Ghost frontman Tobias Forge made Expressen‘s list of top-earning young Swedes, coming in at No. 7 on the newspaper’s list of top earners in Stockholm under the age of 40, with a taxable income of 7,979,300 Swedish kronor (approximately $837,000) in 2017.
He told recently told Silver Tiger Media about his inspiration, “I think it stems from the fact that when I was a kid, being a fan of Alice Cooper, being a fan of The Rolling Stones, being a fan of all these larger-than-life rock bands — Dee Snider and Nikki Sixx and Blackie Lawless — but also Roger Waters and David Gilmour, I always thought that in order to become a hero like that, you needed to be from someplace else. So I thought that as I grow up, I need to transform into someone else in order to fit into the idea of how I wanted my rock star. Because I couldn’t imagine that there would be someone from my street, my house, living in my room, would be interesting enough to be a rock star. And I think that therefore you see a pattern of enhanced personas in each of these bands, in some way or form.
“It sort of dawned on me fairly recently, like, man, I’ve worn makeup almost every time I’ve been up on stage, in any band, and I’ve always had a pseudonym, or in some way or form, altered myself into… Yeah, essentially, it didn’t change much from my idea when I was seven years old to how I am now, being 38,” he continued. “I had to transform into someone else in order to be interesting enough to be able to be on stage. Because I can’t really see myself as the kid from Linköping [in Sweden] to be that person.”
