GHOST's TOBIAS FORGE Is Among Top-Earning Young People In Stockholm

GHOST mastermind Tobias Forge has made Expressen's list of top-earning young Swedes.

The 38-year-old musician came in at No. 7 on the newspaper's list of top earners in Stockholm under the age of 40, with a taxable income of 7,979,300 Swedish kronor (approximately $837,000) in 2017.

Forge founded GHOST more than a decade ago and has written almost all of the group's music.

The band's latest album, "Prequelle", landed at position No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart. The disc, which arrived in June 2018, shifted 66,000 equivalent album units in its first week of release.

It hasn't all been smooth sailing for Forge, who was sued by four ex-members of GHOST in April 2017. They accused the singer of cheating them out of their rightful share of the profits from the band's album releases and world tours.

The original lawsuit was filed in the district court of Linköping, Sweden, where GHOST was initially based. It claimed that a partnership agreement existed between Forge and the four former members, all of whom performed anonymously in the band as Nameless Ghouls. As a result of the lawsuit, Forge was forced to reveal his identity after years of performing in a mask as Papa Emeritus.

Forge responded that "no legal partnership" ever existed between him and the other members, that they were paid a fixed salary to perform as his backing band, and that they were essentially session musicians.

Forge told The Pulse Of Radio that the lawsuit only inspired him to work harder at making GHOST a success. "I had a situation that urgently told me to salvage the situation and reclaim what is mine and also justify that it was mine to begin with," he said. "It's just growing pains, and all this has just been — it's the result of things going well, not the opposite."

Photo credit: Polydor Sweden