A nameless ghoul from Ghost was the guest on Full Metal Jackie’s radio show this past weekend. The unidentified ghoul talked all about the band’s debut record ‘Opus Eponymous,’ keeping their identities anonymous as well as currently being on the road with massive bands Opeth and Mastodon and much more. If you missed Jackie’s show, check out her interview with a nameless ghoul from Ghost below:

What’s it been like being on this Mastodon, Opeth tour?

Oh very joyful, I would say. We’re playing to a lot of people and it basically feels sort of like a continuation of the tour that we did in January. We’re hitting some of the same cities on this tour but we’re also hitting a lot of places where we didn’t go on the last run like in Texas, just generally South also Canada and the northern part of Canada. It’s going to be fun especially since we actually canceled the tour there, we were supposed to go there. So by the end of this tour we pretty much covered most places except for Florida, I guess or Arizona or New Mexico but we will get there.

The debut record from Ghost ‘Opus Eponymous’ has made quite a buzz and you’ve got high profile supporters like James Hetfield and Phil Anselmo; what do you think other bands like most about Ghost?

We like to think that our playfulness in terms of not - I almost said think too much obviously we think but we feel a lot and we try not to limit ourselves to genres even though we’re a hard rocking band, we try to mix everything from death metal elements to new wave choruses. I think that resonates – I wouldn’t say an older generations we have a lot of new, younger fans but I think that anybody who is older than 35 might have a stroke of nostalgia.

There’s definitely hints of some classic rock even in the music.

Yeah, absolutely.

Which came first, the style of music or the idea for the image and how do they influence each other?

The whole project, the whole band started off with a song that turned into three songs, it came very natural during the making of those first songs – that it was supposed to be a certain lyrical way and the content of it was suppose to be a very orthodox is probably the right word. That whole theme screamed theatrics and all of us are fans of horror and just plain old school entertainment whether it be entertainment or theatrical or musical and the songs spoke that way. It was clear very early on that this was going to be a very theatrical band and that’s what we do.

KISS eventually unmasked, so did Slipknot, can you foresee a day when Ghost won’t be anonymous?

I think there is a difference between being anonymous and unmasked, where Slipknot actually wear masks still while KISS during their unmasked days didn’t. Obviously it’s a thing of the times, what we’re trying to do, it’s very hard to maintain. If the actual goal was to not be known, we try to maintain that but in the long run we can’t really expect that to be something everlasting. Most of our fans are actually quite keen on not knowing which works to our favor but I think there is a difference between people knowing who is behind the mask or being unmasked.

We can’t really see ourselves going up on stage afterwards just dropping the masks saying “Oh it’s me, it’s me actually, can you see?” No we don’t want that, we don’t want to spoil it – that’s the whole reason why we are anonymous and we try not to show ourselves. We try to eliminate, not the human aspects but the humane aspects if you want and we want to put Papa Emeritus in the limelight, he’s suppose to be the living character even though rigor mortis has basically set in, in his poor old body but that’s the face of the band. He’s the person, everybody else are just puppets.

So far you’ve covered ABBA and the Beatles, what makes a non-metal song suitable for a metal band like Ghost?

Most of those songs that we’ve chosen to cover, that is basically to say songs you haven’t heard yet or songs that we have been working on, are always songs that we can find a different take on. We don’t see much purpose in just playing other people’s songs, most covers traditionally are just plain playbacks of the original which is not really our thing. We want to find certain songs that resonates one feeling and if you can turn that around like we did in ‘Here Comes the Sun’ in its original very hopeful, very very romantic tune about the arrival of spring and love I guess. By just changing a few chords and basically just tune in down to minor it had a totally different meaning and it’s not really that weird because that song in its original is actually quite dark but it’s a forgotten song. Most people that know the Beatles don’t know that song and it fits us very well and we think we can make it – absolutely not better but we make it different.

What do you think is the future for Ghost and what was your goal of where you would see the band?

These 18 months since we released the album has been a lot of touring. We play a lot of concerts and our goal has always been to put on a show that was way more theatrical than we have had the opportunity to sort of perform or display this type of touring. Even though this is a tour where we’re actually allowed to flex our muscles a little bit, you can’t expect to have a production, we have our windows, we have a few things but our goal is – I’d say that a short term goal for now, when we have a new album out, will be to start bringing forth a way more theatrical show that would be a lot more intriguing with a few magic tricks.

 

This coming weekend, Full Metal Jackie will welcome Vinnie Paul of Pantera and Hellyeah on her show. Full Metal Jackie can be heard on radio stations around the country — for a full list of stations, go to fullmetaljackieradio.com.

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