By now everyone should know that Ghost is frontman and costumed religious figure Tobias Forge's project. Ghost previously had a solid lineup that resulted in a mass departure and lawsuit, and now seems to have a revolving cast of members filling in as Nameless Ghouls on all instruments live.
So what exactly does it take to be a Nameless Ghoul? Forge tells The Albuquerque Journal that he's not looking for musicians who can shred the ever-loving hell out of their instruments. He says you should be well-versed in the art of classic metal and pop, but also be a little familiar with death metal.
"You need to have certain metal chops. If you are a guitar player in this band, it's very old school, it's very much old rock style. I am an old-school guitar player. I'm not an '80s-'90s sort of shredder who plays a million notes a minute. I am way more '60s-'70s kind of style, and I write very '60s-'70s. If you come in like a typical modern drummer who is used to playing only with tricks and double kick and, like, big, big, big, fast roles but you can't play a swinging shuffle, then you can't play in Ghost whatsoever. You need to have spent your time from playing Top 40 pop rock in order to know how to play a song like 'Ritual', a song like 'Absolution' or 'Idolatrine'.
You need to know your classic drumming and your classic guitar. You can't have people in the band who's like only metal, either, but if you don't know metal, you can't play Ghost anyway because there are elements in my guitar playing that are very, very, very based on me having played death metal, like '80s death metal, so you would have to play a Slayer riff as well. You need to be sort of equally familiar with Jimi Hendrix and Deep Purple as you are with the more extreme forms of metal, generally. So it's not for everyone."
Ghost will also release some form of new material and probably a live album sometime in 2019. Much like who the members of Ghost's lineup are at any given moment, we're not super clear on the details.
