Not only did we read a lot at home, we also watched a lot of films. So I had already seen a lot of films that were about the crucifixion and the temptation of Christ, like Bible history and the Ten Commandments - stuff like that.
— Tobias Forge
My mom is very liberal. She has never been religious... spiritual but not religious.
Ghost has always been about make-believe.
There are many artists that I know exactly where they are born and what their names are and where they live, which are still very, sort of, hidden. Even Nick Cave, who has a film about himself nowadays, is still someone who I would claim to be utterly enigmatic.
The original idea of being anonymous - it was a great, naive idea on paper in 2008, not knowing to what degree we'd be touring or to what extent this was going to be a professional operation. That regimen is very hard to live by. What I hadn't foreseen was the fans and their willingness to embrace that and play along.
I constantly work with material that could be two years old, five years old, ten years old, as well as new things.
I think very cinematically.
Sometimes I just wish I played in a band like Foo Fighters.
As a young teen, Satan and the idea of some sort of world that you could be in touch with that could empower you was very much the symbol for freedom.
My brother gave me my first records when I was about 3 or 4 years old, because he bought a lot of records. And he was very nice because he gave me the records he thought I'd like more.
There are people who just love to destroy other people. It saddens me to admit that, I think, at whatever state of human civilisation we arrive at, the will to destroy other people is something that is innate in some people.
I've been in lots of situations in my life where I've managed to turn pain into growing pains.
Even when I wrote death metal songs for a death metal record, I was always trying to do my best to make it as catchy as possible because that's how I like music.
I come from a home that had a lot of music played in general.
I've had a very, very forgiving and a very, very supportive mother who never really gave me a hard time for going in and out of slackerdom.
I was 29 when we sort of broke through with Ghost.
If you've followed us from when we started playing live in October 2010, you will notice that there has been numerous changes over the years.
Even in my hometown of Linkoping where I grew up... the church we had was very lavish - very boasty. So it ticked most of the boxes of big, imposing Christianity. And I love being there if I'm in town... because it's just this haunting place.
If you ever want to play bigger places, you need to have records that sound like you're playing in big places.
I've liked Kiss from when I was three years old. I've seen them, the real deal, with all the original members when they came back in '96 and all that, and that's fine.
Technically, a Ghost song could just be piano and vocals, but it could also be full, pounding, heavy-thrashing hard rock.
Public trials are very unsupervised and extremely swift and speak to the most primordial parts of us.
A band which plays songs such as 'Death Knell' or 'Prime Mover' can't just stand on the stage with a shirt and jeans-jacket. It must be more awesome than that.
I grew up watching a lot of film.
'Dance Macabre' feels like one of those songs that you want to play forever.
My first teacher... was extremely strict, mean, and deeply religious.
We've gone from venues that hold 500 up to 3,000 on our own, so I guess we're not entirely unknown. But there is a difference between a few thousand people and 20,000.
So many people have opinions based not on fact but spite.
You want to be as successful as possible. You wanna have the strongest legs to stand on as possible for every album that you're doing.
I've always been very - for lack of a better phrase - hit-seeking, hit-driven.
I grew up in Sweden. It's a profoundly Americanized country. We have a strong tradition of Americana and always had non-dubbed American television, and embracing American culture a lot, so I always knew that I wanted to go to America.
When you're not successful as a musician, you are oftentimes unemployed.
I'm an okay drummer, I'm an okay bass player, I'm an okay keyboardist, and I'm a quite good guitar player.
When I was 8 years old, I was already very interested in music.
Once you get people's attention, you have a greater responsibility to tell them something of value.
Even if people would know who we are, or you could click on a Wikipedia page saying my date of birth, it does not necessarily mean that I have to go out on social media and tell you where I'm eating.
As long as I don't go onstage completely normal and then jump into character onstage, I assume that most fans would be able to accept me as the creator. I can comment on the work the same way a director would on his movie.
I usually write a lot. I don't make an album and don't write for two years and then end up with a blank paper starting over.
My name is Tobias Forge and I'm the man behind the mask in Ghost.
In an alternative life, I would have loved to work in film - I love film.
The reason for a lot of bands not making it is because they don't really understand that your job is sort of divided into two different things. It's one thing creating it... It's like being an architect but also a construction worker.
My first records were KISS's 'Love Gun,' Twisted Sister's 'Stay Hungry,' and Motley Crue's 'Shout at the Devil.' That had immense influence on me.
If you're going to a show that we're providing support for, or a large festival, you're obviously going to see a condensed version. We have to shave off some fat from the show, so we have to stick to the so-called 'bangers.'
Have I ever had dance lessons? I'm mobile, but not nearly as much as our promotional videos lead people to believe.
I prefer catchy, passionate, temperamental music. And as an upside of that, Ghost's repertoire has, over the years, been piqued by a few, sort of, hits.
I'm a big fan of a lot of prog music. As a record collector as well, I won't throw anybody or any band under the bus, but a lot of the records are fun to collect, are not necessarily very good. There are a lot of prog bands out there that it's a really cool record, but it's, like, not really there.
By sheer luck, we did our first tour of America as a headlining act.
Let's just say that I've spent a lot of time being not very successful.
It is difficult to be that band that doesn't do things the way other bands do it. It's a blessing and a curse.
