TOBIAS FORGE On GHOST Hiatus: 'I'm Not Gonna Just Go Back To Make An Album Or Force Myself To Make An Album For No Reason'

In a new cover story for U.K.'s Kerrang! magazine, GHOST mastermind Tobias Forge discussed his decision to take a hiatus from the road following the completion of the "Skeletour", which supported GHOST's latest album, 2025's "Skeletá". He said: "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."

Forge went on to say that he is "exhausted" after completing "Skeletour" in February 2026, which consisted of 70 shows across Europe and North America, including Mexico. The "Skeletour" kicked off with a European leg in April and May 2025, shortly after "Skeletá" came out. A run of North American shows took place from July to September 2025, and the band played a second North American tour leg in January/February 2026.

Tobias told Kerrang! that "Skeletour" was "pretty much as close as you can get. 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 fucking great repertoire, great band, they sound phenomenal.' We managed to do this awesome show most of the nights, and I couldn't be happier."

Forge said that he is enjoying spending time at home working on non-GHOST-related projects without being "dictated" by the cyclical nature of making records, hitting the road, and then stepping right back into the studio the next day.

"Everything was great up until the moment when I was sort of eyeing the end of a tour and not knowing for the first time in our career what to do next," Forge admitted. "And that was kind of the get-the-fuck-out-of-Dodge card, which is: 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.

"Every other record has been very inspired and there's been a clear thought, there's been a purpose," he explained. "And that was completely generated by my passion to do so — it was never contractual fulfilment or whatever. It was nothing like that. And this time around it was just like, 'I don't have an idea.' I just want to do other things and it doesn't really mean anything other than that, but it also means that, no, we don't have anything in the books, and yeah, it's just a normal hiatus."

GHOST has just released its second collaboration with Trafalgar Releasing, "2 Big To Rig", which was captured live on 16mm film over the course of GHOST's two sold-out shows at Mexico City's Palacio De Los Deportes. The band's second feature film, it transports the viewer through time and space to a spot in the crowd of nearly 40,000 who witnessed those darkly magical nights in September 2025.

In contrast to 2024's "Rite Here Rite Now", "2 Big To Rig" focuses exclusively on the GHOST live performance. It includes behind-the-scenes interludes showcasing the crew members that make the band's theatrical vision into nightly reality as well as the only pro-shot footage of mesmerizing frontman Papa V Perpetua and his band of Nameless Ghouls on the entire phone-free tour.

"2 Big To Rig" was made with the intention to share the "Skeletour" experience with the faithful in the territories where staging the show was not logistically feasible — as well as for the fans featured in the film who had tickets for the first of three planned Mexico City dates, which became two after night one was canceled due to Forge's illness.

The 2026 North American leg of GHOST's "Skeletour" world tour kicked off on January 21 at the Kia Center in Orlando, Florida and ran through February 23 at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, California.

The European leg of GHOST's 2025 world tour kicked off on April 15, 2025 in Manchester, United Kingdom and concluded on May 24, 2025 in Oslo, Norway.

The North American leg of GHOST's 2025 tour launched on July 9, 2025 in Baltimore, Maryland and wrapped up on August 16, 2025 in Houston, Texas.

In May 2025, GHOST's latest album, "Skeletá", landed at position No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 86,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the LP's first week of release. According to Billboard, 89% of that figure (77,000) consisted of traditional album sales, with vinyl purchases accounting for over 44,000 copies. Notably, "Skeletá" was the first hard rock album to reach the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 since AC/DC's "Power Up" in 2020.

The music video for the LP's first single, "Satanized", introduced the new character who fronted GHOST for its 2025 and 2026 touring cycles: Papa V Perpetua. (For every GHOST album cycle, Forge assumes a new identity, usually as part of a line stemming from a character named Papa Emeritus.)