Ghost’s Tobias Forge on profound impact of on-stage panic attack: “This was very close to the Bataclan shooting”

Ghost’s Tobias Forge has said a severe panic attack he once experienced onstage left a profound impact on his ability to perform.

• Read More: Tobias Forge on new material and the future of Ghost: “If fans need the lore to like the band, that element will be over quite soon”

The frontman of the metal band recalled the incident to Metal Hammer, where he said the panic attack occurred 10 years ago at a Leeds Beckett University gig.

Midway through, Forge said he started to feel claustrophobic in his trademark full-face mask, triggering the attack while the band performed ‘Con Clavi Con Dio’. “Throughout my years in masks, I’ve developed a not comfortable claustrophobia,” Forge explains. “It’s the idea of having something over your throat, being completely engulfed, completely enclosed.”

Forge went on to say it was the first time he had experienced a panic attack on-stage, adding: “It had never really happened to me before, but I was walking into the venue, and this is, this is very close to the [November 2015 Paris] Bataclan shooting.

“We went into the venue, and it was raining outside, big surprise, absolutely pissing down,” he continued. “I was told there was only one entrance into the venue; you had to walk in on the right side of the stage, past the stage, and then into a backstage area.”

“So, essentially, you couldn’t get out. You were locked in,” Forge went on to explain. “That was what I was told. And I didn’t think of it until during the show, when all of a sudden I was like, ‘I need to know where the door is…I can’t get to the door. Stop! Stop! Get the mask off!’ I had to get everything off. Restart the whole thing.”

Forge then said another door was revealed to Forge by a guard which hadn’t been shown prior to the gig. “There was absolutely a way out,” he recalled, “and then it became a thing [for future shows]: I need to know where the door out is. I need to know how I get out. As long as I know how to get out, we’re good.”

Since then, Forge has said he’s managed to complete “hundreds of shows”. “I haven’t had any problems with it,” he told Metal Hammer. “I know it works. I know how to deal with it. It’s definitely in the back of your head, that that can happen, but it’s just a panic attack. It’s nothing dangerous.”

We spoke to Forge last March, where the musician told us about the future of Ghost’s music for our In Conversation series.

“I think that there might be an end to the storytelling because it’s not productive to have this endless soap opera,” Forge told us. “If fans need the lore in order to like the band, then that element will probably be over quite soon.

“If there is a way where the music can be enough and remains enjoyable, though, I am just as needy as any other artist in the sense of milestones that I want to achieve,” Forge added. “There are still places that I want to play and still things I want to do that will be another feather in my hat. I am very lucky that I’ve been able to achieve many of those things, but there are still levels of success that I want.”

In other news, Forge made a rare public appearance last week without his mask or any face paint.

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