{"id":251169,"date":"2025-10-25T18:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T18:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/251169\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T18:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T18:05:08","slug":"square-hammer-by-ghost-the-story-behind-the-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/251169\/","title":{"rendered":"Square Hammer by Ghost: the story behind the song"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ghost<\/a> had already clawed their way clear of the underground by the time they released their third album, 2015\u2019s Meliora<\/a>, but to get to the next level they required the kind of all-conquering anthem that would serve as a focal point for everything that made them stand out in the first place. That song would be Square Hammer, the lead track and sole original song on Ghost\u2019s second EP, Popestar.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ghost mastermind Tobias Forge<\/a>\u2019s ambitions had been writ large on Meliora. With Cirice, From The Pinnacle To The Pit and Majesty, the band earned radio play in the US for the first time. As Tobias would remark: \u201cYou can have a career in America without radio\u2026 but it definitely helps.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April 2016, just nine months after the release of Meliora, Tobias entered Gardenia Studio in his hometown of Link\u00f6ping to record Popestar. Where 2013\u2019s Dave Grohl-produced If You Have Ghost EP was comprised entirely of covers, plus a live rendition of 2012 single Secular Haze, Tobias had an idea for a new song to kick off Popestar and showcase his ambitions to kick Ghost to the next level.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Square Hammer had been written and earmarked for Meliora, but it wasn\u2019t finished in time. But Tobias wouldn\u2019t let the song go.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt very strongly about it and we agreed we needed to release it,\u201d Tobias told Metal Hammer in 2016, \u201cso suddenly we were recording a covers EP that\u2019s Square Hammer and four B-sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tobias had a very specific idea in mind for the song. \u201cWe needed a big opening track,\u201d he told Loudwire in 2018. \u201cWhen I was a kid, there was a concert called the Moscow Music Peace Festival [held in 1989].<\/p>\n

\u201cOzzy Osbourne opened with I Don\u2019t Know and it\u2019s such a fucking great opening track. This was in front of, like, 80,000 people, who went nuts. If you ever want to play bigger places, you need to have records that sound like you\u2019re playing in big places.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Square Hammer offered just that. Driven by an undulating riff and underpinned with organ-like keyboards and enormous vocal hooks, the track was the first major signifier that Ghost were no longer singing purely from the Sabbath-via-Blue \u00d6yster Cult hymn sheet.<\/p>\n

Lyrically, Square Hammer is enigmatic even by Ghost\u2019s standards. The song seems to suggest that people profess their faith to the Devil rather than God \u2013 something that ties in with Meliora\u2019s theme of the Anti-Christ establishing a rein of Earth.<\/p>\n

The Popestar EP was released in September 2016. Opening with Square Hammer, it also featured covers of Echo & The Buunymen\u2019s Nocturnal Me, Simian Mobile Disco\u2019s I Believe, Eurythmics\u2019 Missionary Man and Bible by cult Swedish post-punks Imperiet.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

But it was Square Hammer that would be the most pivotal song of Ghost\u2019s career to that point. The track gave Ghost their first No.1 outside of their native Sweden when it topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cSquare Hammer was an additional, surprise, sort of out-of-nowhere track and went to No.1,\u201d Tobias told Loudwire. \u201cIt was a huge thing, at that point. Meliora was the first record where we had any radio in America, but Square Hammer was the one that put us in a position where we were a force to be reckoned with on radio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, radio wasn\u2019t solely responsible for the song\u2019s success. A Nosferatu-inspired music video<\/a> directed by Zev Deans captured the band\u2019s aesthetic shift from grainy 70s Hammer horror imagery to a classic 30s Universal Monsters vibe.<\/p>\n

In the promo, Papa Emeritus III attends a film premi\u00e8re for an old-school gothic horror that goes awry when a familiar papal spectre escapes the screen and terrorises both the audience and the wider city at large.<\/p>\n

Shot in Brooklyn, the video for Square Hammer immediately became a beloved part of the band\u2019s videography, to date amassing 115 million views on YouTube.<\/p>\n

Ghost – Square Hammer (Official Music Video) – YouTube
\n\"Ghost<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

The song also became the instant live staple that Tobias had aimed for. The opening song on the first night of The Popestar Tour in Rochester, New York on September 16, 2016, the song\u2019s anthemic prowess was quickly proven. It remained the opening number for the entire Popestar tour, including for Ghost\u2019s first European headline shows at Alcatraz in Belgium and Bloodstock in the UK.<\/p>\n

Although the song didn\u2019t retain its opener status forever, it has remained in their setlists for just about every show they\u2019ve played since its release. It was also picked up as the theme song for livestreamed wrestling extravaganza NXT TakeOver: San Antonio in January 2017, and has in many ways become Ghost\u2019s defining anthem \u2013 the song that turned them from cult sensations to ascendant stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cSquare Hammer had a major effect,\u201d Tobias admitted to Loudwire. \u201cIt served as a really good opener and now it serves as a really good closer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ghost had already clawed their way clear of the underground by the time they released their third album,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-251169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}