Ghost Singer Hints of Creative Mindset in Famous Director's Works

If you know you're modern filmmakers and a bit of Ghost's musical history, you might just have tapped into where Tobias Forge's creative headspace is at these days. During a chat with Full Metal Jackie for her weekend radio show, the Ghost frontman tipped a bit of what's been inspiring him musically using the films of Peter Jackson to describe where he's currently at.

In speaking with Jackie, he described his albums of mirroring different eras of Jackson's career, with the most recent records being his Lord of the Rings. But noting that Jackson started with the less refined Bad Taste, he comments, "Where I am right now is if Peter Jackson would go back to do a little bit of Bad Taste, let's put it that way," while also sharing that he can't unlearn the progress musically he's made but could approach his earliest works with more knowledge now. What does that mean in terms of where his current headspace is at musically? Forge goes more in depth about revisiting "his happy go-to place" musically within the chat below.

The singer also addresses how he processes the critical praise that's come his way in recent years, digs deeper into the types of musical presentation that have factored into what he provides fans live and speaks about how his "no phones" policy may help in fostering a cultural shift in the music experience.

Forge also speaks about why now feels like the right time to take a break musically for a period and why he's okay with that. Check out more of the chat below.

It's Full Metal Jackie. This week we welcome back to the show the one and only Tobias Forge of the band Ghost. It has been another great year for Ghost. Lots of best of, year-end lists and another Grammy nomination. It speaks to the excellence of the music that is becoming more commonplace for you now, but what does the adulation from award shows and critics mean to you? 

I think anyone who says that it doesn't matter would be lying. With time, you'd think that it means less I guess. You get blase or ... But, no, I think it still resonates [with me]. Of course you wanna make an album that people like and it doesn't hurt if it's critically acclaimed or at least spoken of as something that could potentially be.

So yeah, of course it matters,

I think you're right though. It's this commonplace of like, "Oh, I don't do it for the lists and the awards." It's like, well, of course you don't, but it's still cool.

I feel like for an artist, it's not cool to say, "Yeah, it's great" that we're getting all this recognition, but I like that you're being honest about it 'cause it is cool. It is nice. You put all this hard work into everything and to be recognized for it must be a sort of cool cherry on top.

Yes especially if you have at one point in your career had some proximity to being critically acclaimed or getting awards and all that stuff, you will automatically, even though I'm not, I wouldn't say that everybody would chase after repeating that, but you would because of that proximity, you will always be measured by that.

Right.

So I think that that is very hard to avoid and of course it depends on who you are and what kind of person you are if you're gonna measure yourself up to that.

Ghost, "Cirice"

Tobias, the shows you've been putting on for the Skeletour have been amazing. It truly is a memorable experience, but it's not something everyone in rock and metal is doing these days. What were the shows you were seeing growing up that inspired you to want to add more of a production and theatrical element to your shows?

I grew up as a music fan in general, but one of my favorite bands of all time is The Rolling Stones. That was like one of my childhood favorites and also KISS. But when I came to the age of starting to go to concerts and buying records and all that stuff was in the later '80s when the Rolling Stones made their big, big comeback of 1989.

That tour, especially the American tour, I never got to see it personally, but that's like historic for being like one of the biggest concert-like experiences you could ever have seen. It put Rammstein to shame. They literally brought the real estate equal to a big rundown factory and put it into stadiums all over America, and if you Google it, the Steel Wheels Tour 1989, it was the coolest stage set ever built.

That and the late '80s Pink Floyd big return to stage. I didn't see that tour firsthand, but I saw a direct broadcast of it on Sky Channel or something like that in 1989. Even though it wasn't their biggest show ever, I think it also set a standard presence and an acute cultural impact because you had a direct broadcast from Venice, Italy where they played on a stage that was set on a pontoon, what do you call it  a floating device on the water.

