GHOST lead singer and founder Tobias Forge — who performs as Papa Emeritus and does the act’s interviews disguised as a member of his backing band of Nameless Ghouls — was a guest on a recent edition of BBC Radio 1‘s “Rock Show With Daniel P. Carter” where he talked about his musical influences.
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Forge said: “Luckily, playing shows with bands, I’ve also had the great pleasure of being mentored by some of my favorite bands in the world, who’ve been very, very nice and very supporting: METALLICA, obviously; IRON MAIDEN; FOO FIGHTERS… They’ve definitely all made myself and the band and the crew really feel welcome.
“I’ve always been [appreciative], for as long as I’ve been doing this, especially because I was given a good hand somewhat later than, I guess, most other bands starting out when they’re twenty, and they screw everything up and they wake up seven years later: ‘What happened?’ Whereas I was close to thirty when we started touring.
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“Part of my touring regime and touring ethics comes from sitting with [IRON MAIDEN‘s] ‘Live After Death’, looking through all those dates, looking through all the things and lists of stuff. [I was thinking] ‘This is exactly what I wanna do. They’re big in America.’ Then you have to play in Saginaw [laughs], and you play four dates in Wisconsin. So that was, like, ‘Okay, that’s how you tour.’ And some of my first really big shows were METALLICA. That also set a standard. So now, being mentored by those bands and being close to them and close to their crew and watching that operation, it’s, for me, very, very inspiring, and I’m happy that I have the luxury of seeing that. METALLICA was also one of my brother’s favorite bands, so there’s definitely moments where — because he passed away, basically, just before GHOST happened — so there’s definitely moments there where it’s… You have that feeling of, ‘Look at this. I’m here watching this. Being asked to… I just played on this stage now. There’s James Hetfield playing that song.'”
Via Blabbermouth.com