This is a time of transition for Papa Emeritus IV, once known to the world as Cardinal Copia, the debonair unholy man in bat wings and demonic vestments. In 2024, his current role as frontman to the mysterious Ghost — as the latest in a long line of singing popes in corpse paint — just might be coming to an end. He’s held the job leading this rock band of Nameless Ghouls and their restless congregation for years longer than any of his predecessors, but nothing lasts forever.
His story unfolds onstage and backstage in RITE HERE RITE NOW, the band’s first feature film, which picks up the plotline from their ongoing Chapters video series that has told the story of popes and ghouls with drama and hilarity. The movie is the culmination of many years of planning and dreaming for Ghost mastermind Tobias Forge, who wrote the script and co-directed with Alex Ross Perry.
The movie was shot last fall during two consecutive sold-out nights at the iconic Kia Forum arena, located in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, which is the site of so many monumental rock performances over the decades: from Jimi Hendrix and Black Sabbath to Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana. (Ghost first played there in 2018.) It also came during the final weeks of Ghost’s Re-Imperatour run, just before the tour’s closing dates in South America and Australia (which included a possibly portentous night for Copia in Brisbane).
With multiple cameras placed around the Forum, RITE HERE RITE NOW captures Ghost in peak arena-rock form, as the band collides speed riffs and “AOR” pop melodies. The two-hour concert filmed each night was a vibrant survey of the Ghost catalog up until 2022’s ambitious Impera album, played by virtuoso musicians dressed as post-apocalyptic Nameless Ghouls in black uniforms and steampunk-esque breathing masks. Later on, during the show and in the movie, roadies wheeled out one of Copia’s papal predecessors, the late Papa Nihil, who was rejuvenated in his plexiglass coffin just long enough to blow a sax solo.
But the drama shown backstage in the film offers its own surprises for Papa Emeritus IV. Aside from his trusted roadies, he’s joined there by the ailing Sister Imperator and Papa Nihil — the latter back from the dead once again and appearing like a Star Wars Force ghost to give fatherly advice to Copia. Revelations await them — as well as the audience — before the film is over.
There is also an animated sequence during the band’s performance of the hit single “Mary on a Cross” in the Sixties style of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. It’s just one example of some cinematic dreams finally coming to life for Forge, the Swedish rock and metal obsessive who created the band in 2006 with no expectations for world domination. The movie — which will get its global online premiere on Veeps on July 20th, having already earned the title of the highest-grossing hard-rock cinema event ever in North America with its theatrical run — has only extended Ghost’s reach further, along with the 18-song original motion picture soundtrack for RITE HERE RITE NOW, out July 26th. The closing song is a twangy, hook-filled new studio track, “The Future Is a Foreign Land,” which, according to Ghost lore, is the “long-lost third track” recorded by the legendary 1969 lineup behind “Mary on a Cross” and “Kiss the Go-Goat.”
In his first interview about the film, Forge joined Revolver on Zoom to discuss his transition to filmmaker, the current state of Ghost, and the possible fate of Papa Emeritus IV.
IN INTERVIEWS IN RECENT YEARS, YOU’VE OFTEN TALKED ABOUT YOUR DREAMS OF MAKING A MOVIE. IS RITE HERE RITE NOW WHAT YOU ALWAYS HAD IN MIND, OR COULD IT HAVE GONE IN MANY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS?
TOBIAS FORGE There’s always a factor that, of course, if we did 10 nights at the Forum and had $2 million budget more, there would’ve been changes that I would’ve wanted to make. But overall, it’s pretty much in line with what I had hoped for. My dreams of making a motion picture stretch beyond the confines of the Ghost project. But this was a great way to exorcise a few of those demons. It was fun. It closely resembles the film plot that I spent a couple years telling people about.
IT’S A DOCUMENT OF GHOST AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME AS A PERFORMANCE PROJECT. BUT, OFFSTAGE, WE ALSO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BACKSTORY OF COPIA AND OTHER CHARACTERS THAT WE’VE COME TO KNOW FROM EARLIER VIDEOS.
