“I wanted people to throw themselves into the vision”: The story of Ghost’s Infestissumam

While 2013’s Infestissumam wasn’t necessarily a ‘difficult’ second record, it found Ghost experiencing growing pains as they established their place in a world where, though loved by many, they stood out like a cadaver’s thumb.

Despite Opus Eponymous’ success for Rise Above Records, Lee Dorrian, who’d signed a three-album deal with the band, came to a realisation.

“We couldn’t really facilitate [Tobias Forge’s] ambitions,” admits Lee. “We could more than easily pay for the recordings and put the records out, but it became apparent that he needed bigger backing. The band had already got big management in America, and I can’t pretend we’d have been able to fulfil all those demands, so we negotiated a way for them to move on and everybody be happy.”

Upon signing with Beverly Hills-based label Loma Vista Recordings, there was concern that another band or company might have the name Ghost copyrighted. Keen to avoid a potential lawsuit, the label advised them to make a change. They eventually did, affixing it with B.C. – standing for ‘Because of Copyright’ rather than its Christ connotations.

“Apparently there was some bicycle company that owned the name,” laughs Watain’s Erik Danielsson, who had to rework Ghost’s logo to incorporate the tweak for Infestissumam (in 2015, the band confirmed they were no longer obligated to go by Ghost B.C.).

Meanwhile, their appearance on 2013’s Jägermeister Music Tour suggested there was work to be done to win over other bands’ audiences. The penultimate act on that run, Gojira, delivered precise but pulverising metal – and according to K!’s review of the show in Sheffield, ‘almost comic earnestness’. Ghost, on the other hand, now fronted by a new clergyman, Papa Emeritus II, introduced to the world at a show in Linköping in December 2012, proved to be a more detached, theatrical affair.

Tobias’ original vision was for Ghost to play shows tailored to their image, like haunted houses and galleries rather than traditional venues. The success of their debut, however, forced him to recalibrate those ambitions. Keen to test his band’s mettle before some of the most unlikely and loyal audiences, respectively, Ghost braved the heat of the California desert to play Coachella in April 2013, a slot on Iron Maiden’s Maiden England Tour alongside Slayer, and a 15-date tour with Avenged Sevenfold and Deftones.

Returning to the UK in November as guests of Alice In Chains, it was evident that exhaustive scheduling had paid dividends to Ghost’s live show, even if a number of attendees were left bemused by the spectacle sandwiched between the grunge veterans’ headline slot and openers Walking Papers, featuring Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan. The roar of approval during the jaunt’s stop at the 10,000-capacity Alexandra Palace, however, suggested there were at least two devotees for every non-believer. This unwavering attitude to conversion would characterise Infestissumam’s two-year campaign.

Producer Nick Raskulinecz was working on Alice In Chains’ fifth album, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, when he received the demos that would become Ghost’s second opus.

“We knew he had the ability to make Rush sound like Rush and Alice In Chains sound like Alice In Chains,” a Nameless Ghoul said of the producer’s appointment, who’d also worked with Foo Fighters, Evanescence and Queens Of The Stone Age, reaffirming the rigidity of their vision. “He’s good at working with a band without transforming the band into something else.”

There wouldn’t have been time anyway, given the aggressive deadline they’d set themselves. Decamping to Blackbird Studios in Nashville, the home of country music, the band – completed by guitarists Simon Söderberg and Martin Persner (both formerly of Magna Carta Cartel), bassist Rikard Ottoson, drummer Aksel Holmgren and keyboardist Mauro Rubino – began work in earnest, taking things in turns as members travelled back and forth from Sweden.

The bulk of the tracks were laid down within a matter of weeks, and despite the suggestion there wouldn’t be any “transforming”, some of the emerging songs illustrated a broadened musical palette. Ghuleh, a piano part written several years earlier and reminiscent of the Swedish music of the 1970s, was the first piece of music earmarked for the record. In and of itself, it wasn’t quite right, so its atmospherics were heightened, before being combined with a faster, more rousing latter half powered by surf rock guitars. As well as breaking the band into some new styles, the finished track, Ghuleh / Zombie Queen, broke the seven-minute mark, making it Ghost’s longest track to date.

Recording in America, a country where 63 per cent of people identify as Christian, provided a challenge when it came time to find voices for the opening title-track and future hit Year Zero. Prospective choirs balked at the album’s Satanic lyrics, despite them being in Latin. Some said no over the phone, while others who came to the studio unsure of the assignment were horrified at being blind-sided. Eventually, the net was cast further, resulting in the involvement of the St. Trident Tenors Of Tinseltown, a choir from Hollywood – a place not adverse to selling souls.

That’s not to say that Ghost were insensitive to the feelings of others, though, particularly their fanbase. The care for that relationship was illustrated when Kerrang! met them at a west London photo studio in March 2013, a month before Infestissumam’s release. Commissioned to do a feature entitled ‘The 10 Commandments Of Ghost’, a playful subversion of Christian doctrine, the concept was met with stone-faced seriousness by the band. Tobias and then-guitarist Martin Persner voiced concerns that such guidelines might cause their followers harm. Thankfully, after half an hour explaining that the idea didn’t have to be that deep and they could include ‘Thou shalt listen to ABBA’ if they wanted to, minds were put at ease.

