Everybody loves ABBA these days, even people in the world of metal. And few love ABBA as much as Ghost frontman Tobias Forge.
The occult metallers covered the pop titans’ 1978 deep cut I’m A Marionette on the B-side of 2013’s Secular Haze single. In fact he’s so much of an Abba-head that he says his fellow Swedes should win a Nobel Prize.
Speaking in the brand new issue of Metal Hammer, Tobias was asked to name his favourite ABBA song. He replied: “Right now, I Have A Dream. It involves three chords, and the third chord comes in at such a brilliant moment at the third section of the song.
- "Friends of mine were saying, Give up on the dream, it's not happening." Tobias Forge recalls how forming Ghost helped him deal with a dawning realisation that his dream of becoming a successful musician wasn't ever going to become a reality
- “It’s the perfect encapsulation of youthful anger… It still sounds feral and savage to this very day”: The cult 1980s classic Ghost frontman Tobias Forge calls the perfect extreme metal album
“The first two sections are the same two chords, back and forth. Then all of a sudden, the third chord comes in and… they should be getting a Nobel Music Prize for that one because it’s so fucking brilliant.”
Abba famously got their international breakthrough after winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with Waterloo. But while Tobias’ love of the band extends to covering their songs, he says he has no plan to follow them onto the Eurovision stage.
“I wouldn’t want to do it because it’s usually the end of your career,” he says of Eurovision. “If you already have an established career, then don’t do it. Although Måneskin proved it could be done. I hope there’s a lot of 14-year-olds out there in Europe and the world who see that as an inspiration and start playing drums, bass and guitar.”
While there’s no official Nobel Music Prize, Sweden does have the Polar Music Prize, founded by former Abba manager Stug Anderson. Ghost played the ceremony in 2018, covering Metallica’s Enter Sandman to honour the San Francisco metal band, who were recipients of that year’s award.
The interview with Tobias appears in the brand new issue of Metal Hammer, which celebrates 30 years of Iron Maiden’s Fear Of The Dark and features brand new interviews with Faith No More, Fozzy’s Chris Jericho, Oceans Of Slumber, Cave In and more. Order your copy here.
