The Big Picture

The new movie
Rite Here Rite Now
captures Ghost’s live concert experience and adds a narrative twist to their ongoing storyline.
In this exclusive interview with Collider, Ghost founder Tobias Forge talks about why the band enforced a “no phones” policy at the shows they filmed for the movie.
Ghost has a wildly diverse fan base, and Forge muses on how their earlier “physically rough” crowds have evolved into a more family-friendly audience.

There might not be a more unlikely success story in music right now than Ghost. After all, the Swedish occult-rock band is led by a demonic pope-like figure named Papa Emeritus and filled out with masked “nameless ghouls” who man all the instruments. They started off in the late 2000s and early 2010s as more of a theatrically inclined doom-metal band, complete with Satanic-themed lyrics, albeit one that offered insanely catchy melodies and singable choruses that elevated their more popular songs into full-blown anthems. Eventually, the heavy-metal vibes were toned down a bit to make room for a more arena-rock sound that has taken Ghost from touring clubs and smaller venus to playing big concert arenas worldwide. (This, at a time when rock music isn’t exactly the hottest of musical genres.) Your mom or next-door-neighbor might not know who they are, but if you ask the right teenaged goth girl or middle-aged metalhead, there’s a good chance you’ll see their eyes light up as they tell you about the most fun rock band going right now.

And here’s another not-so-secret fact about Ghost: They’re not so much a “band” in the democratic sense as they are a “project” — one created and led by long-time Swedish rocker Tobias Forge, who also serves as the lead singer in the disguise of whatever Papa is fronting the band at any given time. Each new Ghost album and tour comes with a “new” singer, who is really just Forge decked out in newly designed makeup and costuming. Ghost’s latest lead singer is Papa Emeritus IV (formerly Cardinal Copia or “Cardi,” for short), who was expected to be “killed off” at the end of the band’s latest tour, as is usually the case. Forge had other plans, though, and instead of wrapping up the tour and calling it a day on this chapter, he decided to continue the story (and the music) in the band’s first-ever concert film, which is titled Rite Here Rite Now and opens this coming weekend in sold-out theaters across the globe.

Filmed last year at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles during the last two shows of the band’s U.S. tour, Rite Here Rite Now is, for the most part, a standard concert film — a handsomely shot chronicle of the live Ghost experience. But, in between the songs, fans are also treated to little back-stage asides that follow Forge-as-Papa as he tries to escape the same fate that befell his predecessors. Like the video “webisodes” the band consistently releases online, Rite Here Rite Now’s narrative bits are both macabre and goofy — a joke that Forge, who co-directed the film, and the fans are happily in on. And yet, with Cardi’s life on the line, the movie also offers some real stakes for those invested in Ghost’s sprawling lore and wondering what might come next.

In this one-on-one interview with Collider, Forge sits down without the makeup to talk about the journey to the first-ever Ghost movie, dreaming about concert tours as a kid, and how he decides the best way to move the Ghost story forward. We also discuss setlists, the band’s evolving audience, and the joy that can be had in watching a concert without your damn phone turned on.

Rite Here Rite Now (2024) A concert film combining live performances from Ghost’s sold-out 2023 Kia Forum shows in L.A. with a narrative story that picks up plot threads from the band’s long-running webisode series.Release Date June 20, 2024 Director Tobias Forge , Alex Ross Perry Cast Ghost , Tobias Forge , Maralyn Facey , Alan Ursillo , Ashley McBride , Kevin Kaufmann Writers Tobias Forge

Tobias Forge on Ghost’s Increasingly Complex Lore and ‘Rite Here Rite Now’s Deeper Meaning

COLLIDER: First off, congrats on the movie! I’m in Pittsburgh, and screenings keep selling out pretty much as soon as they get added. So, it seems like things are going well.

TOBIAS FORGE: Oh, fantastic. I’m not privy to detail like that, so that’s fun to hear. I know that they keep extending it or how it’s moving generally. But I’m really glad to hear that it’s doing well in Pittsburgh.

I actually bought this Ghost concert T-shirt I’m wearing at my first ever Ghost show, which was at a smaller venue here in Pittsburgh in 2014. Back then, were you already dreaming about or thinking about a project the size and scope of Rite Here Rite Now? Or would that have been a pipe dream at that point?

