Ghost mastermind Tobias Forge recently gave an interview to CBS Philadelphia, discussing the seemingly persistent turmoil in the band’s lineup as well as some initial plans for the band’s new album. Appearing as a Nameless Ghoul, Forge—who also performs as Papa Emeritus III and has spearheaded the band since their inception—commented:
“I have been in the band since I started the band. I started writing songs for it in 2006. Nowadays there’s a handful of very new members, yeah. But there has been about ten to fifteen people now going in and out of the band, so there’s been a lot of rotation.”
He continued:
“It’s always an inconvenience when you’re changing people in a band. You have to get someone else in there and you have to teach that person from scratch everything. We’re not doing twelve-bar blues here, so it’s not something that you can just pick up on. And luckily for me, since I’ve written most of everything, of the patterns, I can teach anyone coming in,
‘This is how the bass line goes, and this is how the guitar riff goes, and this is how the keyboard goes and this is how the drums go.’ So it’s not very hard for me to make my stamp rub off on anyone coming in and playing that instrument. But that also adds to the friction over the years. Because it’s never really been a band in the classic sense that you have someone who plays his or her instrument and that she or he is the only person in the world that can make it sound like that. People have a tendency to want to feel that they’re very important for something, and if it’s not crucial that they’re there, there will also be a little bit of a friction there.”
When asked if he saw the band more as a solo project than proper band, he offered:
“I actually refer to it as the earlier of the two options. Even though I’ve never wanted it that way, but at the end of the day, that is what it is. So I think it speaks clear for itself. I mean, I started it in 2006, and no one that was ever in the band in 2016 was even on the first record. Call it solo, if you want to, but I call it a project.”
He also mentioned that the band are planning to enter the studio in August to begin recording their new album, which h e has been working on for 3-4 years at this point. Currently Forge is facing a lawsuit from numerous former members of the band whom he replaced a few months back
[via Blabbermouth]
