Ghoul The World: How Ghost catapulted out of the underground with Opus Eponymous

“What people forget is that The Devil is a very charming, appealing character.”

On April 6, 2011, issue K!1358 hit the shelves. Its cover was adorned with a picture of Slipknot in their All Hope Is Gone phase. But it was notable for giving readers their first taste of another band whose outwardly morbid appearance belied a curious sense of dark charisma.

On page 10 – in a spread that included a news piece about blink-182’s Travis Barker collaborating with Tinie Tempah and a competition to play five-a-side football with Architects – was a photo that made the blood run cold. There, as part of that week’s Introducing feature, was Ghost’s first interview, in which a Nameless Ghoul – insisting on speaking only as an anonymous, disembodied voice down a phone line from a location they declined to disclose – gave the quote that would prove increasingly apt over the coming decade-and-a-half.

With its black background, it took a moment for the eyes to adjust to there being five hooded figures dressed in the same colour, as if they’d just stepped from the shadows. But it was the apparition in front of them, Papa Emeritus, quite literally in the spotlight, that really intrigued. His one visible silvery eye seemed to peer into your soul, his hand outstretched beckoning you to sin.

“We’re living in the end times,” the Ghoul continued, explaining why the meaning of the music was more important than knowing who was who. “We’re supplying the soundtrack to the end of the world.”

It was hard to guess at first glance what this skeletal figure and his monk-like minions sounded like. On Ghost’s debut album, Opus Eponymous, released the previous October, the answer wasn’t the expected black metal diabolism, or weighty doom, but rather something that often came from the dreamier end of Black Sabbath’s ’70s works, with a sinister thread lodged in between the ear-friendly melodies.

Already, Ghost were corrupting the underground, the Nameless Ghoul’s words echoed in their quick rise. Some had, as acknowledged by the band themselves, already started calling out Ghost as a joke. But there was wisdom in knowing a long game.

“Are we having a joke at your expense?” the Nameless Ghoul mused with, in hindsight, startling knowingness. “Only time will tell…”

Two months later, on Saturday, June 11, Ghost brought their ritual to Download. In the wings was one Phil Anselmo, still more than a decade from reuniting with Rex Brown in a new iteration of Pantera, there at the festival fronting metal supergroup Down on the Main Stage. Ghost’s six-song set certainly made for an intoxicating experience – and as the congregation filed out, they were treated to the sight of Phil on the stage’s scaffolded backstage area heaping praise on Papa, who was stood in a black and red chasuble, his white mitre gleaming in the sun. Later, he would bring the Nameless Ghouls out for the end of his own band’s set, handing them their instruments to finish Bury Me In Smoke. Or, as it became renamed by the burly frontman, “Bury Me In Ghost.”

But who was this Papa Emeritus? And who were Ghost, the band completed by five Nameless Ghouls? And how had they got music fans and their favourite musicians – from Dave Grohl to James Hetfield – to worship at their altar?

Back then, few could possibly know all this started with an introverted kid’s dream…

The Swedish city of Linköping is home to one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in Scandinavia. The present structure has been there for some 800 years, but its history goes all the way back to the 11th century.

As a child, Tobias Forge would visit the city’s churches with his mother, who, while not necessarily religious, was interested in their artistry. The young Tobias was, too; they were grand and gothic, and festooned with colour but also full of dark corners.

Tobias had friends but was happier being a homebody. There he could indulge his passions for watching television and movies, drawing and listening to music. His brother, Sebastian, was 13 years his senior and left home when Tobias was six, but not before gifting him Mötley Crüe’s Shout At The Devil, which provided Tobias with his first taste of the intersection between rock music and satanic imagery, eliciting the same mixture of fascination and fear that churches did.

