Ghost put nine people on a stage and officially name exactly one of them. The rest perform as Nameless Ghouls — anonymous, interchangeable, contractually silent, and the subject of more amateur detective work than any band in modern metal. With the band now on indefinite hiatus following the Skeletour, the question of who was actually behind those masks has a kind of finality to it. Here’s what’s genuinely confirmed, what the musicians have revealed themselves, and why almost every list you’ll find online is reporting a lineup photographed in 2022.
The one name that isn’t a guess
Tobias Forge is Ghost. Vocalist, songwriter, and the man behind every Papa the band has ever had — Papa Emeritus I, II and III, Cardinal Copia, Papa Emeritus IV, and currently Papa V Perpetua.
This isn’t fan speculation. It became a matter of public record in 2017, when four former Nameless Ghouls filed a lawsuit against him seeking royalties. The court filings named him, and the anonymity that had held since 2010 ended in a document anyone could read.
Forge has since spoken openly under his own name in interviews, on the Kerrang! cover story announcing the hiatus, and everywhere in between. He’s also released material outside Ghost entirely.
Everyone else on that stage is a different matter.
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How the Ghoul system actually works
Worth understanding before the names, because it explains why this is so hard to pin down.
The Ghouls are characters, not people. Early on, each represented an element — Fire, Water, Air, Earth and Aether — and wore identical masks and costumes. When a musician left, the character stayed and someone else stepped into it. Fans developed a numbering convention (Fire #2, Water #6 and so on) precisely because the personas outlive the performers.
The costumes change entirely each album cycle. Early robes gave way to the steampunk look of the Imperatour era, and Skeletá brought another redesign.
The lineup has also grown. Early tours used five Ghouls. A Pale Tour Named Death expanded that to seven. Both the Imperatour and the Skeletour used eight — which, with Forge, gives Ghost nine masked members, the same headcount as Slipknot.
Three of the current eight are female performers, known to fans as Ghoulettes or Ghulehs.
And crucially: the Ghouls are not permitted to publicly disclose their involvement. That’s a professional condition of the gig, not a mystery for its own sake, and it’s why identifications trickle out through photographs and slip-ups rather than announcements.
What’s actually confirmed about the Skeletour lineup
Here’s where we part company with every other page on this subject.
There is no complete, verified, published roster of the eight Ghouls who performed on the Skeletour. What exists is fragmentary, and here’s the honest version of it.
Justin “Jutty” Taylor — known to fans as Swiss — is confirmed to have left the band in April 2025, during the Skeletour’s opening weeks. His departure was described as being for personal reasons and was communicated by a member of Ghost’s own crew. Taylor had been in the band since 2018, and he’d previously identified himself by accident in the most memorable way possible: after falling from a platform mid-song at a 2022 show in Huntsville, Alabama, he tweeted that he’d meant to do that.
Randy Moore publicly acknowledged performing on both the 2025 and 2026 legs of the Skeletour on his own Instagram, thanking Forge and his fellow Ghouls by name as a group. That’s self-disclosure, not deduction.
Olivia Morreale likewise posted publicly at the end of the tour thanking fans for it.
Beyond those, the current roster has not been reliably established by any outlet, and we’re not going to invent one.
Why every other list you’ll read is from 2022
This is the thing worth knowing, and it’s why most search results for this question are misleading.
In May 2022, at the end of the Imperatour’s European leg, Ghost’s official tour photographer posted an unmasked end-of-tour group photograph. A Greek Ghost fan page identified the people in it within hours, and Blabbermouth, Loudwire, Guitar World and MetalSucks all reported the list.
Those eight names were: Chris Catalyst (Aether), Per Eriksson (Fire), Cos Sylvan (Rain), Hayden Scott (Mountain), Justin “Jutty” Taylor (Swiss/Multi), Laura Scarborough (Cirrus), Mad Gallica (Cumulus) and Sophie Amelkin (Sunshine).
That reporting was accurate for the Imperatour, in 2022.
It is four years old. Taylor has confirmed left. The Skeletá cycle brought a costume redesign and, per fan documentation, a substantially reshuffled Ghoul roster with new personas. Anyone presenting that 2022 list as the 2026 lineup is republishing a four-year-old photo caption.
We’d rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.
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Where the identifications come from
Three routes, in descending order of reliability.
Court records. How Forge’s identity was established, and the only genuinely unimpeachable source in this whole story.
Self-disclosure. Musicians thanking the band publicly at the end of a tour, or posting about it years later once they’ve left. Several former Ghouls have given interviews under their own names after departing — including one who spoke publicly about needing therapy following his exit.
