Ghost’s Tobias Forge Explains the ‘Problem’ With Covering Metallica Songs

Ghost were one of over 50 artists who contributed covers for Metallica's Blacklist album that came out earlier this month in honor of the 30th anniversary of The Black Album. Though Ghost have done their own renditions of other songs before, the band's mastermind Tobias Forge explained the "problem" with covering Metallica in particular.

During an installment of Audacy Check In, Forge revealed that he briefly considered choosing a different song to tackle for the album, but he really had envisioned doing "Enter Sandman" right as they were asked to participate in the project.

"I feel that the concept of making covers — and I'm not trying to in any way say that all the songs we’ve covered have been subpar songs that we wanted to fix — but sometimes when you decide to cover something, at least in my world, at least in my head and in my heart, I feel I need to do something to them that either sort of puts it forward in terms of sound, it could be something that simple. Or that there’s some sort of skewing with it," he said.

The frontman then mentioned Ghost's cover of "Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles, which is a happy and cheerful-sounding song that they turned into something dark and "almost nuclear."

"And I think historically, one of the most-covered pop artists, Bob Dylan, the reason why a lot of artists have covered him is not only because the tracks are so good, but it's also because his own versions of his own tracks are usually very, very bare-boned, and they're sort of insinuating the melodies," the vocalist continued.

"As a singer, you just want to sing it out — you want to sort of flesh it out more. The problem with Metallica songs is that they’re so fleshed out, they're so cemented, there’s really no room for interpretation in my head.”

Watch the full chat with Forge below.

Speaking of cover songs, Loudwire Nights host Toni Gonzalez is throwing a Masquerade Ball all weekend long as a Halloween celebration starting tonight (Oct. 29) at 7PM ET. Tune in to hear all the best rock and metal covers right here or by downloading the Loudwire app.

Ghost's Tobias Forge – Audacy Check In

Ghost – 'Enter Sandman'