“You have everyone from senior citizens to little kids who like heavy metal music. It's a very friendly community”: Scary? Moi? Ghost’s Tobias Forge reckons you've got metal all wrong

Come on in, the [holy] water’s lovely. That’s the suggestion from Ghost’s Tobias Forge who, after witnessing years of raw and raging unprofessionalism and being “very unfashionable”, reckons that heavy metal now gets a bit of a raw deal.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Forge debunks a few metal myths, perhaps proving once and for all that, for all the genre’s puffed-up bravado, the devil taunting, the bat eating, the rampant and blatant showing off, and all that bloody SHOUTING, Metallers are, invariably, really nice people.

"I think that [for] some people who are unaware or not interested in what metal is, Ghost might come off as a little bit more exotic and strange than it actually is,” he suggests.

“The community itself has undergone a quite cool – I don't know what to call it – an expansion… New bands are being formed on a daily basis. Every Friday there are new records coming out in this genre. It is a hugely non-ageist genre where you have everything from senior citizens to little kids who like heavy metal music, so it's a very friendly community.

“I understand from an outside point of view it might come off as a little bit too immature at points. But that's part of it. If you don't like blood, don't go to see boxing games. And if you don't like metal, don't go to a metal show,” Forge asserts.

As for his own role in changing metal’s perception, Forge himself admits that in his early days with his pre-Ghost band, Repugnant, he did little to help.

"Very unfashionable"

“I really wanted Repugnant to be signed up by a Roadrunner or Nuclear Blast or a big label. I wanted to be super-professional with the band. At the time, we were very unfashionable. It was just not asked for in that sort of realm and had things played out differently maybe I’d have played my cards differently.

“Because if I look back on how I did things, it was unprofessional and I didn't really have the foresight, I guess. I had the dream, but I didn't have the foresight. We were picked up by a real label at the time and got a manager and if everyone kept their ducks in a row, I would have loved… a real band that was out touring. I always wanted that. I really wanted to become a big band… But I couldn't.

“I can definitely look back on myself as a 21-year-old and quickly see why I didn't achieve that with Repugnant. I wasn't mature. I wasn't thinking. I wasn't there yet."

But after failure with Repugnant Forge has certainly found success with Ghost. And once a metaller, always a metaller.

"I still get the same kick out of things that I liked as an 11-year-old or 12-year-old. When I really started listening and when death metal was this really dangerous animal that you go to this one store to find,” Forge enthuses.

"I'm still sort of chasing that."