Ghost’s Tobias Forge says Sleep Token are one of the bands proving rock isn’t dead: “You can form a band tomorrow and theoretically become a big band within a few years”

Ghost onstage in 2025 and Sleep Token onstage in 2023 — (Image credit: Katja Ogrin/Redferns)

Ghost linchpin Tobias Forge has taken a defiant stand against Kiss singer/bassist Gene Simmons’ infamous “rock is dead” stance in a new interview.

Talking to Consequence, the Swedish singer/multi-instrumentalist, who founded Ghost in 2006 and performs live as their masked vocalist ‘Papa V Perpetua’, speaks out against those claiming “there will be no new headliners” in rock and metal.

He even singles out Simmons, who’s declared “rock is dead” and expressed his despair over the current state of the genre in multiple interviews over the years.

Forge fires back by pointing towards UK pop-metal juggernauts Sleep Token, Italian rockers Måneskin and US hard rockers Greta Van Fleet, all of whom have found a widespread audience in a short span of time.

“Sleep Token or Måneskin or Greta Van Fleet are all new bands,” says Forge. “I think they prove that you can absolutely go places. You can form a band tomorrow and theoretically become a big band within a few years. I think you do so by trying to want to create something.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the frontman offers advice to up-and-coming bands in the rock and metal scene.

“I’m gonna say this loosely now within brackets because I understand that we’re just a Mercyful Fate/Blue Öyster Cult/Alice Cooper wannabe band, but you need to do something new,” he says. “Don’t look at your one idol and say, ‘I wanna be like him. I want to be like her. I want my band to sound exactly like that band.’ That’s most likely not gonna get you anywhere.”

Forge then circles back to Greta Van Fleet, preempting people pointing out the potential irony in his advice, given the young band have often been criticised for sounding too similar to such 70s hard rock stars as Led Zeppelin.

“And I don’t wanna hear anything about Greta Van Fleet now,” he continues, “because I think that their intentions are true. And they just happened to sound like someone else, but that's not their fault. So, stop it.”

Ghost put out their latest album, Skeletá, in April and are currently touring to promote the release. They’ll appear on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday (July 23), before playing at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan on Thursday, July 24.

The band’s 2025 tour dates are phone-free events. Attendees will have their mobile phones put into magnetically sealed bags which are then kept on their person. The only way for them to unseal the bag is by approaching a member of security as they exit the auditorium.

Forge explained the phone ban in a March interview. “It’s an experiment,” he told Audacy. “Over the years it’s gone absolutely insane. If you have 10,000 people at a concert and 8,000 of them are holding a phone, there’s something deeply disconnected.”

Earlier this month, the frontman said that the move has “paid off” and called it a “life changer for the existence of the band”.

Artists

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Metal Hammer and Prog, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, NME and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.

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