Theatric rockers Ghost recently instituted a live show policy restricting the use of cell phones to film their shows. The rule has been met with some detractors, but frontman Tobias Forge isn’t backing down from his feelings on the subject.
In a recent interview on the “Metal XS” podcast, Forge explained the decision and revealed what disturbs him about some of the band’s fans.
“ Simply put, over the last — I don’t know — five years, whatever, every year has become more and more and ever-growing distance I felt between the crowd and the band, or the band and myself,” he said. “I’ll talk about myself. I felt that I have a problem with watching someone in the audience holding up a phone in front of their face.”
He continued: “It’s irritating. And maybe I’m old school, maybe I’m old-fashioned. I just feel that we’re having an intimate moment, and it disturbs me that you’re filming while we’re doing this together. I’m doing something for you to respond to me. And when we did the shows in L.A. (where the policy was first introduced), I, together with everyone on stage, was amazed how great it felt and how we wished that it was like this every night, because it made us better. It felt like they were having a better time. And I just felt that I have a hard time not having experienced this. I cannot neglect that I just had an experience saying that this is so much better. And then we did a little bit of obligatory rounds, when we sort of speak to people: ‘How did you feel? What was your impression?’ And the overall result that came back was that it was an amazing experience. A lot of people were saying what people are now talking about: how will it feel?”
Forge went on to compare the situation with how he quit smoking. “Beforehand, you go into it thinking that it might be uncomfortable,” he said. “’What am I gonna do with my hands?’ I stopped smoking once. I smoked for 17 years. I couldn’t even fathom the idea of going out drinking a beer and not having a smoke. I couldn’t fathom where to put my hands if I’m gonna drink a beer. That worked really good. I stopped smoking in 2012. No problem.”
“Long story, long segue to that is that people were afraid, people were worried about the concept of not being able to film or being able to access the world. As soon as they’d done it, they felt so much better, and that is what I want everyone to feel. For two hours, you feel relieved of the chains that is the ether, whatever it is.”
“Then you can call, then you can take photos, and then you can do all those things. By all means, tell everyone how awful it was. But I felt that I wanted to do it this way, because it made me, and it made the band, and it made all the people that I spoke to, at least from the L.A. shows, feel so much better. And that is the collective joy that I want people to associate GHOST with. That’s the show now.”
Forge’s full interview can be viewed below.
