During an interview with myROCK conducted at Denmark's Roskilde festival on July 1, one of the Nameless Ghouls from Swedish occult rockers GHOST was asked if the band has commenced work on the follow-up to last year's "Meliora" album.
He responded: "Yes, we are working on a new album, slowly. It's sort of taking shape. Right now, we are about two months away from an EP release. That EP will sort of connect with 'Meliora', so it's not [going to feature] a new Papa [Editor's note: In a parody of the Catholic Church's tradition of papal succession, GHOST singer Papa Emeritus is purportedly replaced by a new Papa for each GHOST album.], it's not a new album; it's gonna be like an extension of 'Meliora'. That is gonna prolong the tour. So we're gonna do an American tour in the fall, and then we're gonna come back to Europe in the beginning of next year and do a bigger, sort of final 'Meliora' show. And in between now and then, we will work on the new album, and after the European tour in the beginning of [2017], we're gonna go into the studio and record a new album."
The Nameless Ghoul was also asked why it has been so important for GHOST to "hide behind masks" throughout their career so far. He said: "From a show point of view, it's important to remain masked. The whole anonymity thing was definitely something that we, I guess, we were more focused on in the beginning when we thought we were not gonna be a band that's gonna be played on radio, and we didn't think that we were gonna become popular in this way.
And then it seemed perfectly natural. Like, 'Yeah, of course we can an anonymous band, and we can just appear, and no one will know who we are. And we can play a couple of shows every year, and it will be fucking great.' But then, quite quickly, we understood that, well, it seems like we're gonna be touring, it seems like we're gonna be playing a lot of festivals, it seems like we're gonna be playing a lot of shows, and, obviously, they were not gonna start at an arena level, so it's gonna be very hard to keep our anonymity, so maybe we should have to take that with a slightly… pinch of salt. Luckily our fans, and most people that we are bumping into, are still somewhat protective, but from our point of view, there's definitely a big difference between ebing anonymous and being masked; it's not the same thing. And for us, it's very important to remain masked when we are GHOST, when we are officially doing things as GHOST. But that being said, that does not mean that we promise to remain… we cannot promise that. And we are musicians, and we do other things in life as well, and we're not gonna do this forever. So if we choose to be in another band, or if someone chooses to do something else for some time, obviously that's not gonna be in mask, and that's not the same thing as revealing yourself."
He added: "If you pay money to go and see GHOST, you will see a masked band. If you go down to the pub next door, and maybe a member of the band is playing without a mask, that's not the same thing; it's not a GHOST context."
GHOST's upcoming EP, which consists primarily of covers, was helmed by English producer Tom Dalgety, who has previously worked with ROYAL BLOOD and KILLING JOKE, among others.
GHOST won the Grammy for "Best Metal Performance" during the pre-telecast ceremony at the 58th annual Grammy Awards. GHOST was nominated for the song "Cirice" from "Meliora".
"Cirice" recently reached the Top 10 at rock radio, the first song from the band to get significant airplay in the U.S.
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