Tobias Forge

Forge is credited as Papa Nihil on the two-track release Seven Inches of Satanic Panic, which is purported by the band to have been recorded in 1969.

Tobias Jens Forge (born 3 March 1981) is a Swedish singer, musician, and songwriter.

He is the leader and primary songwriter of the masked rock band Ghost, performing live as their vocalist under the stage names Papa Emeritus and Cardinal Copia.

Forge was a member of the band Superior under the stage name Leviathan in 1996.

He fronted the Stockholm-based death metal band Repugnant from 1998, under the stage name Mary Goore, which Metal Hammer reported is a play on the name of Irish guitarist Gary Moore.

Between 2000 and 2002, Forge was also a guitarist for glam metal band Crashdïet using the Mary Goore name.

At some point he also played guitar for the punk rock band Onkel Kånkel.

They recorded their only studio album Epitome of Darkness in 2002, but it was left unreleased when the band broke up in 2004, only being published in 2006.

From 2002 to 2008, Forge was vocalist and guitarist of the pop rock band Subvision.

The group also included future Ghost members Martin Persner and Gustaf Lindström on guitar and bass respectively.

Peter Hällje, a former bandmate of Martin Persner, claimed he designed the Papa Emeritus character in 2005, prior to the formation of Ghost.

Hällje never performed as Papa Emeritus and agreed with Persner to let him use the character for his then-new band.

For recorded material, Forge seems to also play most of the other instruments in addition to vocals.

Although the band was formed in 2006, Forge's identity as the Ghost frontman was only confirmed in 2017, following a lawsuit by former band members due to a royalty dispute.

Prior to finding success, he was in several other bands, including Repugnant and Crashdïet, under the stage name Mary Goore.

They released two EPs and one album, So Far So Noir (2006), before disbanding.

Forge, Persner and Simon Söderberg, another future Ghost member, were also members of the Linköping-based alternative rock band Magna Carta Cartel (or MCC) from 2006 to 2010.

Forge played guitar and bass, with Persner and Söderberg both handling guitar and singing duties.

The band went on hiatus when all three began to focus on Ghost.

Since 2006, Forge has acted as chief songwriter and business leader of the rock and heavy metal band Ghost, a project and role that contributed to a significant rise in his fame and popularity, following many years of involvement in other underground acts.

During live performances with the band, he performs as its singer.

Due to "Ghost's epic progression from underground doom favorites to an arena phenomenon" in the 2010s, Loudwire named Forge the Metal Artist of the Decade.

Repugnant briefly reunited for the Hell's Pleasure festival in 2010.

For example, he claimed that the 2010 debut album, Opus Eponymous, was recorded with a session drummer and nothing else.

In 2012, during a concert in the band's hometown of Linköping, Sweden, Papa Emeritus was seemingly retired and replaced by a new vocalist, Papa Emeritus II, but this was actually Forge in another costume.

The band's second album, Infestissumam, was released in 2013.

Due to a legal dispute over the band's name, they were forced to release the album using the name "Ghost B.C."

in the United States.

Forge performed as Papa Emeritus II for this album, as well as the subsequent EP, If You Have Ghost (2013).

Papa Emeritus III was introduced in 2015 to coincide with the release of the band's third album, Meliora.

Persner left Ghost in July 2016 and reformed Magna Carta Cartel.

Papa Emeritus III was retired at the end of Ghost's 2016–2017 Popestar Tour (being physically dragged off stage at the end of the final show), and a new character, Papa Emeritus Zero (now known as Papa Nihil), was introduced immediately afterward.

Despite anonymity being one of Ghost's biggest themes, Forge's identity as Papa Emeritus was revealed following a lawsuit in April 2017 by former Ghost members over a royalties dispute.

They also claimed he was trying to transform Ghost "from a band into a solo project with hired musicians" in an "underhanded and shameless way".

Forge has disputed this, claiming that Ghost "was always sort of… I guess a Bathory sort of band, where there was people playing live, and the people playing live [were] not necessarily the same that played on the records."

For Ghost's fourth album, Prequelle (2018), Forge adopted another new persona, Cardinal Copia.

During the final show of A Pale Tour Named Death, Cardinal Copia was anointed and introduced as Papa Emeritus IV.

For his musical accomplishments, Forge was awarded the 2019 Platinagitarren award from STIM, who explained "With one foot standing firmly on the metal floor, Forge is a composer pushing the boundaries of the genre."

Jury member and journalist Jan Gradvall stated that Forge is among the "most visionary and creative in Swedish music history."

Each album has a 'new singer': originally Papa Emeritus I through to III—a demonic anti-pope—and then Cardinal Copia, who became Papa Emeritus IV in March 2020.