Photographs. Tour photographers, crew members and unmasked group shots. This is how the 2022 list emerged, and it’s the least reliable, because a face in a group photo tells you who was on the tour, not which character they played or whether they’re still there.
Everything else — and there’s a lot of it circulating — is deduction from hand tattoos, playing style and boot brands. Entertaining. Not reporting.
What the hiatus means for them
Forge has confirmed Ghost are on indefinite hiatus, with nothing scheduled and no album in progress. He’s said he’s exhausted after seventy shows and won’t force a record without having something to say.
Which means eight working musicians who spent 2025 and 2026 playing arenas in front of tens of thousands of people are, as of February, without that gig.
Some will return whenever Ghost does. Some won’t — the roster has turned over every cycle for fifteen years, and this is the longest gap the band has faced since it started.
There’s one small mercy in the timing. Skeletour was a phone-free tour, so almost no footage of that lineup exists — except 2 Big To Rig, the concert film shot on 16mm across two nights in Mexico City. Whatever those eight people did together, that film is the only proper record of it.
Every Papa, in order
For completeness, since this is the other half of the “who’s in Ghost” question — and all of them are Forge.
Papa Emeritus I — Opus Eponymous era, 2010
Papa Emeritus II — Infestissumam era, 2013
Papa Emeritus III — Meliora era, 2015
Cardinal Copia — Prequelle era, 2018
Papa Emeritus IV — Impera era, 2020, whose final show closed that chapter
Papa V Perpetua — Skeletá era, 2025
Papa V wears a half-face mask rather than the full prosthetic of his predecessors, which several people read as Forge letting a little more of himself through on the band’s most personal record. That record ended with “Peacefield”, and the whole discography is ranked here.
TL;DR
- Confirmed: Tobias Forge is Ghost’s vocalist and songwriter, and has played every Papa. His identity became public record via a 2017 lawsuit brought by four former Ghouls.
- The current lineup: eight Nameless Ghouls plus Forge — nine masked members, matching Slipknot. Three of the eight are female performers known as Ghoulettes.
- Confirmed departure: Justin “Jutty” Taylor, known to fans as Swiss, left in April 2025 during the Skeletour for personal reasons after seven years.
- Self-disclosed Skeletour members: Randy Moore and Olivia Morreale both publicly acknowledged the tour on their own channels.
- The catch: no complete verified roster of the Skeletour Ghouls has been published. Most lists online report the May 2022 Imperatour lineup identified from a single unmasked tour photograph.
- Where things stand: Ghost are on indefinite hiatus. Skeletour was phone-free, so the concert film 2 Big To Rig is effectively the only record of that lineup performing.
FAQ
Who are the members of Ghost?
Ghost consists of vocalist Tobias Forge, who performs as a rotating cast of characters and is currently Papa V Perpetua, plus eight anonymous instrumentalists known as Nameless Ghouls. Forge is the only officially named member. The Ghouls perform masked and are contractually prohibited from publicly disclosing their involvement, though several identities have emerged over the years through court documents, self-disclosure and unmasked tour photographs.
Who is Papa V Perpetua?
Papa V Perpetua is the character Tobias Forge performed as during the Skeletá album cycle and the Skeletour, introduced in the video for “Satanized” in 2025. Forge adopts a new persona for every album cycle — previous ones include Papa Emeritus I, II, III and IV, and Cardinal Copia.
How many Nameless Ghouls are in Ghost?
Eight, as of the Imperatour and Skeletour. Early tours used five Ghouls, each representing an element — Fire, Water, Air, Earth and Aether. That expanded to seven for A Pale Tour Named Death in 2018 and to eight from 2022 onward. Including Forge, that gives Ghost nine masked performers.
Have any Nameless Ghouls been identified?
Some. Justin “Jutty” Taylor, known to fans as Swiss, is confirmed to have left the band in April 2025 after seven years. Randy Moore and Olivia Morreale both publicly acknowledged performing on the Skeletour. An eight-person Imperatour roster was widely reported in May 2022 after an unmasked group photograph circulated, but that lineup is now four years old and has changed since.
Why do Ghost’s members stay anonymous?
The anonymity is central to the band’s concept — Ghost present themselves as the public-facing arm of a fictional clergy, with interchangeable characters rather than personalities. Practically, the Ghouls are not permitted to disclose their involvement, which allows performers to be replaced without disrupting the narrative. Tobias Forge’s own identity was only confirmed in 2017 through a royalty lawsuit filed by four former members.
Nine people, one name, and a band that just stopped. If you spotted something the rest of us missed over the years, the comments are open — and keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream for daily rock and metal news.
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