Tobias’ love of The Rolling Stones suggested a particular affection for rock’s more ambitious practitioners, with a fascination for the extravagant success achieved by a select few and a desire to emulate Mick Jagger’s louche command of a stage. But it was the Stones’ 1989 – ’90 Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour, with its vast industrial backdrop, that opened his mind to the epic possibilities being a touring band could offer. As did Iron Maiden’s mid-’80s World Slavery and Metallica’s 1988 – ’89 Damaged Justice tours.

In their globe-straddling scope, those examples showed Tobias that it didn’t matter where you came from. Whether it was Dartford (Mick Jagger) or California (Metallica), Zanzibar (Queen’s Freddie Mercury) or Leyton (Iron Maiden), anything was possible.

“The days and options seemed limitless,” Tobias would tell Kerrang! in 2019. “I always thought of the world as being there for the taking, even though I didn’t have any access to that world.”

Tobias’ journey to doing so had humble beginnings. First came the band Superior, which gave him a taste of performing under another name, Leviathan. Then came death metallers Repugnant as Mary Goore. It was during that period that Tobias crossed paths with Watain’s Erik Danielsson, at a W.A.S.P. show in Stockholm in 1999. Both had long hair, patches and bullet belts. And both were cocky, so sniffy around each other, until Erik’s patch of legendary German thrashers Sodom broke the ice.

“[Tobias] said, ‘If you like Sodom, you’re going to like this stuff,’ referring to his demo, which he had in a carrier bag, so I bought one,” recalls Erik. “It blew my mind! No-one was doing that style of ’80s satanic death metal at that time, but I was totally into it. After that, we kept in touch.”

Erik would organise one of Repugnant’s early shows, in his hometown of Uppsala, Sweden’s fourth largest city. And while Tobias’ subsequent bands, Subvision and Magna Carta Cartel, were less to Erik’s tastes – “I never tried to hide the fact I always wanted him to go back to playing satanic death metal” – he admired the commitment evident in whatever Tobias turned his hand to, so would assist with artwork and layouts.

So, when Tobias got in touch to ask if he could use Watain’s rehearsal space for a new project, Erik immediately said yes – and not just because the room, part of a Stockholm subway station, had actually been inherited from Repugnant.

“I asked [Tobias] what the music was like,” recalls Erik. “He said it was kind of black metal style. I thought, ‘Fuck yeah,’ and went to listen.”

What Erik heard, however, was far from what he expected.

“I wasn’t all that impressed,” he admits of Ghost’s early efforts, in less developed form and minus vocals. “I remember thinking, ‘Come on, man – this sounds like Blur or something!’”

One of the songs he heard would have been Stand By Him, written in 2006 and initially featuring Swedish lyrics. It had been recorded in 2008 with Tobias’ former Repugnant bandmate, Gustaf Lindström, along with the tracks Prime Mover and Death Knell. With them came a specific thematic focus – of Satan, evil and sin – as well as the prison of religious belief.

“Linear religion is about confinement, but we’re talking about release – the opposite,” a Nameless Ghoul explained in March 2013. “We’re an inversion of what the Church does – we’re doing what the Church does but painting a moustache on it.”

Later, in the more developed recordings, complete with vocals, Erik heard the influence of heavy metal’s doomy early days and seedy ’70s psychedelia, executed with Tobias’ trademark passion, affection and skill.

“It was like when I heard the Repugnant demo tape,” says Erik. “You could tell the guy had some next-level shit going on.”

Erik’s most significant contribution to Ghost was the creation of the inverted cross embedded with a ‘G’, known as the Grucifix, which symbolises the band.

“With Watain we always had this trident [logo],” explains Erik. “So I did a take on this old Christian symbol, which Tobias loved.”

The frontman shared Ghost’s demos via Myspace on March 12, 2010 – which, tragically, was the same day his brother Sebastian died from a heart condition. In the following days and weeks, Tobias struggled with the loss of his influential older sibling, while managing the attention from prospective record labels. Lee Dorrian, frontman of cult British doom outfit Cathedral and owner of legendary underground label Rise Above Records, an impressive home for all things doomy, stoner and eccentric, was among their number.

