Author: smngrx01

Tobias Forge claims that, despite appearances, a lot of Ghost’s music isn’t actually about the Devil.

Since debuting with 2010’s Opus Eponymous, the Swedish hard rock/heavy metal outfit have presented themselves as a subversive church with a skeletal “pope” singer, portrayed by Forge, and an ensemble of druid-like backing musicians called “nameless ghouls”. Their back-catalogue also includes such songs as Devil Church, Depth Of Satan’s Eyes and the new single Satanized.

However, Forge says in a new interview with Metal Hammer that that seeming fascination with The Great Horned One is only skin-deep. “With most of the things I’ve written, including parts of the first record, there’s this misconception that they’re about the Devil, and they aren’t really,” he insists.

So what do Ghost’s songs actually discuss? “They’ve always been about mankind’s relationship with the concept of life and death,” Forge continues, “and God and divine presence or absence. Some songs are expressed with more specificity at a certain individual or a certain aspect of society. I just felt that I wanted this new record to be… about being human. Being alive.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Forge talks about Ghost’s ‘new’ frontman Papa V Perpetua, who replaces the outgoing character Papa Emeritus IV (even though it’s still the same man beneath the mask and mitre). He admits that he doesn’t know much about the new singer’s personality yet and that it will reveal itself once he starts playing live.

“I’ve always felt that it was a scary thing,” he adds. “On one hand, I’m trying to make the ‘product’ that is Ghost an entertaining thing for our fans. On the other, I try to do that as pleasantly as is possible for myself as well.

“When I decided to introduce Cardinal Copia into the mix [for 2018 album Prequelle], it felt very uncomfortable because he was going to be thrown out there as someone who hadn’t become [a Papa Emeritus] yet: ‘Wow, this is going to be a little different.’ But what I did know was that I didn’t have to go through the process of introducing a new character for the next album. Now, I do!”

Ghost release their new album, Skeletá, on April 25 via Loma Vista. The band will start the six-month Skeletour world tour to promote the release in Manchester, UK, on April 15. See dates and details of the shows below.

Ghost are the cover stars on the new issue of Hammer. As well as an in-depth interview with Forge, the magazine comes with two Ghost-inspired patches and an art print, plus conversations with Cradle Of Filth, Wardruna, Lamb Of God, Atreyu, Harper and many more. Order your copy now and get it delivered directly to your door!

Ghost 2025 tour dates:

UK:
Apr 15: Manchester AO Arena
Apr 16: Glasgow OVO Hydro
Apr 19: London The O2
Apr 20: Birmingham Utilita Arena

Europe:
Apr 22: Antwerp Sportpaleis, Belgium
Apr 23: Frankfurt Festhalle, Germany
Apr 24: Munich Olympiahalle, Germany
Apr 26: Lyon LDLC Arena, France
Apr 27: Toulouse Zenith Metropole, France
Apr 29: Lisbon MEO Arena, Portugal
Apr 30: Madrid Palacio Vistalegre, Spain
May 03: Zurich AG Hallenstadion, Switzerland
May 04: Milan Unipol Forum, Italy
May 07: Berlin Uber Arena, Germany
May 08: Amsterdam Ziggo Dome, Netherlands
May 10: Lodz Atlas Arena, Poland
May 11: Prague O2 Arena, Czech Republic
May 13: Paris Accor Arena, France
May 14: Oberhausen Rudolph Weber Arena, Germany
May 15: Hannover ZAG Arena, Germany
May 17: Copenhagen Royal Arena, Denmark
May 20: Tampere Nokia Arena, Finland
May 22: Linköping Saab Arena, Sweden
May 23: Sandviken Göransson Arena, Sweden
May 24: Oslo Spektrum, Norway

