Tobias Forge

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.

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.

I enjoy the idea of being able to sort of flip-flop between being recognized and not being recognized.

Even though I like speaking freely, I don't really have a desire anymore to profile myself as the individual wanting to be recognized.

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.

When you're not successful as a musician, you are oftentimes unemployed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.