FORGE: Dreamt of, yeah. A lot of the things that we’ve managed to achieve with Ghost — and keep on trying to achieve — are things that I dreamt of or wanted to do as a kid or a teenager or have been fantasizing. An idea — especially when it’s a compilation of ideas, as a record is or a film is or a show is — is comprised of 100 different ideas that originated at different points in time. So, now, when things have turned out quite okay, there are people around me who have known me for a very long time who sort of reflect on the almost humoristic concept of me sitting and drawing [concert] stages when I was a kid and mapping out tours and all this stuff that I was geeking out about. Because I was so interested in that, and I wanted to do that. As well as me spending so much time watching films and being very enamored with cinema and the whole concept of creating, especially when it was vision and sound and story. And I guess, therapeutically, if you want to go into that, it’s probably just a big “control” desire. I don’t like to think about it like that, but, yeah, I’m a control guy. But I also like when things are scripted and magical.

Without getting too spoilery, there is some forward movement on the Ghost lore front in this film. Was it tough to decide how much further you wanted to take the Ghost story and Cardi’s story in this film versus what reveals you wanted to save for the next album and tour cycle?

FORGE: Yeah, a little. There is a greater context, which people will know more about in the future. This film — and what happens at that point in the story — is going to be backed up by other things. As technically the only person who knows the entire story, I have to be cognizant of that. Now I have the pleasure of working with [Rite Here Rite Now co-director] Alex Ross Perry. Even though we’ve done great episodes before with others, I really wish that I would have worked with one person throughout the whole process. Because the episodes have had a little bit of a backhanded purpose of telling some sort of commercial message, there was this wish from people around me who wanted more story. “Can you tell more about that?!” I had to harness the whole process — “No, no, no, we’re not telling that. We’re not going to do that.”

Because there will be a point further on when that will happen. That will be revealed in a different way. “Why can’t we do it now?” Because it’s going to get shitty, and then we’ve painted ourselves into a corner. You don’t want to do that. Most people nowadays, especially people like us, we’ve watched a ton of [film and TV] series. And one of the great recipes for failure is when you start blowing your load quickly, and then you’re going to do a sequel. And then you’re just like, “Fuck, we don’t even know where this story is!” Is the monster capable of doing this? Because, in the first fucking season, he couldn’t do that! All of a sudden, it gets smarter, but this is an ancient monster. How the fuck could it change from one year to another? You should have thought about that before! That’s what makes a good series. That’s when you write it from the end backwards.

Some of the narrative stuff that is happening backstage in Rite Here Rite Now can be a little goofy and played for laughs, but then there is that section where Papa Nihil talks about finding meaning in entertaining people for a brief moment. And Sister Imperator talks about how “we can waste so much time and energy worrying about what’s been and what’s next.” I thought those ideas felt really earned and honest and maybe sort of central to the message of the movie. Was that the intent there?

FORGE: Yes. There is a message. And one is, I guess, a little more grand, a little bit more philosophical, and one is quite technical … or wishing for a less technical presence. And that’s part of the film because we gently forced the crowd not to have phones, which served for a very unique concert experience. When you see the crowd in the film, what makes them look so engaged? What’s missing? There’s no fucking phones! Which is phenomenal. When we did that, it was also an experiment. We did it for the film, obviously, because I wanted the film to look a certain way. I wanted to be able to shoot the film without having the film already shot by a thousand cameras. And it also served as an experiment: Does our crowd enjoy the show if they can’t see it through the lens of their phones? And it turned out that they did. They liked it. It was actually a joyous experience, and it was great to see all these people just enjoying the shit out of the concert. Afterwards, I was so relieved. It only took two hours away from your phone to feel that.