USA:
Jul 09: Baltimore CFG Bank Arena, MD
Jul 11: Atlanta State Farm Arena, GA
Jul 12: Tampa Amalie Arena, FL
Jul 13: Miami Kaseya Center, FL
Jul 15: Raleigh PNC Arena, NC
Jul 17: Cleveland Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, OH
Jul 18: Pittsburgh PPG Paints Arena, PA
Jul 19: Philadelphia Wells Fargo Center, PA
Jul 21: Boston TD Garden, MA
Jul 22: New York Madison Square Garden, NY
Jul 24: Detroit Little Caesars Arena, MI
Jul 25: Louisville KFC Yum! Center, KY
Jul 26: Nashville Bridgestone Arena, TN
Jul 28: Grand Rapids Van Andel Arena, MI
Jul 29: Milwaukee Fiserv Forum, WI
Jul 30: St Louis Enterprise Center, MO
Aug 01: Rosemont Allstate Arena, IL
Aug 02: Saint Paul Xcel Energy Center, MN
Aug 03: Omaha CHI Health Center, NE
Aug 05: Kansas City T-Mobile Center, MO
Aug 07: Denver Ball Arena, CO
Aug 09: Las Vegas MGM Grand Garden Arena, NV
Aug 10: San Diego Viejas Arena, CA
Aug 11: Phoenix Footprint Center, AZ
Aug 14: Austin Moody Center ATX, TX
Aug 15: Fort Worth Dickies Arena, TX
Aug 16: Houston Toyota Center, TX

Mexico:
Sep 24: Mexico City Palacio De Los Deportes

Step into the world of Kurt Cobain and explore the legacy of Nirvana, a band that defined a generation. Explore their iconic 1993 MTV Unplugged performance, one of Nirvana’s final televised appearances before Cobain’s death just five months later. See up close Cobain’s rare Martin D-18E guitar, uniquely adapted for his left-handed play, shaping the unmistakeable sound that defined Nirvana’s music. In 2020, it became the most expensive guitar ever sold at auction, bought for over $6 million by Australian entrepreneur Peter Freedman AM.

The exhibition, at the Royal College of Music Museum, reunites Kurt Cobain’s guitar with another piece of rock history – his famous olive-green mohair cardigan, worn during the MTV Unplugged performance, marking the first time these two legendary items have been displayed together.

Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged set was taped in New York on November 18, 1993.

Playing as a five piece, with Pat Smear on guitar and cellist Lori Goldston adding beautifully dark tonal colouring, Nirvana had never sounded more desolate or despairing, with Cobain singing of death, deliverance, betrayal and rejection. Though this was the band at their quietest – Cobain actually considered dropping Dave Grohl from the recording over fears that the powerful drummer might not be able to tone down his playing sufficiently – it was a punk rock performance in the same way that Bruce Springsteen’s dark masterpiece Nebraska is a punk rock record. Cobain’s version of Leadbelly’s Where Did You Sleep Last Night is one of the most haunting performances ever recorded, and the band’s take on David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold The World was another career highpoint.

Refused have announced their final tour of the UK and Europe.

The Swedish hardcore punk legends announced last year that they would be breaking up, for a second time, in 2025, after frontman Dennis Lyxzen suffered a heart attack last summer, ahead of a scheduled performance at at Stockholm’s Rosendal Garden Party festival.

Refused farewell tour, UK and Europe

The band had previously stated that they wish to play their very last show in Sweden.

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Speaking about The Shape Of Punk To Come to Kerrang! in 2018, Dennis Lyxzen said, “Not many people get to be associated with an album that’s considered a classic, so that’s pretty amazing. It’s such a fucking honour to be part of something that means so much to people. People have told me that their music tastes changed because of that record, and that’s humbling and cool. I’m glad that the music is still alive. Every time we play New Noise it’s exciting, it never gets old, and I’m eternally grateful for that.”

After three big rounds of voting, just four ’80s classic rock albums are left to vie for your votes in the next round of our Best ’80s Album March Madness bracket.

You’ve only got four days to vote for the best ’80s album in this round. You can see the results of last week’s voting below, then decide which two albums move on to our championship round.

Round Three Results:

AC/DC’s Back in Black defeated Ozzy Osbourne’s Blizzard of Ozz with 78% of the vote. Angus Young and his bandmates are tearing through the competition, having previously defeated Phil Collins’ No Jacket Required 84% to 16% and the Talking Heads’ Remain in Light 86% to 14%.

U2’s The Joshua Tree defeated The Police’s Synchronicity by just 27 ballots in the closest race of the tournament so far, earning 50.13% of the vote. Bono and company previously beat Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. 54% to 46% and Iron Maiden’s Powerslave 59% to 41%.

Guns N’ Roses Appetite for Destruction defeated Journey’s Escape with 66% of the vote. Axl Rose and company previously bested Prince’s Purple Rain 58% to 42% and Rush’s Permanent Waves 62% to 38%.

