Ghost: "I’m guilty of believing that we’re constantly at a crossroads where there are two options. The first is pure bliss and the second is absolute excrement; total annihilation, total doom"

It passed Ireland’s religious correspondents by - sackings ahoy! - but Hot Press has learned of a private 2023 papal visit to the Blue Light pub in the Dublin Mountains where copious pints of Guinness were quaffed and a private audience granted to Joe Elliott.

In case you think we’ve been taking red pills, the pontiff in question was Papa Emeritus IV, the then leader of the Unholy Church of Ghost who’d flown in to the capital to shoot a video for the new version of Impera album standout, ‘Spillways’, which the Def Leppard leader had lent his lungs to.

“It wasn’t about either of our bands needing a lift because there’s nothing wrong with our careers right now,” Joe, a Stepaside resident noted. “This was two fans getting together and working on a song for the love of it.”

Kicking back at home in Stockholm, the mainman behind the Ghost masks, Tobias Forge, echoes those sentiments.

“What a nice person Joe is,” he enthuses, his English infinitely better than my Swedish. “Growing up in the ‘80s, Def Leppard was part of my DNA. We spent most of the day just hanging out at the bar. Put a coin in and you get an anecdote! Joe’s career spans one of the most fun periods of rock history, so he’s got a lot of stories.

“We’ve many things in common, like both being massive Thin Lizzy fans!”

Indeed, when Ghost last played Dublin in November 2019, the band threw out a couple of Lizzy licks in honour of Philo.

Joe told the NME that, “I want us to find some neutral place where we can get together in a room with a little recorder, a couple of guitars, pen, paper, our brains, a bottle of wine and see what we come up with” but, alas, Forge says: “We haven’t written together yet, no.

“I don’t know if it’s a dreaded name in your news outlet but another big thing about being in the Blue Light is that some of the U2 guys spend a lot of time in there. That’s very cool because I’m a huge fan of theirs.”

As brilliant as their versions of Iron Maiden’s ‘Phantom Of The Opera’, Genesis’ ‘Jesus He Knows Me’, Television’s ‘See No Evil’, The Stranglers’ ‘Hanging Around’ and, best of all, Tina Turner’s ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderome)’ were, I was disappointed that Ghost’s 2023 Phantomime EP didn’t include the rumoured U2 cover.

“The song I was toying with was ‘Beautiful Day’,” Tobias reveals. “I understand that it’s late period U2 but it’s such an incredible powerhouse of a song. I ended up not doing it because I didn’t feel like I was adding anything. The selling point for me when I do a cover is that I’m somehow making it sound different.”

Ghost.

As entertaining as all this Def Leppard and U2-related chitter chatter is, the real reason we’re here is to discuss the April 25 release of Ghost’s sixth album, Skeletá, and the other spectral goings-on which have resulted in Forge barely having a day off since Christmas.

Asked whether there’s a song he wrote that set the tone for the rest of the record, Tobias shakes his head and says, “The simple answer is ‘no’. ‘De Profundis Borealis’ and ‘Satanized’ are both songs that were in the mix already for Impera. ‘Missilia Amori’ is another that existed years back.

‘Guiding Lights’ was one of the first to be recorded that’s new – I have the original Dictaphone recording of that, which was just the melody – and all those songs were so different from each other. There was no clear thread between them musically so I had to compose the adhesive that glues it all together.

“I never really stop writing, so there’s always a little black book I can go into and fish out ideas. Because the rented studio I started making Skeletá in was a very naked empty place with just gear in it, I decided to build my own studio. Actually let’s be really, really frank and honest and say I’m having some people build me a studio!”

Having previously fronted Stockholm death merchants Repugnant, Forge now finds himself at the wheel of a pop rock behemoth - sonically, Ghost have as much in common with fellow Swedes ABBA as they do Metallica - who’ve amassed over 3.5 billion streams and topped the US Billboard chart.

A mark of them infiltrating the mainstream is Papa Emeritus IV being asked to throw the ceremonial first pitch at a Cleveland Guardians vs Chicago White Sox baseball game.