So like, I'm eight years old, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, that sort of stuff, that's how you do it.That's what I want to do. And then a few years later, Metallica with The Black Album. I saw that tour though and that also gave me the sense of the sort of staging you need. I want there to be. The staging should be as cool as the band. I'm as excited to see the stage as I am to seeing them play.

Another tour that had a great impact on me came in form of a VHS cassette of that tour, and that was Live After Death recorded in Long Beach Arena in 1985, Iron Maiden.

So if you sort of take all those four components into one, you're near what I have been trying to do all my life, and finally we sort of got that. We're near at least my idea what I wanted to do, at least sort of Live After Death.

We're still not in stadiums, but one day. It'll happen. We're manifesting it. It's gonna happen. I can make the big comeback tour.

Tobias, having grown up when I did, I remember what it was like and to have an appreciation for what you've been trying to provide as an experience to fans. But it does feel kind of full circle lately in building a mystique in your presentation and the no phones policy, leading the audience to be more present, both very Gen X things, are doing so well for you in 2026. Is there a bit of a "told you so," or do you feel like you've tapped into bringing a new generation what is needed to make these interactions with fans feel more fun and valued?

I believe so. I wouldn't want to put myself on the pedestal in that movement, but I think I at least want to contribute to what I think will be a resurgence of more presence awareness, which I think the new generation that have grown up from day one with social media and that attention span alternating, morphing, that dilemma that they're in, I think that what we're doing is gonna be part of their future where they will have to deprogram and will feel very good about doing so.

On the other hand, we've clearly seen how great it is that mobile phones are around everywhere to document things, so I'm a little bit cloven when it comes to that whole thing. But definitely when it comes to the sanity of your private life, I think that is alpha omega that you slowly and steadily walk into zones in your life where now it's the time to use phones and now it's the time when you do not.

Tobias, it feels like with each album cycle, you're taking things up a level each tour. And the lore has allowed you to work through the Papas and Cardinal Copia within the construct of what you do. In creating this world, do you have an ultimate Ghost show and production? And are there places you'd like to take Ghost in terms of the live presentation you haven't had a chance to do yet? And just lastly, how close currently with the Skeletour are we to what ultimately would be your ideal tour vision?

There's always things that you'd like to do. There's definitely a lot of production elements that are still left on the list that I still wanna see materialized at some point.

Of course, going outdoors is something that, as a control freak, are not ideal, but there are elements of the sort of the summer night that lends itself really well to a concert that...On this tour, for example, is pretty much the opposite. Big tour, indoors, we're playing high-stakes arenas, love that. But for a control freak like me, it's perfect, it's always the same. It's cold and you're tapping into the darkest season of the year, and on this tour, we had to cancel three shows because of the weather. That happens in the summer as well, so you're up against elements in a different way.

But I think that the ultimate concert experience, we can argue about the lack of intimacy and all that stuff. And yes, I, of course I love punk rock too. I love a sweaty little club. But I think that the ultimate, the big grandiose nature of like a big outdoor concert in a sunset is one of the most beautiful experiences ever.

As a dreamer, I've always wanted to partake in that and be able to sort of orchestrate something like that would have been great.

But on the other hand, it's hard to say. We've gone through so many things over the last 15 years where, where we've done a ton of outdoor shows. Even though it's not ours, we've opened up for Metallica and Foo Fighters and this, that and umpteen times playing festivals where we've sort of been able to play a headline set in the sunset. So it's, a lot of these things we have touched upon. So if it were all to end today, I'd be pretty pleased.

Tobias Forge of Ghost is my guest on the show this week. And one of the fun things with Ghost has always been being able to dive into the lore and the really fun story you've created onstage and in videos. It has to be a blast creating this backstory. But I have to ask, was there ever anything you had to shoot down that was just too much, but you still loved in terms of developing Papa?

I am jokingly serious when I say that everything that we've ever done has always been a lesser version of what I originally intended it to be. Everything.

Somehow I believe that.

