Ghost Frontman Tobias Forge Weighs in on the ‘Rock Is Dead’ Debate—and He Makes Some Solid Points

For years, a debate over whether or not “rock is dead” has waged among musicians and fans, with KISS bassist Gene Simmons being one of the loudest voices on the side that believes headlining rock bands are on their way out. Ghost frontman Tobias Forge disagrees.

In an interview with Consequence, Forge shared his opinion on the debate, saying, “I think it was Gene Simmons that said it most times, but I mean a lot of people have said that rock ‘n’ roll is dead and there will be no new headliners. I understand that it’s been sparse, but I think that with the unfortunate disappearance of a lot of bands that I like — KISS being one of them — I do believe that with time, I think that there will be more [headlining rock] bands,” as shared by Music News.

Forge formed Ghost back in 2006, and the band has grown to become one of the biggest rock music acts on the planet today. In addition to their massive arena tours, the band recently achieved their first Billboard number one album with Skeletá, their sixth studio album, which was released in May.

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Offering some context on the “rock is dead” debate, Fiorge said that he believes it’s an “age thing,” referring to older rock stars lamenting what they think is the end of their respective music genre. The “Mary on a Cross” singer then went on to praise his peers, saying, “There are a few examples of fairly new bands who’ve risen to great statures, faster than we did.”

“I think that there’s this strange time phenomenon that happened somewhere in the 2000s where everything that was sort of old was old, and everything that came after was new, and just keeps on being labelled as new,” he continued, “especially by people who at the time were in their twenties or thirties or forties and now are in their forties, fifties, sixties. Which I think is an age thing.”

Finally, Forge added: “If you ask a lot of our fans who are 15 years old now, just the fact that our band has been around for 15 years — do you think that they think that we are a new band? No. And that’s how it should be. I think they are right in the sense that we’re an old, established band. If our first album came out in 1980, and it’s now 1995, that’s an old band.”

I kind of wish I had something to add here, but Forge is fully hitting the nail on the head, and he’s doing it so diplomatically. Rock music is not dead. Period.