Tobias Forge has opened up about Ghost’s hiatus, admitting that after completing the Skeletour cycle, he simply doesn’t know what the band’s next move should be and has no interest in forcing one.
Speaking with Kerrang!, Forge reflected on stepping away following the enormous 70 date tour supporting Ghost‘s 2025 album Skeletá. After more than a decade of constantly knowing where the band was headed next, that certainty has disappeared.
“There’s a lot of people depending on you, let alone all these people buying tickets. For most of my career, I’ve been very triggered by that, in a positive way. But now, with a lack of a clear direction of where to go, I don’t want to have that responsibility on my shoulder. I can carry that when I’m there, but when I’m not there, it’s too tiresome.”
Rather than immediately beginning another album cycle, Forge wants Ghost to stop until there’s actually something worth returning for.
“When you’re done with the big wedding, you’re not gonna get married again immediately after. I don’t want to call it a bookend, but it serves as a great finale. I feel like, ‘If this is it, I’m pretty pleased. This is a f***ing great repertoire, great band, they sound phenomenal.'”
That might sound ominously final, but Forge stressed that Ghost are entering a “normal hiatus”, rather than calling it quits.
The problem is inspiration
“I’m not gonna just go back to make an album or force myself to make an album for no reason. I need to want to make a record. I need to have something to say.”
Forge previously revealed that he wanted to spend more time at home with his wife and two children after 15 years dominated by Ghost. He’s hardly planning to sit idle, though.
The musician has two film projects underway and has also recorded an album with another, currently unspecified project.
Ghost’s future therefore remains deliberately unwritten. There are still ideas and ambitions Forge wants to explore with the band, but for the first time, there isn’t another album, tour or elaborate chapter waiting immediately around the corner.
After 15 years of keeping Ghost’s machinery grinding forward, maybe that’s exactly the point.
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