I think to an extent, I did that with this tour. Even though there are things that we didn't do, it was definitely a sort of gloves off, let's go nuclear and bring this nuclei to everywhere on the planet.

Then reality sort of actually catches up with you and all of a sudden it's like, okay, we've done one European tour. This is our second American leg. Originally we were intending to do South America, Australia, Japan. The tour is simply too big. We cannot bring it. You cannot travel with all that stuff, at least on our level.

You have to be sell out 10 nights every place to just sort of make it happen. That's just the reality of the show that I came up with. Had I known that, would I do it differently? I don't really know, because then we're in the territory that you talked about.

Like the Skeletour, this show is the three acts, it's the phone ban, it is the whole thing. And I don't want to change anything just to be able to accommodate. ... a certain, "Oh, I want to go here. But over here, we're not going to do it. They're going to get something completely different." No, the Skeletour is this. Regrettably, we ended it now. That was not what I planned. So there you go. That's like a little bit of a gray zone, what you just said.

No, I'm not giving in on the production, but I had to, uh, succumb to the reality of, "Well, then I can't do it everywhere." All right. I'll work harder next time to figure out a way to take another show on a more worldwide run. But that will be a problem in the future at some point.

Tobias, you recently shared that there was nothing planned beyond this tour. You've been at this pretty nonstop since things started taking off for Ghost over a decade ago. At some point, you have to go live some life. There's only so much inspiration to be gathered from keeping up on world events and reading books. What does life look like for you outside of Ghost? Do you have hobbies that you fall into when you're not working or have places you like to go and spend more time?

All of the above. Yeah. I have my family. Duh.  I've had two kids waiting at home with my wife for 15 years and maybe that says something about me that it wasn't a pushing enough factor during those years. Believe me, I felt bad. But I've definitely come to a point where not only do I  feel physically and mentally a need to be home, simply because they're 17. They're not gonna be around for any long.

And then, the most acute factor here is imagine you being a house builder, a visionary and you draw up houses, great, great ideas, but you're also doing the permits and you're also doing the tiles and you're building everything and you're sawing up all that and putting it all together. I don't simply have an idea. I'm out of tiles. I'm out of wood. I just don't have it. So the only way for me to come up with a new idea and, and get some new inspiration is to just step away. It is as simple as that.

It doesn't mean that I'm not doing anything. I have two film projects that I'm working on. Just before I left the tour, I was recording another album with another thing. So I have tons of stuff lined up for the coming years and also hobbies that have been put aside a little, just because for the last 15 years, Ghost has obviously been force majeure.

Luckily, my family's been very supportive of that. They know that in order to make this happen, I need to do this. Over the years, I've been very worried about momentum and just keeping it going because I have so many ideas. I don't want to lose speed. And I've just came to a point where I'm like, "I'm actually fine if the momentum is not there. It's cool. I'm good." I feel good about that. If I lose it, okay.

Tobias, you touched on this a little earlier when you were talking about your kids, and it got me thinking, when you're a musician who's out there traveling the world, playing these massive shows, do your kids actually get the scope of what you do? Do they understand the gravity of it, or to them, are you just dad who happens to disappear on tour?

Of course, they're 17. They know what I'm doing. We are very connected. We're very good friends. We speak about anything and they are very aware of my thought processes and where I am, how I feel about things.

But they're big enough and vocalizing enough to be able to explain and we can have a conversation about they felt as kids, me being away a lot. But now, they're the ones sort of pushing me, like, "Yeah, you know, it's only three weeks left," whereas in the past, it was always like, when I was gonna be away for seven weeks or nine weeks, it was hard for them to fathom what that timeframe is, and there were a lot of moments where you had to sort of sneak out before they woke up and have one screaming child on the balcony, sort of when you jump into the car. That was not easy.

But when you're driven by conviction, I was convinced, and I am still convinced, that I did the right thing of course. And luckily now, there's no resentment that I know of me having done that. But now they're the ones who are reasonable and, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do that when you come home," which is really encouraging.