“Tobias always wanted to stay true to the fanbase,” remembers Anna Maslowicz, the band’s publicist at the time. “He cared about them and what they’d expect to see from Ghost. He therefore knew what he did and didn’t want to do, partly because of his vision and partly because of what the fans would expect, which, in turn, had been born from that vision.”

As if to prove Ghost weren’t priggish, to celebrate Infestissumam’s release, the Phallos Mortuus was unveiled – a set including a silicone Papa Emeritus adult toy, a bronze butt plug, and a divorce paper scroll with a foil emblem, all housed in a Bible case with velvet lining. This saucy merch proved a hit, and in 2023 was resurrected to celebrate the album’s 10th anniversary (retailing at £180 and limited to two ‘units’ per customer). And at Download 2013, where Ghost shared the Zippo Encore Stage with Limp Bizkit, festival-goers were encouraged to absolve themselves in a confessional booth that broadcast their sinful admissions.

The band’s shock factor proved something of a stumbling block as the release of Infestissumam approached. The album’s similarly racy artwork, designed once again by Polish artist Zbigniew M. Bielak, caused headaches thanks to an illustration of an orgy for inclusion in the deluxe version, and CD printers in the U.S. refused to handle it.

“It’s funny to me that out of all the inverted crosses and devilish ingredients in the artwork of that record, the one thing that got it banned by three printing factories was the female genitalia on the sleeve,” a Nameless Ghoul reflected later.

“It was not the most enjoyable process,” recalls Erik Danielsson, who worked on the layouts and typography for Infestissumam, during the making of Watain’s fifth album, The Wild Hunt. “That was around the time [Ghost] were working with bigger labels that needed to have a say in everything, and this weird commercial stuff that we had to take into consideration we’d never had to deal with before.”

With the album’s release date held up by a week, the decision was made to re-use the artwork from the ‘standard’ version of the album for the American CDs. Not everyone was in need of placating, though; there were no such issues with either the vinyl release in the U.S. or the deluxe edition of the CD in Europe.

This expanded artwork was Ghost taking their first foray into developing lore. When the band signed with their American record label, Tobias was asked what the story was behind them – not of the men beneath the robes, but what those robes represented. Surprisingly for a man with such a distinct vision, he came up short.

“They said the music was great but asked, ‘What’s the biography?’” Tobias recalled in 2019. “I said there was no biography because there was no story to tell. I wanted people to throw themselves into the vision and make up their own. But in the end, I had to come up with one, which is second nature to me now. Even [Norwegian black metallers] Mayhem had a story. In the early ’90s, before the internet, there was something that compelled us to want to find out more and listen to their music.”

Infestissumam, released on April 10, 2013, was met with generally positive reviews that paid particular attention to its melodies and sense of atmosphere. This praise arguably came from new listeners more than those who’d been bewitched by Opus Eponymous’ more murky, lo-fi sound. In truth, Infestissumam wasn’t the departure some might have you believe, even if it lacked the consistency of its predecessor.

Erik Danielsson suggests the out-of-nowhere punch of Ghost’s debut gave it the edge in the minds of fans.

“On a first album, you have all these ready-made songs, and you go for it and see what happens,” he explains. “If it becomes successful then you have increased pressure to follow it up, which can be a fucking pain.”

At this time, Ghost also took steps to unveil their musical heritage. Their version of ABBA’s I’m A Marionette would appear on If You Have Ghost, released in November 2013. This EP was noteworthy for two reasons. Firstly, for being produced by Dave Grohl, who the band had crossed paths with at a festival in Europe.

Their plan had been to include covers of songs from the likes of ABBA, Depeche Mode (Waiting For The Night) and psych-rock legend Roky Erickson (If You Have Ghosts) as part of Infestissumam, but eventually decided against it. Keen to do something with those efforts, though, and aware that Dave was a fan, they agreed to go to California and work at Foos’ Studio 606. Dave also played drums on the record – a collaboration that would give rise to continued speculation that the rock legend makes the occasional live appearance with them.

If You Have Ghost is also noteworthy for beginning a trend for Ghost to release an EP around the time of each subsequent new album that would be usually, but not exclusively, made up of covers. These EPs provided musical mood boards to illustrate the breadth of their influences, important for any new listeners bewildered by the band’s sound, while also playing up the darkness in the heart of even the poppiest tune.

I’m A Marionette, for one, is about being manipulated by unseen forces. It’s a notion applicable to ABBA’s experiences of the music industry and status as a band featuring two married, soon to be divorced, couples. It was prime material for Ghost, too, as a comment on supernatural forces and the controlling nature of religion. “ABBA songs are doomsday tunes,” a Nameless Ghoul claimed. “They’re grandiose but also sad.”

In 2014, Infestissumam scooped a Swedish Grammi Award in the Best Hard Rock/Metal Album category, capping off another successful campaign. But there was little time to rest on laurels, as Tobias’ mind was already shifting to where Ghost would go next.

“You could ask him everything and it was all already in his head,” recalls publicist Anna Maslowicz. “There was a very old-school mentality about the planning, similar to a band like Metallica, which you don’t get with so many bands anymore. Tobias knew where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do.”

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

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