During an appearance on the February 21 episode of Full Metal Jackie’s nationally syndicated radio show, GHOST leader Tobias Forge addressed his recent revelation that the band currently has “nothing else planned” beyond the ongoing “Skeletour”, which supports GHOST’s latest album, 2025’s “Skeletá”. Asked what life looks like for him outside of GHOST and whether he has hobbies that he falls into when he is not working or he has places he likes to go and spend more time, Forge said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “All the above. Yeah. One, I have my family. Duh. Of course, everybody knows that. I’ve had two kids waiting at home with my wife for 15 years, and maybe that says something about me that it wasn’t a pushing enough factor during those years. Believe me, I felt bad, but I’ve definitely come to a point where not only do I need — I feel physically and mentally I need to be home, simply because they’re 17; they’re not gonna be around for an eon. And then the most acute factor here is the fact… Imagine you being a house builder, and you draw up houses, great ideas, but you’re also doing the permits and you’re also doing the tiles and you’re building everything and you’re sewing up all that [shit] and putting it all together. I don’t simply have an idea. And I’m out of tiles. I’m out of wood. I just don’t have it. So the only way for me to come up with a new idea and get some new inspiration is to just step away. It is as simple as that. But it doesn’t mean that I’m not doing anything. I have two film projects that I’m working on. Just before I left for tour, I was recording another album with another thing. So I have tons of stuff lined up for me [for] the coming years. And also hobbies that I have put aside a little, just because for the last 15 years GHOST has obviously been force majeure. Luckily, my family has been very supportive of that. They know that in order to sort of make this happen, I need to do this. And over the years I’ve been very worried about momentum and just keeping it going because I have so many ideas and I don’t wanna lose speed. And I just came to a point where I’m, like, I’m actually fine if the momentum is not there. It’s cool. I’m good. I feel good about that. If I lose it, okay.”
Asked if his kids “actually get the scope of what” he is doing as an internationally successful recording and touring musician, Tobias said” “Of course. They’re 17. Of course they know what I’m doing. Of course they’re aware of… And we are very connected. We’re very good friends. We speak about anything. And they’re very aware of my thought processes and where I am, how I feel about things. And they’re big enough and vocalizing enough to be able to explain. And we can have a conversation about how they felt as kids, me being away a lot. But now they’re the ones sort of pushing me, like, ‘Yeah, it’s only three weeks left,’ whereas in the past it was always, like, when I was gonna be away for seven weeks or nine weeks, it was hard for them to fathom, of course, what that timeframe is. And there were a lot of moments where you had to sort of sneak out before they woke up and have one screaming child on the balcony, sort of, when you jump into the car. And that was not easy. But when you’re driven by a conviction, and I was convinced, and I am still convinced, that I did the right thing, of course. And luckily, now there’s no resentment that I know of me having done that. But now they’re the ones who are reasonable, and, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s do that when you come home.’ Which is really encouraging, but that again is just… Well, again, it just happened to coincide with where I am mentally in life. It just feels like a good time to sort of, like, ‘All right. When I come back, we’ll start this new chapter, this new reality.'”
Late last month, Forge was asked by Adam Wallis of Canada’s Global News if there are any plans for GHOST to record a new EP, considering that the band has released a new EP after almost every full-length album since the group’s early days. Forge responded: “No. As of right now, there is no EP coming. Besides the [ongoing North American leg of the ‘Skeletour’] tour that we’re doing now, we have nothing else planned. So the future is right now very open. Creatively, I have a lot to do. I’m actually recording currently, but it’s not a covers EP and it’s not a new GHOST record. So, I actually do not know exactly what and when anything will happen. And that’s a good thing, because for 15 years now we’ve been going at it nonstop, where cycles have basically just sort of been stitched together. Every time we’ve ended an album cycle, I’ve walked off stage knowing that Monday morning I will be in the studio and our next show is there. So it has been that sort of sort cyclical nonstop thinking ahead, thinking forward, expand, expand, expand, expand, for a long time, and I’ve come to a point where I’m just, like… I still have ideas, I still have dreams, I still have things that I think we have not achieved — definitely the wish list is still there — but that’s gonna be at some other point.”
Forge also once again talked about why GHOST’s current world tour is mandating a no-phones policy. Fans entering venues for GHOST’s “Skeletour” shows have to place their mobile phone into what is called a Yondr pouch. The bag is then magnetically sealed, with fans having to approach venue staff situated outside of the main auditorium if they wish for it to be unlocked. Asked if he has had any hesitations about implementing the no-phones policy at first and how he found the reception to be since then, Forge said: “I had that in the back of my head, and, of course, when we released the tour and the tickets came out on sale, we knew beforehand that there was gonna be chatter, let’s put it that way. There were gonna be discussions, pushback, mixed emotions about it. And I believe — still now 50 plus shows in — that we did the exact right thing, because people that have showed up, with a few exceptions, have been overwhelmingly positive. I absolutely believe that it was the right call. But some of the things that we had to completely shun away from on this tour was festivals. The production that we’re doing is big and it’s heavy. It’s hard to maneuver. So there were places on the planet that we simply couldn’t get to. And, to me, it was very important that with these [chuckles] restrictions, that is the Yondr world where people get to actually enjoy the show and get to experience something cool, it’s important that we bring the entire thing. If we can’t do the whole thing, we can’t mask it as the ‘Skeletour’.”
Forge continued: “As of right now, I only know that we’re doing this tour, and after that it’s a big, big, big question mark. At some point, I need to get to terms with if what I’ve said about the ‘Skeletour’ and the Yondr pouches and the restriction or the refraining from using your phones, because I think that that is the best thing that has ever happened. The shows are so enjoyable for everybody, and I love being on stage when I can actually connect with the crowd. So I don’t wanna ever go back. But, as I said, then I have to value in which forums we’re playing in the future.”
Late last month, GHOST canceled three shows on the 2026 North American leg of “Skeletour” — January 24 in Knoxville, January 25 in Charlotte and January 26 in Greenville — due to the state of emergency issued in North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
The 2026 North American leg of GHOST’s “Skeletour” world tour kicked off on January 21 at the Kia Center in Orlando, Florida and is slated to run through February 23 at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, California.
The European leg of GHOST’s 2025 world tour kicked off on April 15, 2025 in Manchester, United Kingdom and concluded on May 24, 2025 in Oslo, Norway. The North American leg of GHOST’s 2025 tour launched on July 9, 2025 in Baltimore, Maryland and wrapped up on August 16, 2025 in Houston, Texas.
In May 2025, GHOST’s latest album, “Skeletá”, landed at position No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 86,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the LP’s first week of release. According to Billboard, 89% of that figure (77,000) consisted of traditional album sales, with vinyl purchases accounting for over 44,000 copies. Notably, “Skeletá” was the first hard rock album to reach the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 since AC/DC’s “Power Up” in 2020.
The music video for the LP’s first single, “Satanized”, introduced the new character who is fronting GHOST for its 2025 and 2026 touring cycles: Papa V Perpetua.