Ghost frontman Tobias Forge recently joined SoundMojo for an interview during which he talked about the future of his stage persona Papa Emeritus.
Throughout his career in Ghost, Tobias Forge has been performing under the stage name Papa Emeritus, a demonic anti-pope. Each Ghost album has a new singer, Papa Emeritus I through to III, Papa Emeritus Zero, and Cardinal Copia, who became Papa Emeritus IV in March 2020.
In a recent interview with SoundMojo, Tobias Forge revealed that he doesn’t know whether there will be a final Papa or evolve throughout his career. He then said Ghost is not a new band anymore, and there will be a time when the band won’t be successful enough, and a new record won’t mean anything.
Moreover, Forge added that he is getting old as well. According to the musician, he might not need to change his voice to an older man’s or wear costumes to look like an older man in the future. However, the musician thinks he will always go onto the stage as Papa Emeritus while working with Ghost as the band is a theatrical act.
During the conversation, Tobias Forge said:
“It will always be a premeditated sort of choice. I think that there will come a time, a circularity of things, and just embracing aging and embracing how things usually are. We have been a new band for quite a long time, even longer than we should have been. We’re not a new band anymore. We’ve been touring for 12 years; we’re sort of veterans by the old standards.
But just because we’re not an old band, people think that we’re new bands. That’s fine. I mean, I understand that time is counting in a different way now than it was ten years ago, 15 years ago, or 20 years ago. I also know that, like any other band on the planet, there will come a time when we will not be as successful, and we will not be looked upon as something that’s made anything new or relevant. We will become a heritage then if we’re still around.”
He then continued:
“There will come the point when a new record does not mean anything. Luckily, right now, releasing a new record means something. People are still interested in talking about it, and there’s a certain deal of excitement. But that is not going to last forever, and there will come a point where we basically are asked to repeat what people like.
We will become a heritage nostalgia act. Maybe that will be a time where I don’t have to be a 30-year-old dressing up to look older, but I might be old enough to look like that, and maybe some of my old man noises are completely intuitive. I don’t have to pretend to be decrepit.”
Morris then asked:
“Could you ever see yourself on stage just as Tobias, without any sort of persona and without any costume?”
Forge said:
“No, not as Ghost. This is a theatrical show; you will always get a theatrical show. Whether it’s going to be Papa Emeritus the 18th or not.”
You can watch the full interview below.
