A Nameless Ghoul From Ghost Ponders Impact of Potential Identity Reveal

During our recent chat with one of the Nameless Ghouls of Ghost, we spoke about the possibility of the instrumental section's identities one day being revealed in a public forum. Wondering how that would affect Ghost as a band, the Ghoul gave us a great answer about what Ghost, and potentially fans, would do from there forward.

This particular Ghoul was extremely open with us during our talk, describing the details of why Ghost adopted 'B.C.' into the band's name and how they were recently able to scrap it. There have been some leaks as to the identity of Ghost leader Papa Emeritus (in all his three forms to date), but the identities of all five Nameless Ghouls genuinely remain a secret, at least for the most part.

"I actually don't think it would affect us too much because we're to the point where we are actually recognized by our fans," the Ghoul says about a potential identity reveal. "I don't think that everybody is interested because we don't mean so much to everybody. We might mean a whole lot to a few people, but for the most part we don't mean more than a little. So, I don't think people care that much. Even I ... I'm a record collector and I'm really super fanboy and very childishly into finding out everything about certain bands while there are other bands I really couldn't give a rat's ass about who's playing the drums, I don't care, I just love their record."

He continues, "Even if it was to be revealed, which I'm not sure to what forum, but obviously with all the steps we're taking in becoming a bigger band there will always be a step away from remaining anonymous, but it would require an overnight success where all of a sudden a tabloid press would say, "Oh, you're anonymous, are you? Not anymore." Even if they slap that onto their front cover, I'm sure most people would be like, "Uh, what the f--- is Ghost?" Most of our fans would probably be like, "Alright," and forget about it. Don't mention it. Bottom line is, it all depends on what we do, I think. If that means all of a sudden from a Tuesday to Wednesday we go up onstage without our masks on, that would be bad."

The Ghoul goes on to hope an exposé wouldn't ruin the bands career, "The potential or the risk of people in the future going onto Wikipedia and clicking our names, I hope that it won't be so horrendous that our music is not listenable and our shows are unbearable just because of that. Even though everyone wants to be original about it, why would we be the only band in the world that cannot exist like everybody else? There are definitely a lot of enigmatic, secretive artists that I still know very little about where I know perfectly well their dates of birth and where they live. I mean, even Nick Cave, he's still an enigma. You know a lot about him, but everything depends on how you nourish your persona and how you treat it and how you carry yourself."

"Yeah, it would be f---ing horrible if just because we were in one magazine one day and people would take notice, that all of a sudden we started walking red carpets and start performing live without masks," he adds. "As soon as there's some sort of stupid TV show where you can get cakes thrown at you for money… we have a lot of those in Sweden where a lot of quite credible artists and members of bands just started becoming this hokey household name even though, what are you known for? You're known for being the drummer in that band but all of a sudden you're completely sidetracked and you've started being on panels and sitting on the jury of 'Idol.' I think it's very important how you treat things, I believe. Maybe we'll find out one day, or maybe we won't be relevant at that point. We'll see what happens."

Ghost's third studio album, Meliora, is set for an Aug. 21 release. To pre-order the album and bundle packs, click here.

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