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Ghost mastermind Tobias Forge is reportedly recording a new death metal project.
Reports from multiple friends and collaborators suggest that the Swedish singer/multi-instrumentalist, who founded Ghost and performs as their masked frontman Papa V Perpetua, is in the studio working on something more extreme than his main band’s fare.
Speculation started in June, when Swedish drummer Johan Koleberg – who’s played in Hammerfall, Therion and other heavy metal bands – took to social media and said that he was helping Forge prepare drums for a new project.
“Helping out Mr Tobias Forge to tune these fine drums for his new project for the next couple of weeks,” Koleberg wrote, accompanied by a picture of a mic’d-up drum kit.
Another report emerged in July, when Digby Pearson, the head of UK rock and heavy metal label Earache Records, appeared on the Temple Of Bleh podcast. During the interview, Pearson recalled his attempts to sign Ghost before they blew up in the mid-2010s; even though Earache didn’t get the band at the time, he says that they’ve just “got the connected-to-Ghost death metal band” and that “apparently, he’s [Tobias] doing a death metal album, as well”.
Now, another hint has come from Joey Tempest, the lead singer of Swedish rockers Europe. Tempest – whose band got Forge to handle backing vocals on their album Come This Madness, out today (Friday, September 25) – tells Planet Rock “I don’t know [Forge’s] Ghost plans”. However, he adds: “I know he’s sitting in his studio again and no one is allowed in … he’s doing something!”
Although Forge switching from Ghost’s hard rock hit-making to savage death metal may seem like a leap, the 45-year-old has an extensive history in heavier music. From 1998 to 2004, under the pseudonym ‘Mary Goore’, he was the frontman of death metal outfit Repugnant. Their sole album, Epitome Of Darkness, came out in 2006: the same year that Forge formed Ghost.
Forge told Metal Hammer in 2023 that Repugnant’s split “broke my heart”. “I wanted us to be signed to Roadrunner and support Slayer,” he said. “That never happened, unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately, as it kept me grounded for a few more years and if those things had happened maybe I wouldn’t be here today.”
Talking to Loudwire, he admitted that he didn’t “know if [Repugnant] were good enough” to find success.
“Now, knowing a lot of the things that are required, how many stars that need to align and all the decisions you have to make, I can definitely look back on myself as a 21-year-old and quickly see why I didn’t achieve that with Repugnant. I wasn’t mature. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t there yet.”
Forge reformed Repugnant in 2010 and hoped to record a second album with the band, tentatively titled Toxic Contagion. However, the reunion was short-lived and new music never materialised. The singer has ruled out making death metal with Ghost but told Loudwire that he was “still chasing” his longtime passion for the genre.
“I still get the same kick out of things that I liked as an 11 or 12-year-old, when I really started listening to that and when death metal was this really dangerous animal that you can just go to this one store to find,” he explained.
Ghost, one of the biggest rock bands in the world, went on hiatus in February, following the conclusion of their Skeletour world tour. Forge told Kerrang! that he was “exhausted” after completing the trek.
Metal Hammer has contacted Ghost’s representatives and asked Forge to comment on the rumours of a new death metal pursuit.