziness to them.
I think that it's crucial. I think that playing live, if you want to be an artist - that's what artists do.
More than often, what you see, or what we've been able to recreate, has usually been a tampered-with version of what I have in my head, because the original idea has always been bigger. Every time I am in the mode of creating a show, there's always some level of gravity that comes in play, either of a monetary sort, or there's a space issue.
I enjoy the idea of being able to sort of flip-flop between being recognized and not being recognized.