But also, as a reminder, that is what the film is about. Being in the moment, enjoying things — not recording it — just experiencing it and relying on your … I don’t want to say memory. I know there will be someone reading this who will say, “I have a problem with my memory.” I understand individuals might have a hard time with that, and they want to collect and embrace it that way. That’s fine. But, generally, over the course of eternity until very recently, most people have memorized things and maybe written them down. And that’s how memories are made. That’s how you create things. That’s how fantasies trigger. That’s a message, and also the idea of embracing life when you have it in your hand. And, look, I’m not going to be two-faced about this. I am myself not very good at that. I live constantly like, “What am I going to do in the future?!” And what I like is always in the past — I’m very archaeological in my taste. I wish it was 1985. That would be fucking amazing. But I also try to enjoy the fact that I’m in London now. We have a big premiere today, and I’m talking to you and that’s phenomenal. And I made a film. How many times in your life can you say that? Try to seize that.

The Evolution of Both Ghost’s Setlist and Their Fan Base
Image via Trafalgar Releasing

You’re five full albums in, and you have new fans discovering the band with each new album. Is choosing what songs make up a Ghost setlist starting to get tricky yet?

FORGE: I hope that with the addition of a new album at some point, and me knowing a little bit of what that album includes, I think there is room for more songs that will hopefully feel important. Ghost is still — I think, I hope — on the side of our career where a new album actually means something. At a certain point in your career, it won’t matter that much, and that is inevitable. You can’t really avoid that. It just comes to a point where you become a legacy act, and a new song doesn’t really matter. One thing I’ve really felt throughout the making of this film is that I think we’ve come to sort of a bookend with this cycle that we just did and the previous cycle. There were similarities with the sets that I think we got very good at. We got very good at a certain flow.

I noticed towards the end of the tour that we’d gotten … or maybe it’s “I.” A lot of the things that happen in Ghost is me. It’s I who am stuck, and I’ve found certain parts of it a little bit too repetitive. Because I don’t want to get stuck just playing all these songs. I am looking forward, at some point, to start mixing it up in a different way. But it is increasingly harder because we do have a lot of songs that work really well live. And I don’t want to play three hours. I really want to make it work and be kind of short and to the point. But certain songs really have a purpose in the show. So, the answer to your question is, yes, it’s getting increasingly harder, but I am very interested in breaking that code and changing it up a little.

I’m always impressed with how diverse the crowd is now at a Ghost show. Even in my case, my 17-year-old daughter has become a big fan, so we went to the show together last year. And at the end of Rite Here Rite Now, Papa makes note of how everyone in the crowd is different ages and different sizes and has different experiences and should be nice to each other. Are there any challenges that come with a fan base that’s so diverse? Or is it just great to see the band’s music accepted by so many types of people?

FORGE: For me, most of the time, I’m just reflecting and looking and the crowd and being like, “Wow, it’s amazing how many different people are here, and people seem to be enjoying it.” We always have a lot of metalheads at our shows, so that hasn’t really changed. What changed was, when we were playing 1,500-seat clubs, you’d get the clientele who are used to going to more physically rough shows. As opposed to an arena where you have seats, and it’s just like a completely different situation. Now people are a little bit privy to that, and it’s not as rough as it used to be. But, at that point, I saw numerous times — almost every night — how people got into fights because there was this idea on one side of the fence that: “This is a metal show! We need to kick each other’s asses! We need to fucking be rowdy and jump around and do things!” Sometimes it got really rough, and that was unnerving to see. Because you’re in mid-sentence singing something, and you’d see someone just get their teeth knocked out. Or it could be a kid standing on the front barrier. Now we control that a little, so we try to have kids sections and stuff. But when you see kids or smaller people standing in the front, and then you see this big guy just crashing crowd-surfing. And they land on that person, and you’d see that person just disappear. That is heart-breaking … and nose-breaking. [Laughing] It’s absolutely horrible. That was where I sort of noticed that clash.

Over the years, the sort of places we’re playing now, I see very little of that. Maybe the crowd has different experiences. But I think that we’ve spent a lot of time trying to spread the message that our concerts are very inclusive and try to be very positive. Overall, we’re not trying to enthuse that negativity and that sort of violent vibe that you might want at a darker metal show. But that’s Ghost. I come from an underground death-metal, black-metal world, where the shows were a completely different vibe, more closely resembling what we did years ago. So I get that. I get that some people want that to be part of a show. But, yeah, we’ve become more of a family affair. You have to live with the cussin’ though! There’s a lot of cursing!

Rite Here Rite Now is playing in theaters across the U.S. throughout this weekend and into next week.

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