GHOST's TOBIAS FORGE: 'I Remember Still Very Clearly What It Was Like Not Being In A Successful Band'

GHOST leader Tobias Forge was recently interviewed by Larry McFeelie and John Holmberg of the 98 KUPD radio station in Tempe, Arizona. You can now listen to the chat below.

Speaking about having realistic expectations about GHOST's long-term success, Forge said: "Since I remember still very clearly what it was like not being popular, or in a successful band, I know that things go up and down and you cannot expect this to be on the same trajectory forever. It won't be. Because even if you get to be the biggest band in the world, it's gonna change. Every band. Even the biggest bands — and I hate to break the magic — but even the band that sold out 90,000 tickets in your football stadium, they might come back two years later and do an arena. It still feels huge, but there's a difference — there's a big difference. And there's a big difference playing a 30,000-seat stadium and a 90,000. So, even at the top, you have to be very prepared to go up and down. And we're not even there. So I just wanna take it as far as I can."

He continued: "My list of disappointments, production-wise, is still there. I'm still now preparing to do a lot of the things that I had on the list, basically, since 2008. So I wanna achieve all those things and try to do it while we're still on a roll. Because someday, there's gonna be some other band who's come in and sort of [taken] our place, and then people will shift and they'll be interested in something else. And if I play all the cards right, maybe there is a chance we can go back later. There's so many examples of bands that have done that. And that's how it works."

According to Forge, he will keep GHOST alive as long as he feels as strongly about the band's music and visual presentation as he has for the entire first decade of the group's existence.

"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," he said. "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.

"When I look at colleagues sometimes, they're in bands where they hate each other and they're very disgruntled by this, that and the other, and just keep on doing it," he added. "I'm not gonna [tell them], 'You should quit.' But is there really nothing else that you can do in your life? Are you so trapped in the idea of basically…? I guess what it all comes down to, which I am obviously very, very guilty of, especially in the time when I didn't have GHOST, was that I don't wanna have a fucking [regular office] job. That's basically it. Because I'm very bad at finding my place [in the machine]."

GHOST has just wrapped up its hugely successful "A Pale Tour Named Death" North American tour. The trek visited nearly 40 cities, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Toronto.

GHOST has been touring in support of its latest album, "Prequelle", which came out in June. The disc debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and it features the chart-topping rock single "Rats".

Earlier this month, GHOST nabbed two new Grammy nominations, "Best Rock Album" for "Prequelle" and Best Rock Song for "Rats". The latest nods took place nearly three years after GHOST became the first Swedish rock band ever to win a Grammy Award — 2016's "Best Metal Performance" for the song "Cirice".