Again, it just happened to coincide with where I am mentally in life. It just feels like a good time to sort of like, "All right, when I come back, we'll start this new chapter, this new reality."

Tobias, the Ghost of early years was heavier in sound, while especially over the past decade things have gone more in a catchy, hard rock direction. I know sometimes albums are a direct reaction to the predecessor and trying to keep things fresh. Where is your creative head space these days and what's been inspiring you musically of late?

Currently, even though I've always been a big music fan and I grew up on a mixture of a hard rock and top 40 pop radio combined with '60s nostalgia and a lot of punk rock. But my youth belonging, my place in life where I feel at home is the death metal underground scene. That is my home.

Ever since I was 12 years old, I've always found my happy go-to place is there. I've really found myself more and more just loving being in the presence of death metal. And it will probably always be my little cushy blanket to go back to, because it's sort of reminiscent of how crazy it does sound but that innocence before when the world was huge and the world was foreign and exciting and everything was possible. So that's where I'm heading. I'm gonna climb into the womb again.

READ MORE: Ghost's Tobias Forge Points Out Small Imperfection in Band's Logo

When it comes to creatives, the span of and the differences between, just in the context of Ghost, but if you bring in my entire discography, I like to compare things to the culinary world with being a chef starting restaurants and all that stuff. But I also like to compare it to the cinematic world, just because I'm such a enthusiast for the world of cinema.

From a creative point of view, I think I also sort of regard myself a little bit more similar to a filmmaker.

We were just talking about where your creative headspace is. You mentioned that you see yourself almost like a filmmaker in building these worlds and stories. Can you expand on that a bit?

My career is kind of similar, not in obviously the grandioseness of the difference between big and small, but if you just wanna have a creative comparison, it's kind of similar to what Peter Jackson is doing. The film Bad Taste was his first. That's sort of repugnant. And then Braindead is kind of Opus Eponymous and Ghost's latest records are kind of like Lord of the Rings, Tintin, like it's just like you're just snapping me at different point in time when I'm just doing different things and you learn stuff and your MO will differ and expand and and for every new project that you're walking into, you will have a little bit of do's and don'ts based on your previous one.

Even if I were to go in with three dudes and record like a hardcore album, of course I cannot just unlearn that I know there's a better way to arrange the drums so that we can go from this verse to this chorus that will make it jump more. It would be very unintuitive if I didn't use some techniques that I know. Who on Earth would do that? That is not natural. But where I am right now is if Peter Jackson would go back to do a little bit of Bad Taste, let's put it that way.

And though it's been around for years, "It's A Sin" was released here recently for digital service providers. It's such a brilliant cover of the Pet Shop Boys classic. What first turned you on to that song? And can you talk about putting your own stamp on this '80s classic?

In order for people to understand what Ghost is, you need to realize what I grew up with. Radio constantly, TV constantly, stereo constantly. So I was listening to my records and as soon as I walked into the kitchen, I would listen to whatever was on the radio. And Pet Shop Boys 1987, that's exactly my childhood. So that would be a song that I heard on the radio and loved. I would probably just tape it off the radio and have it on mixtapes.

I don't remember exactly the conversation that we had, me and Tom Dalgety at the time when we were making that EP that "It's a Sin" is part of, but it was definitely on my sort of list of these are cool songs that I want to do. Lyrically it falls very neatly into the loose concept of religiosity that we're moving within.

I also had a feeling that you can sort of give it that sort of Killing Joke sort of vibe, or Doctor Feelgood if you want to, because they stole that from Killing Joke. But that was the thing. I wanna make a Killing Joke version of "It's A Sin." "All right," said Tom ."You succeeded. I think you absolutely succeeded."

Ghost, "It's a Sin"

Thanks to Tobias Forge of Ghost for the interview. Stay up to date with the band through their website, Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube accounts. Find out where you can hear Full Metal Jackie's weekend radio show here.