That was the starting point. When speaking to people who were already informed about those things, it was easy to say, “Have you seen the episodes?” “Yes!” This is basically another episode, but it’s two hours long. The problem was when you spoke to someone, “Have you seen the episodes?” “No.” “OK, cool.” [Laughs] And then trying to bring them up to speed. How do we do a short form of the story? What is it about? Well, it’s about existence, fear of death, being alive, not being in the moment — all that stuff, which is universal beyond the episodes.
We’ve made the bed for this film through the episodes, but how do we tell that story pretty quickly without making people feel that they have to see the episodes? Whether or not that worked, I don’t know. I think we’re pretty damn close. I justify it by saying a lot of people saw the first Star Wars film once, and were completely OK with just being thrown into the middle of a story. It’s not that hard to understand the basic concept.
WHAT WAS BEHIND THE DECISION TO SHOOT THE FILM AT THE FORUM IN L.A.?
There were debates as we were trying to figure this out. It needed to be in a venue where we could get access more than one night beyond the two shows that we were doing. You book tours years ahead because there’s so much going on, especially when you’re touring the sort of venues that we’re playing — you’re not only up against other artists, you’re up against hockey and basketball and monster trucks and Disney on Ice and all kinds of conventions. So these halls are booked, and the avails are so slim.
We maybe could have played two nights in Santiago [Chile]. That would’ve been a fantastic crowd in another fantastic venue. That would’ve posed another set of problems, like the [film] crew: Who do we work with? There’s this common knowledge that the HQ of the band seems to be in L.A. So the Forum is not only a classic venue, but it’s sort of their home turf. Had we placed the story someplace else, we would’ve had to justify: Why are they there? Why is this show special? It was also practical — the movie business is there. There are movie businesses in other spots in the world as well, but we couldn’t play two nights in Atlanta.
Another aspect of this was that we needed to have a consensus with the promoter about having people turning their phones in, which is not easy. That is still a relatively foreign concept to people going to shows. And that was a necessity for these shows to happen the way that we wanted. Not every promoter wants to do that. Maybe when people see the film, it might be an easier sell to get our fans to understand that we want you to not fucking look into your phone when we’re playing.
IT REALLY MADE A DIFFERENCE IN THE ATMOSPHERE. IT WAS LIKE A THROWBACK TO ANOTHER ERA, WITHOUT A SEA OF SMARTPHONES OVERHEAD SEPARATING THE BAND AND AUDIENCE.
It was a truly amazing experience, even though I am not old in the game to say how things were in the Seventies or the Eighties. But even when I played my first shows with Ghost, it wasn’t as bad as it has turned out to be. It was really refreshing. It was almost unreal seeing the crowd seeing you, because I hadn’t seen that in years. It’s completely trendsetting for us. I don’t ever want to go back to the other way [laughs]. We’re doing our best to make that happen.
HAVE THERE BEEN ROCK MOVIES IN THE PAST THAT YOU’VE ADMIRED OR LEARNED FROM THAT INFLUENCED THIS FILM?
Oh, absolutely. As always, I’m very influenced, inspired… There are a lot of different concert films or live footage that I’ve seen over the years. [The Rolling Stones’ 1981 concert film] Let’s Spend the Night Together was one of my first real visual experiences of live rock music. It was one of my first concert experiences from start to finish: how you start a concert, how you sort of build the whole dramaturgical [plan], the set list. That colored me tremendously. Another film that was very important to me when I was a kid was [the Sex Pistols’ 1980 mockumentary] The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle. Two different bands, but for me they have always felt similar in the sense they were in bright Technicolor, playing a kind of lawless brute rock, very primordial, and it made me feel good, and larger than life.
ISN’T LET’S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER THE MOVIE WHERE A FAN GETS ONSTAGE AND KEITH RICHARDS HITS HIM WITH A GUITAR?
Yeah.
THAT’S A MEMORABLE MOMENT.
Yeah, and very similar to Sid Vicious shooting people in the crowd [laughs] when he sings [“My Way”] like Frank Sinatra. It has this sort of stuck up, “Don’t fuck with me” [feeling]. As a kid seeing that was cooler than any Bruce Lee film, because they did it for real. Sid Vicious didn’t [really shoot people] but he definitely defended himself or whatever I thought he was doing. And what is that dude doing onstage [in Let’s Spend the Night Together]? Oh, it must be dangerous being in the band.
