Ghost

Schlock-horror clerics Ghost are back with a new line-up of ghouls. In a lawsuit filed by his former bandmates last year, frontman Papa Emeritus was revealed to be Tobias Forge. But, as he tells us in his new alias Cardinal Copia, he doesn’t intend to be

Everyone’s favourite schlock-horror clerics are back, with a new line-up of ghouls.

ASwede walks into a bar. Tobias Forge is 37, with a shock of black, possibly dyed, slightly spiked hair. He has an open, blandly handsome face, and smiles easily as he calmly speaks in slightly Americanised English. He blows neither hot nor cold in conversation, which instead breezes along clemently on his cool, rational intelligence. With his black band T-shirt under a long, dark coat, he could be a holidaying Swedish student; you’d never pick

Forge out in a police line-up, or remember him after he got up from his corner on this sunny spring afternoon. There’s no trace of the possession which seizes him on stage with his band Ghost when he takes up the mitre of Papa Emeritus, the grimly fiendish anti-Pope of black pop-metal.

Papa has changed subtly for each Ghost album, as a new incarnation has supposedly taken over – though a skull mask always conceals his identity. Papa Emeritus III, who presided over Ghost’s third album, Meliora, in 2015 was the most charismatic to date, routinely putting away heavy robes in favour of a silky black shirt and slicked-back hair, and resembling the louche compere of a Gothic cabaret. “This is a rock’n’roll show,” Papa III explained to his flock. “So according to those people, this is a black mass for the Dark Lord.”

This logic is at the heart of Ghost’s stage show, with its gold-masked band of Nameless Ghouls and mass audience chants of “Beelzebub!” during Year Zero. Proggy keyboards tinkle like Blackpool’s summer season as Papa croons blasphemously. The heaviness Ghost always have in reserve is leavened by giant pop choruses, artfully splicing Sweden’s melodic rock and black-metal traditions. Ghost gigs are like Queen stumbling on to the set of a Hammer horror film.

Dave Grohl produced and played on their 2013 EP If You Have Ghost, and Foo Fighters, Iron Maiden and Metallica are all fans and have taken Ghost on tour. The single Cirice cemented their growing US fan base with a 2016 Grammy, and their albums are Swedish chart-toppers. But until disgruntled former bandmates previously known only as Nameless Ghouls sued Forge over royalties last year, most Ghost fans knew nothing of Papa’s mildmannered secret identity. It’s as if Bowie stayed Ziggy forever.

“It feels like with every album cycle I’m merging more and more with the character,” Forge considers. “But I’m also trying to keep all the different hims at a safe distance. As with most stage performers, there’s a similarity between myself and the other guy. But it’s also socially accepted that I am not the same person. Which is a very nice situation to be in. Because I know a lot of artists who have a hard time distinguishing the on-stage personality and the one you’re supposed to be in the bar afterwards.”

Until last year, interviews were conducted by Nameless Ghouls (although under those masks, who’s to say?). Even though Forge now sits quite openly before me, there will still be no photos. Even artists who shun fame usually sign their work. It’s unusual for the sort of ego which takes Forge on stage to be satisfied with anonymous rock stardom for so long.

“Well, I guess my ego has been working a bit like the secret serial killer: you know that people are speaking about your deeds, but you’ve still managed to fool the system, because you’re still free. Yes, that has gained