GHOST's New Stage Show Will Include Backup Singers: 'It's Gonna Be The Best Version Yet'

GHOST has announced its very first arena dates which will take place at the Forum in Inglewood, California on November 16 and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York on December 15. The band unveiled the dates on Monday (April 30) with a special press conference helmed by Papa Nihil and Sister Imperator at Irving Plaza in New York City.

GHOST frontman Tobias Forge gave Billboard a hint of what to expect when the band takes its new stage show on the road. "We have a bigger band now in terms of personnel," he said, "so it's way more live now. Before we were doing a little bit of the modern trickery, with backing tracks and stuff to make the whole sound a certain way. Now we're taking that away so we're a little more like a [Bruce] Springsteen or GUNS N' ROSES sort of band with backup singers and everything. It feels great. It's gonna be the best version yet — but there's still a lot to come after that."

Forge revealed his identity last year while responding to a lawsuit filed by four former members of GHOST, who accused him of cheating them out of their rightful share of the profits from the group's album releases and world tours.

"I've always tried to point out that there is a great difference between being anonymous and being unmasked, and I still will put a lot of effort into preserving the latter," Forge explained to Billboard. "The thing that I tried to achieve originally and what I've been trying to maintain is the sense of theater rather than a classic kind of rock n' roll [presentation]. My idea is GHOST is basically a theater show that you could come and see, like 'Hamilton', and you don't have to worry too much about the real stories. I guess I've become a little bit more of a normal rock artist, but now it's my job to do my darndest to preserve the aesthetic and the theatrical qualities, and I'm going to do my absolute best to do that."

GHOST has officially announced a June 1 release date for "Prequelle", which follows up the breakthrough 2015 album "Meliora". The new disc was recorded last year at Artery studios in Stockholm with producer Tom Dalgety (OPETH, ROYAL BLOOD) and was mixed in January at Westlake Studios in West Hollywood, California with Andy Wallace (NIRVANA, SLAYER).

Forge has hinted that the theme of the album has to do in part with the arrival of the Black Plague in Europe, among other events in history.

GHOST will kick off a run of North American dates on May 5 in Riverside, California.