Van Halen’s 1984 defeated Def Leppard’s Hysteria with 56% of the vote. David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen previously defeated Metallica’s Master of Puppets 64% to 36% and tattooed the Rolling Stones’ Tattoo You 79% to 21%.

There are two rounds remaining in Ultimate Classic Rock’s Best ’80s Album tournament:

• Final Four: March 31-April 3
• Championship: April 4-7

You can cast your votes below for the Best ’80s album in our two remaining match-ups. You can vote once per hour now through April 3 at 11:59PM ET.

The winners of each round will be revealed the day after votes close and a new round of voting will begin that same day.

Adrian Borromeo, UCR

Top 100 ’80s Rock Albums

UCR takes a chronological look at the 100 best rock albums of the ’80s.

Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso and Michael Gallucci

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Cheap Trick, Night Ranger and Winger are all planning to say goodbye to Japan in 2025.

All three bands have announced farewell tours for the Far East island country, which has played an important role in each of their careers.

Winger are nearly done with their last Japanese dates. They will perform at Tokyo’s Ex Theater Roppongi Monday March 31 and Tuesday April 1 before departing the country for good. Frontman Kip Winger says the group are winding down their touring career to allow him to focus on songwriting.

“I’m ending my touring days,” he told the Rockpit in March 2025. “I say this often to many people, interruption is the death of creativity. When you spend six months a year in an airport getting nothing done…. if you’ve got 40 gigs, you’ve [also] got 80 travel days. I’m just so replete with musical ideas.. I want to spend those days composing.”

Winger released the home video Live in Tokyo in 1991.

Night Ranger’s farewell to Japan doesn’t appear to be part of any overall retirement plans, as none of the promotion for their upcoming North American tour dates has included any mention of it being fans’ last chance to see the group. But the band has shared social media posts from Japanese promoter Udo Artists announcing “The Goodbye Tour,” which will find Night Ranger performing Oct. 14 at Osaka’s Grand Cube and Oct. 16 at Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan.

In 2019 guitarist Brad Gillis described Japan as “a beautiful country with excellent people, food culture and landscape.” The following year he explained the band’s long history with the country in an interview with Roppongiocks.com: “The fans have embraced us and all shows have been sold out. We’ve noticed the fans still love classic rock. We’ve played over 50 shows in Japan and can’t wait to head back over soon.”

To date Night Ranger has released five live albums and home videos recorded at concerts in Japan, including 1983’s Night Ranger: Japan Tour, 1988’s Japan in Motion, 1990’s Live in Japan, 1997’s Rock in Japan 1997 and 2007’s Rockin’ Shibuya.

The dates have not been revealed for Cheap Trick’s Japanese farewell tour, only a post and fliers from Udo Artists announcing it to be arriving this year. The country played a massive role in helping the band break through to a world wide audience after Japanese journalists praised their appearance as Queen‘s opening act on a 1977 tour.

After releasing three albums without breaking through in the United States, it was the 1978 live album Cheap Trick at Budokan – originally intended only for the Japanese market – that made the Rockford, Illinois-born group stars in their home country. They released a sequel, Budokan II, in 1994.

“[T]hey kind of like that quirky cartoon character thing [we had] going on, which Queen has or Kiss certainly has,” Robin Zander told Dan Rather’s The Big Interview of the band’s Japanese popularity in 2019. “We were like cartoon characters…[O]ur record company in the States and stuff, they thought, ‘Boy, this is too weird.’ But the Japanese, they got a kick out of it.”

Progressive rock’s biggest names are known far and wide, even if the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ignored the genre for almost 15 years after Pink Floyd entered in 1996.

It seemed inevitable that bands like Genesis, Rush, Yes and the Moody Blues would one day get their due. They were all finally inducted between 2010 and 2018, in that order.

Of course, plenty of worthy candidates remain, from King Crimson to Jethro Tull – but what about the progressive rock acts that somehow slipped between the cracks? For every platinum-selling group like Kansas or Emerson Lake and Palmer, there were scores underrated and often influential acts that never got near the Billboard Top 40.

READ MORE: Top 50 Progressive Rock Songs

Some actually tried, to vary degrees of cringe, but many admitted little or no interest in the trappings of fame. What could be more prog than that?

