The lineage of Ghost’s Satanic cult concept goes further back than you think. In this extra piece from Tobias Forge’s Metal Artist of the Year interview, we spoke with the singer about his younger years as a self-professed Satanist and the Texas pastor who warned Christians about Ghost.

When speaking about the Texas pastor, Forge shares, “This guy is obviously poorly informed about what we’re doing, but on the other hand, if he is an actual Bible-thumping true believer, then it’s like talking to someone who has some sort of malfunction. We’re trying to make [people] happy about life. We’re actually quite humanistic. If you take all of these things that we’re saying and what we’re doing completely literally, and you believe that this is equal to damnation, then there’s no way that we can meet intellectually.”

Forge continues, “I can grieve for tendencies like that, because I think it reflects on something more somber and limited and regressive. ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ thinking about that. On the other hand, as an obstinate little hard rocker shit, I’m also like [cackles].”

Tobias also told us about a middle school teacher that helped shape him as a rebellious individual. “I had a very strict bitch of a teacher who had an aversion for me. She met me when I was already a fully-fledged Satanist and I was very stuck up,” Forge explains. “She was also turning other teachers against me. I know that as a fact. Long story short -- 20 years later, I had my kids in the same school for a few years. There was still one teacher there from that time and he told me that was the case.”

“I can definitely laugh now, looking back at what feels like a completely different life… so long ago, so far away. I applaud that 14-year-old that told her to go fuck herself.”

Watch the chat with Tobias Forge above and click here for Forge’s entire 2018 Metal Artist of the Year interview.

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