“I remember hearing Ritual on a Friday, then playing it at least 25 to 30 times over that weekend,” recalls Lee. “It sounded like Mercyful Fate meets ABBA. I knew we had to sign them.”

Opus Eponymous was recorded in Linköping by Tobias, Gustaf Lindström and session drummer Ludvig Kennberg. Their efforts were then sent to the UK to be mixed by Jaime Gomez Arellano, who’d worked on releases by everyone from Cathedral to the Black Eyed Peas. But who was the record’s producer, Gene Walker? Yet another pseudonym for Tobias Forge, as a way to keep Ghost’s mystery.

The band’s stage attire was the main way they maintained that anonymity. Do it right, and it would all speak for itself.

“Tobias wanted £500 for a robe to be made,” says Lee Dorrian. “I thought, ‘£500?! Fucking hell – it better be good!’ When I saw the pictures, my jaw dropped. It was money well spent!”

“The anonymity is important because we don’t want to dilute the performance and the actual experience of Ghost,” one of the Nameless Ghouls explained to K! in their Introducing feature (this may well have been Tobias, who regularly conducted interviews as a Nameless Ghoul for many years). “With most bands the personalities of the individual performers takes a lot of attention, but we want to keep the focus on the meaning of the band.”

Upon the album’s release, some did wonder if Ghost’s mix of dark imagery with such ear-friendly music was a laugh. The Dark Lord would approve, the Ghouls insisted: “He’s got a sense of humour, and the notion of freedom and individuality is his most subtle practical joke.”

“A lot of people are more interested in cynically examining the band rather than enjoying us, but that’s fine. It’s human nature to self-destruct and tear things apart waiting for your own demise.”

The band would later acknowledge the critics had some value – there’s no such thing as bad press.

“We digest the critique… because maybe the naysayers have something interesting to say. As indifferent as some people are about our existence, it’s surprising how they are so keen on letting people know about us. We completely feed on that!”

Those who got Ghost ate up Opus Eponymous, which soon became Rise Above’s biggest-selling record ever.

“I knew there was something special about the band, and I knew they were going to be big, even if it was hard to ascertain how far they’d go,” says Lee Dorrian.

That insatiable response was helped by Ghost’s first performance in the UK, at Live Evil 2010, a two-day fest at the London Underworld curated by Darkthrone drummer Fenriz, shortly after the debut’s release.

“It felt very underground,” describes Download Festival promoter Kamran Haq, who was there. “They went to great lengths to hide who was in the band, even backstage, which led people to speculate they were members of Swedish bands like Candlemass, Opeth and Dismember.”

Curiously, Messiah Marcolin and Mats Levén, both former vocalists in Candlemass, had been on the shortlist to front Ghost back when Tobias only wanted to play guitar. Both turned the offer down. As did other candidates, including Christer Göransson from Mindless Sinner, a metal band from Tobias’ hometown of Linköping. So, in the end, Tobias stepped into the role.

A European run with Paradise Lost in April 2011 further proved just how much of a splash Ghost were already making. And what an eye for detail their singer had developed…

“On the first night, I went to watch from the side of the stage,” remembers Paradise Lost guitarist Aaron Aedy. “As Papa walked on, I looked down and noticed he was wearing brown brogues. I thought it was a weird choice at first, but later I thought that a clergyman would probably wear sensible shoes.”

A subsequent tour with Trivium, In Flames and Rise To Remain in December 2011 cemented a mutual affection between Ghost and the UK, which flew in the face of the hostility they’d been warned to expect.

“We were told it was an unbreakable market,” laughed Tobias in 2022, “that when we played anywhere outside London, we shouldn’t be alarmed if someone chucks a beer bottle at us.”

Nobody did. Nor at Metallica’s Orion Festival in the U.S. in 2012, where they appeared by invitation of The Four Horsemen themselves.

Who were they? Few knew. But it mattered not: Ghost had arrived.

This feature originally appeared in the special edition Kerrang! Presents Ghost magazine

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