Ghost may be a Swedish doom metal band, or it may be a Tobias Forge solo project.
Time, and the courts, will tell.
Ghost debuted in 2008. Four of its members, known as “Nameless Ghouls,” wore identical cloaks, cowls and demon masks. Its lead singer, Papa Emeritus, wore a painted skull on his face and gloomily hued papal garb on his body.
Ghost played music that was far savvier and catchier than most doom metal, and the band delighted critics as much as it alarmed evangelicals.
All was going swimmingly, Satanically and anonymously, until April when four former Nameless Ghouls (not to mention, four formerly nameless Nameless Ghouls) went public with a lawsuit.
They’re demanding back pay from Papa Emeritus, aka Tobias Forge. Forge has since insisted in interviews that Ghost was never more than a solo project.
Fort Wayne music fans may be able to decide some of this for themselves when an incarnation of Ghost take the Embassy Theatre stage on July 14.