For years, Kiss bassist and co-founder Gene Simmons has famously declared that rock is dead. He's repeated the phrase in interviews, headlines, and public appearances, sparking ongoing debates about the genre's place in modern music. But Ghost frontman Tobias Forge isn't ready to accept the funeral march just yet.
"I think it was Gene Simmons that said it most times, but I mean a lot of people have said that rock 'n' roll is dead and there will be no new headliners," Forge said in a recent interview with Consequence. "I understand that it's been sparse, but I think that with the unfortunate disappearance of a lot of bands that I like — Kiss being one of them — I do believe that with time I think that there will be more [headlining rock] bands."
Forge, who has spent the last decade building Ghost into one of the most theatrical and ambitious rock acts of the modern era, believes the doom-and-gloom narrative is missing the bigger picture — one shaped by generational perception and a shifting sense of time.
"There are a few examples of fairly new bands who've risen to great statures, faster than we did," he explained. "I think that there's this strange time phenomenon that happened somewhere in the 2000s where everything that was sort of old was old, and everything that came after was new, and just keeps on being labeled as new — especially by people who at the time were in their twenties or thirties or forties and now are in their forties, fifties, sixties. Which I think is an age thing."
To Forge, the misconception isn't just about the state of rock — it's about how we categorize longevity. He points to the generational divide that skews the narrative.
"If you ask a lot of our fans who are 15 years old now, just the fact that our band has been around for 15 years — do you think that they think that we are a new band? No. And that's how it should be. I think they are right in the sense that we're an old established band," he said. "If our first album came out in 1980, and it's now 1995, that's an old band."
Ghost is currently out there kicking ass on their world tour, which just started on April 15. Tickets are available here.
7/13 Miami, FL Kaseya Center
7/15 Raleigh, NC Lenovo Center
7/17 Cleveland, OH Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse
7/18 Pittsburgh, PA PPG Paints Arena
7/19 Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center
7/21 Boston, MA TD Garden
7/22 New York, NY Madison Square Garden
7/24 Detroit, MI Little Caesars Arena
7/25 Louisville, KY KFC Yum! Center
7/26 Nashville, TN Bridgestone Arena
7/28 Grand Rapids, MI Van Andel Arena
7/29 Milwaukee, WI Fiserv Forum
7/30 St. Louis, MO Enterprise Center
8/1 Rosemont, IL Allstate Arena
8/2 Saint Paul, MN Xcel Energy Center
8/3 Omaha, NE CHI Health Center
8/5 Kansas City, MO T-Mobile Center
8/7 Denver, CO Ball Arena
8/9 Las Vegas, NV MGM Grand Garden Arena
8/10 San Diego, CA Viejas Arena
8/11 Phoenix, AZ Footprint Center
8/14 Austin, TX Moody Center
8/15 Fort Worth, TX Dickies Arena
8/16 Houston, TX Toyota Center
9/24 Mexico City, MX Palacio de los Deportes
9/25 Mexico City, MX Palacio de los Deportes