“It was a bizarre moment in life… but it’s not the most bizarre!” says Forge who previously had to pinch himself to check he wasn’t dreaming when, as part of a Swedish supergroup, he treated King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and his wife Queen Silvia to a performance of ‘Enter Sandman’.

To coincide with Skeletá's release, Papa Emeritus IV has been forcibly retired and, courtesy of the Sin City enclave, replaced by new Ghost spiritual leader Papa V Perpetua.

Asked whether there’s anything he can tell us about Perpetua, Tobias shakes his head and says, “Not really, I don’t know yet. He needs to find his footing with the crowd first. Then we’ll know what the hell he’s up to!”

It’s no small thing having to constantly reinvent yourself.

“Yeah, it’s both daunting and exciting,” he admits. “There are points where I wish we were just a normal band who didn’t have to worry about anything other than turning up on time,” he sighs. “Sometimes it’s confusing for me too – I often ask myself ‘What the hell are we doing?!’ – but it’s an awful lot of fun as well.”

Forge was a bit more forthcoming about Papa V Perpetua when he guested recently on E371 of the excellent Morbid podcast.

“This is how meta and weird Ghost is sometimes,” he tells hosts Alaina Urquhart and Ash Keeley. “‘Satanized’ is written from the ‘I’ perspective but on the record Papa V Perpetua is singing pretending to be another character. Because Papa V Perpetua is the singer in a band. As with any other band who has songs that are written in ‘I’ form, they can be about someone else. They’re not always about them personally.”

Which is still pretty opaque but, hey, we’ll take what we can get!

Ghost being very much a multimedia project, Skeletá’s flagship single, ‘Satanized’, was accompanied by ‘The Satanizer’ which, with a quick upload of their photo, allows fans to morph into characters from the song’s gloriously OTT video. If you fancy being a naughty nun, proceed immediately to satanizer.ghost-official.com.

In tandem with bestselling Star Wars: Legacy, Green Lantern: Earth One and Savage Hulk writer Corinna Bechko, Forge has also created a series of Sister Imperator comic books. The lady in question being the former head of The Clergy, the behind the scenes organisation that is said to control Ghost’s activities.

“Like film, making a comic book is very much a collaborative effort,” he says of the experience. “You have the person you’re writing the story with; then you have an editor; the person doing the ink in black and white; the one who puts the colour on to it; and the person who does all the text you see. I found it really educational because, although I read them as a kid, I’m not a comic book collector in the way that some of my friends are. They’d be as nerdy and knowledgeable about comics as I am about music.”

Tobias is counting down the days to Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath’s July 5 farewell gig in Villa Park which finds Ghost joining a list of guest turns that also includes Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Gojira, Alice In Chains. Mastodon and Anthrax.

“This will be the greatest heavy metal show ever,” promises the event’s musical director, Tom Morello.

“I feel such joy and pride at being asked to do it,” Forge reflects. “Professionally I’m going to do my darndest to do that really well. As a lifelong fan of Ozzy and his band, it’s a little bit bittersweet that it’s going to be the last thing they do. It’s going to be touching and emotional.”

Prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, every household in Sweden – including Tobias’ – had an In Case Of Crisis Or War booklet delivered to it last November.

“People in general have a hard time deciphering the amount of information that we’re being bombarded with,” he reflects. “I think it’s unhealthy to devour every op-ed that says, ‘War might be a possibility, exclamation mark!’ There’s very seldom a time where war isn’t a possibility. Anything could happen at any point.

“Like a lot of people, I’m guilty of believing that we’re constantly at a crossroads where there are two options. The first is pure bliss and the second is absolute excrement; total annihilation, total doom.

"With regards to Trump and Putin, we’re talking about two relatively worn down men in their seventies who aren’t taking care of themselves and who are kicking in every hornet’s nest in the fucking world. That’s not a great recipe for a long life.”

Here’s hoping. Finally, it must be said that us Irish Ghost fans are a trifle miffed that their worldwide Skeletour, which began on April 14 in the Manchester AO Arena, isn’t scheduled to stop off here.

“I’m so sorry that we’re not booked officially yet to come and play,” Tobias concludes. “There’s no reason for it. I promise you we want to come and have another amazing night in Ireland.”

• Ghost’s Skeletá album is out on now on Loma Vista Recordings.