Genesis' 1992 single "Jesus He Knows Me" was ripe to be reimagined by Ghost, who took the bait and released their pop-metal cover last month after a hype campaign that promised: "Jesus is coming." Now, in a recent interview with Australia's The Music, bandleader Tobias Forge has opened up about why the songs feels particularly relevant today, over 30 years later, and how it relates to what he considers to be "the true essence of evil."
"It's frighteningly horrible," Forge said, as transcribed by Blabbermouth. "It's easy not to laugh about the accuracy in which Phil Collins wrote a lyric that 10 years ago felt almost dated, even outdated, which now feels so contemporary and important."
He elaborated: "When we started touring America, I was asked so many times, 'Do you have a problem with the Christian fundamentalists or picket fencers or any of that stuff?' I was, like, 'No, never.' Like, there seems to be a sort of undercurrent of that stuff over there. I didn't see that, we were all over the place, even in the South, and definitely a lot in the heartland.
"My impression of those cities is just wonderful — a lot of nice people who come to rock shows, and they're super friendly, and everything is just fucking dandy. And then, obviously, the last five or six years, the people are still the same, I still feel that they're in the same climate. But obviously, parallel to that, there is this complete Flat Earth cult that has just decided to throw in the towel. I don't know what their aim is."
Forge addressed the fact that many televangelists ask their parishioners to give them money in order to win the favor of God. "I cannot neglect to underline the fact that the followers, they are people who don't know better," he said. "I pity them — they are being used and humiliated and the leaders are just completely exploiting them. The exchange is supposed to be: 'Give me money, and I will give you the past back'. Look, I'm a nostalgic person as well. I wish it was 1985, too, believe me. But if anyone would come to me and say that, 'If you pay me $1 or $10 — anything you can spare — and I will give you 1985 back,' I would know you're lying. You're obviously lying. You're obviously telling me something that is not true. But yeah, such is the world now.
"You never reach the status quo. Unfortunately, the pendulum swings and sometimes you're in the shitter and sometimes the opposite side, that's how it's always been," he said. "That's the horrid thing about the shit that they're trying to sell you, especially when they're trying to sell it as some sort of religion sandwich because they're telling you that the world is linear, and time is linear. In this case, they're talking about heaven or hell. That is not how it really works. Everything else in this world is circular. So why wouldn't that also be circular? That's the true essence of evil," he concluded, "tricking people into believing something in order to get something out of them and trying to sell them salvation."
Ghost's Re-Imperatour U.S.A. 2023 summer tour with Amon Amarth kicks off August 2nd in Concord, California, at Concord Pavilion. Check out the full itinerary here.
