Is Rock Dead? Ghost's Tobias Forge Weighs In

The phrase “rock is dead” often gets uttered by ageing rockers, fans, and people in the music industry alike.

When there are so many exciting bands making waves, whether it’s the hardcore crossover act Turnstile or Aussie punks Amyl And The Sniffers, it’s an argument that doesn’t seem to hold much weight when you can hear what’s happening in music scenes today.

KISS bassist and co-vocalist Gene Simmons, however, believes that the age of the rock music headliner is on its way out (despite a relatively new metal band, Sleep Token, headlining Download Festival this year). Ghost singer Tobias Forge disagrees with Simmons’ take.

He weighed into the “rock is dead” debate in a new interview with Consequence of Sound, where he said: “I think it was Gene Simmons that said it most times, but I mean a lot of people have said that rock ‘n’ roll is dead and there will be no new headliners.

“I understand that it’s been sparse, but I think that with the unfortunate disappearance of a lot of bands that I like — KISS being one of them — I do believe that with time, I think that there will be more [headlining rock] bands.”

Adding that he believes some of the issue is an “age thing” surrounding bands reaching the end of their careers, he commented: “There are a few examples of fairly new bands who’ve risen to great statures, faster than we did.”

He explained, “I think that there’s this strange time phenomenon that happened somewhere in the 2000s where everything that was sort of old was old, and everything that came after was new, and just keeps on being labelled as new, especially by people who at the time were in their twenties or thirties or forties and now are in their forties, fifties, sixties. Which I think is an age thing.

“If you ask a lot of our fans who are 15 years old now, just the fact that our band has been around for 15 years — do you think that they think that we are a new band? No. And that’s how it should be. I think they are right in the sense that we’re an old, established band. If our first album came out in 1980, and it’s now 1995, that’s an old band.”

Ghost released their sixth album, Skeletá, earlier this year. Upon its release, the album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 in the US, as well as #1 in their native Sweden as well as Australia, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and Finland, #2 in the UK, Netherlands and Norway, #4 in France and #6 in Ireland, among others.   

The theatrical rock band last toured Australia in October 2023, headlining arenas. This year has seen them tour across the UK, Europe, and North America.