Ghost founder responds to lawsuit.
In response to the legal proceedings initiated earlier this year by the four musicians of the band Ghost, known as Nameless Ghouls, the band's founder, Tobias Forge (Papa Emeritus), yesterday filed a legal response that, in addition to continuing the case, definitively reveals the identities of all the group's members.
The four musicians from Ghost, Simon Soderberg, Mauro Rubino, Henrik Palm, and Martin Hjertstedt, are suing Tobias Forge over the division of profits from record sales and the band's tours.
In an official response, Forge claims that "there was no legal agreement between him and the four musicians" and that their only task was to "play the songs and maintain the image according to the instructions" given by the vocalist. For this service, the musicians would receive a fixed salary.
Forge also reveals that he is the sole author of all the songs except for "Year Zero" and "Zenith," which came from ideas by guitarist Martin Persner, who was no longer in the band, and even then, Forge says he modified the arrangements and lyrics of both songs.
In the legal proceedings, Tobias Forge states that it has always been very clear that Ghost is not a joint project, but rather an entity that he controls, and that the other members are "hired musicians" who are neither irreplaceable nor considered crucial to the band.
He also says that initially he thought that in addition to fixed payments, the musicians could have additional earnings from the band's activities, but that Ghost only started to generate financial results from the 2017 tour onwards, since, according to Forge, all previous revenue was used to pay musicians, producers, crew, travel, accommodation and equipment purchases.
In the statement, Forge says that until 2017 he had not received a salary and that he lived solely off the royalties from Ghost Opus Eponymous , concluding that by initiating legal proceedings, the musicians destroyed the mystery surrounding the band.
A translation from Swedish to English of Tobias Forge's legal response can be read in 2 parts, here and here .