Swedish goth rockers Ghost are just about at the end of their two year-long Skeletour, and frontman Tobias Forge has been explaining why he and they are ready to take a break after their last show tonight (February 23).
Speaking on the Full Metal Jackie radio show, Forge explained that a big factor was family commitments. "I've had two kids waiting at home with my wife for 15 years, and maybe that says something about me that it wasn't a pushing enough factor during those years.
"Believe me, I felt bad, but I've definitely come to a point where not only do I need - I feel physically and mentally I need to be home, simply because they're 17; they're not gonna be around for an eon.
The other factor was that he felt he was creatively running dry. “Imagine being a house builder,” he explained before embarking on an extended metaphor. “You draw up houses, great ideas, but you're also doing the permits, and you're also doing the tiles and you're building everything and you're sewing up all that and putting it all together. I don't simply have an idea. And I'm out of tiles. I'm out of wood. I just don't have it.
"So the only way for me to come up with a new idea and get some new inspiration is to just step away. It is as simple as that. But it doesn't mean that I'm not doing anything."
Stepping away from the band doesn’t mean he’ll be idle, he suggested. “I have two film projects that I'm working on. Just before I left for tour, I was recording another album with another thing. So I have tons of stuff lined up for me (for) the coming years. And also hobbies that I have put aside a little, just because for the last 15 years, Ghost has obviously been force majeure.”
So is this the end for Ghost? Well, a recent interview with Canada’s Global News, Forge said, in as many words, that it will be merely a hiatus – an ellipsis, if you like, rather than a full stop. “For 15 years now, we've been going at it nonstop, where cycles have basically just sort of been stitched together. Every time we've ended an album cycle, I've walked off stage knowing that Monday morning I will be in the studio and our next show is there.”
He continued: “So it has been that sort of sort cyclical nonstop thinking ahead, thinking forward, expand, expand, for a long time, and I've come to a point where I'm just, like… I still have ideas, I still have dreams, I still have things that I think we have not achieved - definitely the wish list is still there - but that's gonna be at some other point."