AND ALSO DANGEROUS GETTING TOO CLOSE TO THE BAND…
That’s another aspect of Sid Vicious. My brother told me one thing that I remember very clearly when I was a kid — that [Vicious] had smacked his bass on some dude’s head at some point. Which to me, as a five-year-old, was like, “Somebody got whacked in their head? Wow. They must have been split in two!” So there are similarities between those two films, especially from my point of view. Those, among others, have greatly affected my will to make something like this.
AT THE BEGINNING OF RITE HERE RITE NOW, THE TITLE COMES UP AND IT HAS THE LOOK OF SOMETHING GRIM AND GOTHIC, BUT THE FILM ULTIMATELY BECOMES SOMETHING MUCH MORE UPLIFTING AND PHILOSOPHICAL, ABOUT HOW TO USE YOUR TIME, WHATEVER TIME YOU HAVE.
That’s what I hope. That’s a very important lesson that I’m still personally trying to learn, which is hard. I think a lot of people do have a problem with that, especially in creative work when you’re trying to push boundaries. And I guess there is some wish that what we’re building now is going to change things in the future for the better. But it’s also a great way to avoid living in the now and being present. As much as it’s a recommendation, I can’t say that I live that way myself. It’s as much therapeutic [laughs] work for me as it is me trying to spread the word, spread knowledge.
I WAS AT THE SECOND SHOW YOU SHOT AT THE FORUM, AND YOU WERE MAKING A POINT OF CONNECTING WITH FANS WITH THESE KIND OF ASPIRATIONAL MESSAGES.
As much as I have chosen not to speak of this film as a concert film — at least not in the traditional sense of the word — to whatever extent it is actually a concert film, I was very keen on it being similar to KISS’ Alive!; that it was almost like a bookend, a compilation. This is very closely resembling a best of, cut through what we’ve done over the years. And it was usually a good part when we played [Roky Erickson’s] “If You Have Ghosts.” We played that over the years, and there was this segment where, in one way or another, there was a point of shining a light onto the… I don’t want to say “seize the day” — but if you’re here at the show and maybe in your normal life you might be grieving or longing or somehow feel emotionally displaced, you’re here now laughing and having fun and that’s fine.
You’re allowed to do that. Life is ups and downs. That’s how you know when you’re happy and … when you’re sad. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’re supposed to feel sad at certain points. It’s supposed to hurt. It sounds factual and obvious to some, but to some not.
GHOST HAVE ALWAYS MADE A SPECIAL PLACE FOR STORYTELLING BESIDES WHAT YOU’RE DOING MUSICALLY. WHAT IS BEHIND THAT AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO THE OVERALL GHOST STORY?
Originally, there was no story. I wanted there to be nothing in terms of a band story. I wanted it to be a theatrical project. I never thought that there would be a requirement for a more packageable story in terms of creating more press-friendly stuff. I thought if this project survives making one record, there might be another record, and with time it’ll solve itself. And already by the second record — and we had switched labels — it was clear that the lack of story was potentially a problem if I were to hope for some sort of commercial break.
I came to the conclusion that I wanted to take this band as far as I could. Well, we have a little bit of a pickle here because we can’t really tell the story. I mean, I am personally not interesting enough, and the band is not such an “anomaly” of a band, so I don’t know really what to tell you. And besides, we’re anonymous [laughs], and that’s a problem. So I guess I have to make a story up.
YOU’VE SEEMED TO BE HAVING A GOOD TIME ACTING OUT THESE EPISODES AND PRESENTING THIS BACKSTORY TO GHOST OFFSTAGE, SHOWING FANS WHO THESE CHARACTERS ARE. IT TURNED OUT YOU HAD A KNACK FOR IT.
I mean, who knew? That was definitely not how I envisioned it originally. I don’t know exactly when it really started to dawn on me that we could expand that, but it was years ago — and I just felt that because what would turn out to be RITE HERE RITE NOW has been in the works in various forms. It has been in different shapes over five years.