There were numerous acts who remained in obscurity because they were a little before their time – though they set the stage for others to find wider fame. In other cases, quite frankly, they may have been just a little too out there.

The best of the best appear in the following list of five prog rock bands that should’ve been bigger:

5. Can

To pigeonhole Can as simply “progressive rock” is kind of a disservice. Their mind-bendingly experimental music also fused Krautrock’s hypnotic grooves, sound collages, jazz, psychedelic rock and a sometimes-indescribable avant-garde vibe. Keyboardist Irmin Schmidt has questioned whether they were ever a rock group at all. But prog has also been a big tent, and Can certainly developed the genre’s fluid composition style through 1971’s Tago Mago and 1973’s Future Days, their best-known records. By the late-’70s and early ’80s, Can’s striking experiments in sound had built the foundation for post-punk and new wave.

4. Camel

Camel boasts member connections to King Crimson, 10cc and the Alan Parsons Project, but never achieved their name recognition or chart success. Well, at least not stateside – where their best showing was No. 118 with 1976’s Moonmadness. Camel has had five Top 40 albums in the U.K., and 1979’s I Can See Your House From Here just missed. Everything revolves around the deeply expressive guitar work of Andrew Latimer, both figuratively and literally: He’s the only constant in Camel’s lineup. That’s grounded the group as they moved from high-concept prog in the ’70s through jazzier detours in the ’80s and back again.

3. Soft Machine

Soft Machine provides an analog with King Crimson in that both served as a merry-go-round of talent. Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Alan Holdsworth and Daevid Allen were all members along the way. Soft Machine became an all-instrumental powerhouse with 1971’s skronky Fourth, having left behind psych rock for prog and jazz rock. Such was the turnover, however, that no original member remained by the early ’80s. They also launched a series of offshoot bands, all confusingly starting with the word “Soft.” In retrospect, that might have played a role in Soft Machine’s failure to break through with the mainstream – but it certainly kept things interesting.

2. Van der Graaf Generator

In a twist, Van der Graaf Generator wasn’t even popular in the U.K., where they peaked at No. 47 with 1970’s The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other. (Instead, the band’s initial breakthrough came in Italy.) That was fine with frontman Peter Hammill, who said he never wanted mainstream success and then made sure he wouldn’t get it on dark and theatrical LPs like 1971’s Pawn Hearts and 1975’s Godbluff. Both were as outsized and musically cohesive and they were thrillingly weird – and Van der Graaf Generator remained so into the 21st Century, when Hammill jumpstarted the band again.

1. Gentle Giant

Gentle Giant shouldn’t have been surprised when their decade-long run ended in 1980 with little commercial success. After all, the liner notes for 1971’s Acquiring the Taste laid out the band’s intent to “expand the frontiers of contemporary popular music at the risk of becoming very unpopular.” Gentle Giant was soon creating sweeping and always varied musical statements. It helped that every core member was a multi-instrumentalist. There was seemingly nothing they couldn’t do on rangy gems like 1972’s Octopus and 1975’s Free Hand – and, it seems, even less that Gentle Giant wouldn’t try. (Even, gasp!, pop music.)

Todd Rundgren has a wealth of legendary songs of his own that have powered his career through many decades. But if it hadn’t been for important inspirations like songwriter and producer Burt Bacharach, his path might have been different.

“I was a teenager in my junior high school years, I guess it was, and the Beatles sort of became everything. I didn’t pay much attention to who the composers were of the songs,” he tells the UCR Podcast. “And then ‘Walk on By’ came out. I really liked the song. It had this whole spooky thing and a different kind of sensibility from your typical pop song. So I bought the Dionne Warwick album that contained that song. Right there with my Beatles albums and everything else, it became one of my regular listens.”

Listen to Dionne Warwick’s ‘Walk on By’

“That’s when I became aware of Burt Bacharach as a songwriter and he was also the producer of the record. I also started paying more attention to who was writing the songs, even if it wasn’t [John] Lennon and [Paul] McCartney. So that’s when I got interested in the work,” he explains. “We didn’t have a piano in the house, so when I was in high school, I used to spend after hours in the auditorium, just fooling around on the piano. I discovered my hands and ears tended to go towards those major and minor sevens, the more sophisticated chords that you’d find in a Bacharach song. I realized there was a subconscious influence going on, just from having listened to that Dionne Warwick album so many times. Of course as the years went by and I became more of a serious songwriter, that influence [is still] somewhere in the mix.”

