Tobias Forge Talks About Ghost Style and Metallica’s 80s version
Tobias Forge talks about Ghost band themed, Metallica‘s 80s version, and more. About 15 years ago, Tobias Forge started writing a new collection of occult-themed heavy-metal songs using his dark Gibson SG guitar. The guitar with a horn that guitarists such as AC/DC’s Angus Young and Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi. The songs were part of a new project by Forge was launching called Ghost.
Tobias Forge Interview on Ghost’s musical style and Metallica
He lived in a tiny apartment in Sweden and had a dream of being a guitarist for his band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He would never have the privilege of being a lead singer or something like the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
You can also check Ghost band 2022 tour dates here.
Speaking to the AL.com website, Tobias Forge admitted he is a fan of the Metallica not only for their creativity but also commercially. Also touching particularly in the first decade of their existence:
“I would always pictured myself more like a Frusciante-type of a musician. Like, I’m a guitar player but also a backup singer, and just sort of second-fiddle in a band. I’m just gonna write songs that feel intuitive and fun.
And Ghost might be a fun little project that I was going to do sometime. One day I’m going to find a singer for this, we can put together a band and maybe this will become a fun hobby.”
“All the songs on the first record were really written spontaneously. It was very playful with no expectations, no rules nothing. And after you’ve done one record and if you’ve achieved any form of success, it’s hard to emulate that same thing because of several reasons. That album will always a very special place in my heart. It comes from my old world where I had very little. I had friends and loves and a guitar, but I didn’t have a lot of success.”
His thoughts about Metallica:
“I think there are various reasons. And it all combined in alignment, sort of created the sum our career. But I think our sound and our way of not writing the same record every time, but still having a signature DNA in it has helped. I think it has helped we have consistently tried to bring a show to the people. It defies logic for a lot of bands, I think, to try to expand beyond their means.
But that was aided by the fact that I was the only one that invested and everybody else was paid. If we had people voting on everything, it would not have happened this way. Because I was so determined that, yeah, I want to be what Metallica was in the 80s, on the “…And Justice For All” tour. That sort of band or like “Powerslave” with Iron Maiden. That sort of f—ing theater and playing arenas. And I’ve always been very influenced by Pink Floyd and Rolling Stones. As much as I’m a sucker and grew up listening to really obscure, very extreme death-metal, I also have a huge alignment and childhood love with big-ass arena rock.
And in this day and age, especially when rock isn’t the flavor of the day, I think it has behooved us that we’ve sort of moved against the pack. When we were debutantes, it was still that like emo-core going on, and we stood out like a sore thumb.
Somehow, we were lucky enough people started embracing us as well, even though we weren’t part of any major music movement. Maybe there was a murmur about an underground occult-rock thing going on at the time.
But that was at such a low level that wouldn’t have affected people in general. But then a lot of kudos and credit I must give to Duff McKagan, James Hetfield, Phil Anselmo, Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains, and Dave Grohl, of course.
All those guys took us on tours. They lifted up the band Ghost, onto their stages and put us in front of a lot of people. Without that, this wouldn’t have happened.”
You can watch James Hetfield’s – Cirice (Ghost cover) song below!
