During a recent appearance on the February 21 episode of Full Metal Jackie’s nationally syndicated radio show, GHOST frontman Tobias Forge opened up about his comments that the band currently has “nothing else planned” beyond the ongoing “Skeletour”—the tour supporting the group’s 2025 album Skeletá.
When asked about life outside of music and whether he has hobbies or places he enjoys spending time when not working, Forge responded candidly (as transcribed by Blabbermouth): “All the above. Yeah. One, I have my family. Duh. Of course, everybody knows that. 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. And then the most acute factor here is the fact… Imagine you being a house builder, and 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 [s**t] 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,” he continued. “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. Luckily, my family has been very supportive of that. They know that in order to sort of make this happen, I need to do this. And over the years I’ve been very worried about momentum and just keeping it going because I have so many ideas and I don’t wanna lose speed. And I just came to a point where I’m, like, I’m actually fine if the momentum is not there. It’s cool. I’m good. I feel good about that. If I lose it, okay.”
Asked whether his children fully grasp the scope of his career as a globally recognized musician, he said: “Of course. They’re 17. Of course they know what I’m doing. Of course they’re aware of… And we are very connected. We’re very good friends. We speak about anything. And they’re very aware of my thought processes and where I am, how I feel about things. And they’re big enough and vocalizing enough to be able to explain. And we can have a conversation about how they felt as kids, me being away a lot. But now they’re the ones sort of pushing me, like, ‘Yeah, it’s only three weeks left,’ whereas in the past it was always, like, when I was gonna be away for seven weeks or nine weeks, it was hard for them to fathom, of course, what that timeframe is. And there were a lot of moments where you had to sort of sneak out before they woke up and have one screaming child on the balcony, sort of, when you jump into the car. And that was not easy. But when you’re driven by a conviction, and I was convinced, and I am still convinced, that I did the right thing, of course. And luckily, now there’s no resentment that I know of me having done that. But now they’re the ones who are reasonable, and, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s do that when you come home.’ Which is really encouraging, but that again is just… Well, again, it just happened to coincide with where I am mentally in life. It just feels like a good time to sort of, like, ‘All right. When I come back, we’ll start this new chapter, this new reality.'”
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