THE WORLD-BUILDING THAT YOU’VE BEEN DOING IS NOT JUST IN THE VIDEO EPISODES OR THE FILM. AT YOUR POP-UP EXHIBIT LAST YEAR AT THE WHISKY A GO GO IN L.A., YOU HAD PAPA NIHIL’S BODY LAID OUT BY THE BAR AND ALL THESE ARTIFACTS FROM THE HISTORY OF GHOST GOING BACK TO THE SIXTIES, INCLUDING AN ANIMATION CEL SUPPOSEDLY FROM THEIR GUEST APPEARANCE ON SCOOBY-DOO. THE STORY KEEPS GETTING DEEPER.
The whole ’60s throwback was such a weird thing, and it turns out to be such a fun chapter. Let’s do a throwback, and since we were doing that, they need to play something. They can’t just stand there and play Strawberry Alarm Clock songs. They need to have their own songs. So I had this idea about “Kiss the Go-Goat,” that’s a funny joke. I wrote that song pretty quickly, and as I went into the studio and I showed it to my writing partners [Salem Al Fakir and Vincent Pontare], we sort of just stumbled upon another song that over an hour quickly developed into “Mary on a Cross.”
That turned out to be such a weird aspect of the story of Ghost, because it’s technically a track from a different band from a different time. But the cool thing about that is that allows me to have this parallel way of writing. Now there is a distinction between the Sixties songs and the other songs, which is super liberating. That’s a typical sort of songwriting game that you do: Put yourself in the head of someone else. Put yourself in a place where you aren’t. Those are the things that can really trigger ideas.
THAT TOUR DIDN’T END WITH THOSE SHOWS IN L.A., BUT WEEKS LATER IN BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA. ON THAT FINAL NIGHT, PAPA EMERITUS IV WAS TALKING ONSTAGE ABOUT IT BEING HIS FINALE WITH GHOST. DO WE KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON YET WITH MR. COPIA?
I think that there was a confusion with the L.A. show not being the last — and the shows that happened after — that made a lot of people sort of zone in on the Brisbane show being something completely different. One thing ending doesn’t mean necessarily not existing or ceasing to exist. It just means change. It just means that he won’t be onstage anymore. Which is the most normal [laughs] retirement ever.
SO COPIA’S EXIT FROM THE SPOTLIGHT WON’T BE A VIOLENT EXIT NECESSARILY?
Not in the film, and not in Brisbane. But the show’s not over yet.
ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT THE NEXT RECORD? ARE YOU IN THAT MODE YET?
I am in that mode, absolutely. We can’t really do anything without planning nowadays. If you go into what they call a hiatus, and you don’t plan anything, all of a sudden that hiatus becomes years just because you need to plan it a long, long time before. We’ve been working on that and trying to find a way where creativity and sanity can coexist. I think we’ve found a sort of happy medium. The film might be the bookend for one chapter, but it sets up for something new.
IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN TELL US ABOUT THAT NEXT CHAPTER? WHAT THAT MIGHT SOUND OR LOOK LIKE?
Not yet. Right now everything is about the film. It’s too early to tell.
YOUR LAST RELEASE WAS 2023’S PHANTOMIME, A COVERS EP. HOW DID THAT LEAD TO WHAT YOU’RE DOING NOW?
Originally the idea was to make a full LP, but it just didn’t pan out that way. Now my next step is definitely not a covers EP. That was cool. It’s a fun way to exercise your body, your mind. It definitely inspired me. When that EP came out, there were elements that gave me a vision of where to go next, and that feels exciting.
There are a lot of things that I’ve learned while making this film — getting to know the show intimately. There were things that happened onstage during the show that I wasn’t really privy to. I got to know the show better. Even I was entertained at points, and found it like, “Oh, this is actually pretty solid.” But there were a lot of things where I felt we can do better. You see it so clearly. To quote Dr. Phil, who once said [speaks in Oklahoma accent], “Sometimes it’s hard to see yourself without a mirror.” But it’s true! [Laughs] Sometimes you just need to see things from a different viewpoint.