GHOST's TOBIAS FORGE: 'I'm Not Here To Shock People Who Are Not Willing To Be Shocked'

In an interview with NewsReview.com, Tobias Forge, who fronts GHOST as a character known as Cardinal Copia, talked about the fact that in the 1980s, artists like JUDAS PRIEST and OZZY OSBOURNE were known for incorporating Satanic themes and upsetting Christians. Asked if there are any ways his music has offended people that has surprised him, he responded: "I think that I have been personally more subjected to people who have said the opposite. Just coming from a traditionally more conservative background, and then being surprised that they are oddly in favor of what GHOST is doing. Maybe not 100 percent from a philosophical point of view, whatever that means, but it still resonates in a positive way among people who would traditionally not like 'satanic rock music.'"

He continued: "I have theories about it, but I don't know — maybe it's just the fact that heavy metal in the 1980s was way more of a household thing, and the gap between generations was bigger at that point, so you'd have the 15 to 25-year-old teenagers in 1980 or 1985. Their parents would have been 40 or 50 at that point, and were potentially of a different breed than most of the 40-year-olds, 50-year-olds, 60-year-olds today. … But it all depends on how you present yourself as a spokesperson for a band like this. I'm not here to shock people who are not willing to be shocked, if that makes sense. I'm not here to throw a grenade into the god-fearing home, trying to rip your family apart… I want them to come to the show and have fun and feel good about themselves, and want to live their lives… not to commit suicide or go kill someone. I want people to be happy and embrace life… I can imagine Rob Halford [of JUDAS PRIEST] having never said anything unlike what I just said, nor Ozzy Osbourne."

Asked if he is a Satanist, Forge said: "From a strictly Christian point of view, if that means believing in a physical, half man, half-ram living in the underground, no, I don't believe there is such a thing. I'm not the opposite either. … And you know, I'm sure in the eyes of the beholder, if I was put in front of true god-fearing bible thumpers, I would probably be regarded as a Satanist … just because I'm not a god-fearing bible thumper. But the concept of Satanism has many, many forms… In the last 50 years now, ever since [Anton] LaVey and pop-cultural Satanism, when that rose in the latter of the part of '60s with the Church of Satan, and BLACK SABBATH and BLACK WIDOW and COVEN and that sort of hippie Satanism, which at the end of the day, heavy metal, black metal, all that is based upon that cultural Satanism. … I grew up with that. … So from that point of view, I would definitely say that culturally, I am definitely, for lack of better way of putting it, I'm a devil-liking kind of guy. But … I wouldn't sacrifice a baby to a half-ram that I believe to be living in the underground. … And I would never ever encourage anyone to do that."

GHOST recently kicked off a massive North American fall tour, which will wrap on December 15 in Brooklyn, New York.

GHOST's latest album, "Prequelle", debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and features the chart-topping rock single "Rats".