Former Nameless Ghoul Says Ghost Used to Be a Collaborative Effort: “I Really Thought I Was a Member…”

Recently, Linton Rubino, a former Nameless Ghoul and bassist in Ghost and the current vocalist of Priest, said in an interview that, when Ghost was formed, frontman Tobias Forge was not supposed to be the only indispensable member of the band.

Today, most fans of Ghost known the band as Forge with a cast of hired guns. Rubino denies that was always the case, telling Rocking with Jam Man:

“Actually, that wasn’t the case when I was in the band, ’cause there wasn’t a culture of being changeable. When I was in the band, it was very clear that it was a band and nobody was a hired gun. So nobody felt that you were gonna be replaced all the time. Because the bass player before me, he quit by himself because of personal reasons. And then I got the chance to join the band – and not as a hired gun. I really thought I was a member of Ghost when I [was] in Ghost.

“After that, and after all the other stuff that happened, then that perception, I think, [was] changed, and now everybody believes that there was one boss and everybody was hired.

“But at the time, that wasn’t the feeling or the culture that was in the band; it was more like we are one band. Maybe one person had more to say about the creative stuff and the business part of it, but we were still one band. So I didn’t have that feeling [that I was just a hired gun]. Now I can understand, if you’re a Ghoul today, you must have another view of it. But not back then, actually.”

In 2018, a lawsuit against Forge by his former band members was summarily dismissed in the Swedish court system. The former Nameless Ghouls alleged that profits were not being shared the proper way because Ghost was intended to be an equal partnership.

We can infer that “the other stuff that happened” is a reference to this lawsuit, with the dismissal indicating that the band is, in fact, Forge and his hired crew.

Regardless of what the situation is now, Priest are slated to release their new album, Body Machine, tomorrow.