Ghost Frontman Has “50 Ideas” for New Songs
Ghost are currently touring North American arenas in support of their 2018 album, Prequelle (get tickets here!), and will do the same in Europe and the U.K. later this autumn. But frontman Tobias Forge has been pointing an eye towards the band’s next album for some time already, previously saying he plans to write and record it in 2020 with an eventual release at some point after the U.S. presidential elections.
In a recent interview with Ultimate Guitar, Forge laid out the writing and recording process and timeline he plans to employ this time around, and spoke about the limited progress he’s made so far:
“I’m still yet to start the real process. The real process being: in January, I go into the studio, Monday through Friday, every week, just finishing tracks. That’s how it works. So up until then, I don’t know, there might be a song in my head but it’s not finished until it’s recorded. I’ve only recorded, so far, a demo of one track, just to get my rocks off and feel that I’ve started doing something.
“So one track is sort of listenable and then I have maybe 50 ideas for tracks but generally, in order to make a song, you need about three ideas to be put together into a song. So I feel that four months from now, the pile of ideas – riffs, vignettes, lyric ideas, and all these different things.
“‘From the Pinnacle to the Pit’ was written on bass. That’s why it sounds like that. Some are written as a drum idea, like ‘Death Knell’ was written as a drum idea. So there are so many different angles that the songs can start from.
“But now, knowing that I have one song I can listen to and the pile of ideas, I feel very confident that [I can get a new album done] from January to September [2020] – that’s the production window – January is starting and September is mastering, basically. I feel as prepared now as I have going in to make any of the previous albums.”
If that timeline holds, a 2020 release for the next Ghost album seems unlikely. A band of Ghost’s stature is going to want at least a two-month promo window (more likely three, possibly more!) from the day the album is announced to when it finally comes out. If the album is finished in early September, a mid-to-late November release (after the presidential elections) would allow for two months, but beyond that we’re pushing into December, when bands generally do not release new albums for fear of competing with holiday shopping dollars. And, again, that’s if everything goes perfectly according to plan, AND the album is finished in early September, AND they roll with just a two month promo cycle.
So my best guess for new Ghost music is that early 2021 is a better bet. Still plenty of time to catch them on tour between now and then, though.
