With the Grammy-nominated album Prequelle under his belt and a possible film on the way, Ghost mastermind Tobias Forge has his eye on other ways of expanding the band's reach, including a prospective musical based on the group's songs. In a recent interview with Philadelphia radio station 93.3 WMMR, Forge expounded upon the prospect, saying, "I think the one different aspect of what I have in mind, as opposed to other rock musicals, is that most other rock musicals, except for Tommy, I guess, and a few more, is that we're not technically a historic band, so it would not be a legacy thing where there would be a retrospective of all of our songs."
"I am not a big artist myself. I am, I guess, a somewhat successful songwriter now, but I think that my value is Ghost and my writing via Ghost," Forge continued. "And just because of the imagery and the little bit of a legacy we do have, I think that the best way to explain what I would propose to a production company is, basically, a little bit like Goblin. Ghost would be the composer of the track, and we would lend maybe a character to play the main character. You'd have Cardinal Copia or Papa Emeritus to play the character of this villain. But, obviously, I am not a screenplay writer. I would probably not entertain the idea of writing the whole thing myself. I would probably do a story that that I already like a lot, that I would love to put music on, and then try to do my rendition of it. But with someone else, obviously, because it's a big endeavor."'
The musician added: "Let's just say that we are looking at the prospects and we know that it takes a long time and a lot of collaboration. And we've been talking about it for years. So we're very much doing the political stuff right now and trying to achieve that. And that is still four or five years in the future."
Forge also revealed his desire to expand Ghost's memorabilia empire beyond the shirts, action figures, chalices, incense holders, masks and even dildos currently available to diehards. "I love pinball," he said, describing a Ghost-branded machine as his "biggest wish right now." "And from the amount of characters that we have, that's a little bit more of my focus right now. Just knowing that I wanna make a pinball machine with finally enough fodder to make that now ... It's a long way to the top if you wanna have a pinball machine."
Being in the pantheon of rock & roll pinball machines would be a real coup for the band. Iconic groups that have their own machines include Metallica, KISS, AC/DC and Guns N' Roses. As much as he loves pinball machines, Forge admitted that he doesn't have one of his own yet, but in the interview the Ghost main man says it's on a "long purchase list of things that I want in my so-called 'man cave.'" Hear the whole interview below.