Rundgren is currently taking a deeper dive into Bacharach’s work as part of the tour called What the World Needs Now: The Burt Bacharach Songbook. It’s an outing which he acknowledges has presented him with some challenges. “Burt rarely wrote the lyrics and I don’t know what, exactly the process would be like,” he admits. “You know, whether Hal David would show up with a song, poem, or something like that, and Burt would put it to music. Maybe more likely, Burt had some musical ideas, and then the lyricist would would try and find something that that went along with it.”

He cites “God Give Me Strength,” Bacharach’s collaboration with Elvis Costello, as one example. “I have the responsibility of singing [that] and it’s [clear] that those are Elvis Costello lyrics,” he points out. “It’s that combination of self-pity and anger that [is a] thread through all of Elvis Costello’s lyrics. So I guess Burt is kind of the stable foundation for these things. And then it’s up to the lyricist to paint the picture to which the soundtrack already exists.”

Bacharach Was Apparently a Rundgren Fan

There’s an anecdote that the legendary songwriter and producer came to see Rundgren perform live because he wanted to hear “Hello, it’s Me” live. Unfortunately, that song wasn’t in the set list that particular night and the pair didn’t meet. “I never got to talk to him about exactly why he was there,” he says now. “So I can only make some assumptions. I never had the opportunity to see him in concert, but you know, that’s a different experience. I imagine the audience for a Burt Bacharach concert has a certain amount of deference and reverence for him. They know he’s not a singer, but he’s going to sing anyway. We won’t have the advantage of that [with this current tour]. We’ve got to stand up on our own. I think there will be people there to enjoy it and people [also wondering] how well we’ll capture it. He’s the kind of artist that if you get into him and you get into his songs, you don’t want to hear them screwed with too badly.”

Early reviews suggest that the late Bacharach’s music is in good hands. His former music director and arranger Rob Shirakbari is at the helm, helping to oversee the nine-piece all-star ensemble featuring Rundgren, his Utopia bandmate Kasim Sulton and vocalist Wendy Moten and others. The 22-date tour began with three California shows and will run through Ft. Lauderdale on April 23.

Watch Todd Rundgren Sing Burt Bacharach’s Music

Ted Nugent’s newest project involves recovering many of the unique video and audio recordings he’s accumulated throughout his career.

The recently launched Nuge Vault offers members access to “never-before seen or heard concert footage, archival audio, and much more.” In a recent conversation with Sirius XM’s Eddie Trunk, Nugent detailed the process of recovering this archival material, admitting it’s been a “pain in the ass.”

“When Jason [Hartless, Nugent’s drummer] and I were rehearsing for the Adios Mofo tour with Johnny [Schoen, bassist], we were in my big barn in Michigan and there’s just walls and acres, literally acres of boxes and crates and big giant piles of tapes and videos and CDs and cassettes and stacks of photos and, and rehearsals and jam sessions,” Nugent explained. “And I had kind of walked past it every day as I do in my daily life, but Jason stopped and looked at it and started digging into these boxes.”

READ MORE: Top 10 Ted Nugent Songs

It was Hartless who spearheaded the Nuge Vault project, working with Nugent to go through his seemingly endless array of recordings.

“And so when Jason started digging into these boxes, his eyes bugged out,” Nugent continued, noting how extraordinary some of the material is. “Because who doesn’t want to hear the recording of Ted Nugent and Eddie Van Halen backstage in California jamming? Or with Billy Gibbons and so many amazing things that have taken place?”

A “jam session with the Mothers of Invention at the Fifth Dimension in Ann Arbor in 1967” was another uncovered gem Nugent pointed out, while expressing his gratitude for Hartless’ determination to bring the Nuge Vault project to life.

“When he shows me this stuff, I get teary eyed,” the guitarist admitted. “I go, God, I remember that. Hanging out with these guys backstage. What a lucky, lucky life. And it’s all chronicled.”

Top 100 Live Albums

These are more than just concert souvenirs or stage documents from that awesome show you saw last summer.

Gallery Credit: UCR Staff

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