Myth and legend are mostly dead, but some still remember the old tales of those who tried to defy the gods. It was said they stole the fire from heaven or called themselves equal. One figure was considered so prideful he was imprisoned in a pit where he gathered a legion to plan a great rebellion. Now they are merely stories to scare children, to remind them that defiance is a sin. Papa Emeritus III will steal your breath, the parents say. He will unscrew your hands and feet. He will take your eyes.







Dramaturgy is a word that comes up often in interviewing a member of Ghost. The six-piece rock band, formed in 2008 in Sweden, is steeped in the art of dramatic composition and theatrical representation.







“Meliora,” the band’s third and latest studio album,” continues the tradition of summoning forth a new singer/frontman. Cloaked like a dark Pope, Papa Emeritus III leads the Nameless Ghouls, garbed in robes and masks, on a sojourn from the pinnacle to the pit to a sort of ascension to “Meliora.”







While the theatrical aspect is important, Ghost doesn’t let it overshadow the music, quite to the contrary it enhances it.







“Meloria” is the band’s strongest release to date and The Swerve Magazine recently had the chance to speak with one of the Nameless Ghouls about the band’s latest and divine offering.







The Swerve Magazine: “Meliora” brings Papa Emeritus III, that is the third singer in three albums. How does knowing the singer will change with each album affect the songwriting?







Nameless Ghoul: Whenever you write songs, and you have a singer, you try and use that singer at the maximum capacity. Without sounding too boring of a working guy, but as a songwriter, it is a little bit of your duty to make use of the artist that is singing and his/her range. Obviously it is going to alter a little bit if you have someone that has an extremely dark, lower voice. If you have some, that is very operatic. You stylize.







SM: “He Is” from “Meliora” is an older song that the band had but hadn’t put on an album until now, so that could not have had Papa Emeritus III in mind.







NG: It is eight years old, and that was not written for Papa Emeritus III. You can alter songs by altering the key. We do have some prerequisites when it comes to finding a singer. You have to have a certain range.









SM: Does the arrival of a new singer/member change the band with each album?





NG: Quite the contrary, actually, usually we don’t socialize much with him. He, more or less, just appears when it is time to play and just disappears. We don’t have to think about it too much. If we end up not liking him, we know that he is going to be out. It is a little bit like employing a CEO. He is going to have his 18-month reign and then he’s out of here.







SM: Not to take anything away from the band’s previous two releases, but “Meliora” has strength, especially in the melodic sense.







NG: Definitely. I think that this is, to date, our most accomplished record. I think that the other two were great too. I think that we turned up all the components that we have. We turned them all up a level. And the sum of all those levels turned up, turn into a big jump. Adding up all these little notches, it turned into a whole fucking yard, which I think is very evident on the record.







If you want to go into technicalities, I think one of the biggest changes, besides having the groundwork done in terms of the writing, we were fortunate to have a really good selection of songs that really work together. We were really focused on getting them to work together.







Sometimes, it is hard when you write you have to be careful when you are trying to make records that are compiled of different sounding songs. We have one up-tempo song, and then you have a rough song and a slow song. Then there is a ballad. Sometimes when you do things like that it can get unfocused. So, you have to make sure that there is a line that you can follow. It is supposed to have a dramaturgic structure. I think that we did a really good job with compiling the material.







The main difference is that we focused so much on the drums. We wanted the drums to be so alive or have the feeling that you have a really happy, spontaneous drummer, who winged the best take ever. Which is a little bit difference from our previous records, the drummer sounded very much like he read out of a notebook of what he was supposed to play. We knew that if we just changed that modus operandi when it comes to the drumming to have a more alive and kicking drum track that it was going to make all of us step up. We have to play a little less metronomically. The bass player has to step up immensely to keep up with the drums.







The sum of all those changes made a big difference.







SM: The album clocks in at just over 40 minutes, and those 40 minutes seem to fly by when listening to it.







NG: All of us are very much traditional in the sense that we like albums. I have always been very fascinated by the traditional vinyl format by that I mean there was a certain charm with the limitation of a vinyl. Which I think corresponds very well with our in-built sense of dramaturgy. It is roughly about what we can take like 45 minutes is pretty much what we are formatted to understand. That is why all classic records are basically 40 to 45 minutes long. Just because we made this album with that intention, we wanted the record to feel like those 40 minutes were perfect. We have heard comments that the album feels short. Nowadays, and for the last twenty some years, when the CD became the norm, we have lost track because you can do 77 minutes of music. I know of no band that has done 77 minutes of music at one stab.







The only records that are affected are compilations. It has fucked up how we perceive music. Still at the end of the day, the best albums of the last 100 years are always, always records that were done before 1991, more or less.







It goes hand in hand with this hysterical tendency to voluptuously crapulate.







If it is too short, listen to it again. What? 70 minutes and you never want to hear it again? I got everything that I wanted out of it. It is sad because I don’t want to bore people with the whole ‘it was better before Napster,’ but the problem was the whole downloading issue coincided with the CD era and, also, generally the product was deteriorating. Not the CD as a format, but more bands when they did their records, they did three good songs or singles, and the rest was just filler that was 11 or 12 songs.







There were so many records that you’ve never really heard the end of the record… it is completely irrelevant.







It is the tendency among people, in general, to say that records are shit nowadays. ‘I don’t want to pay for it because it stinks.’ I understand that. To be fair, I must underline, there were a shitload of bad records done in 1972 also. Everything that is old doesn’t shine. Let’s not trick ourselves into believing that. It is far from it.







SM: While overall music fans nowadays seem more fickle than ever, hard rock/metal fans are noted as being the most loyal. Do you find that to be true?







NG: I think it is hard to look away from the fact that it is a fact. I don’t want to be ‘oh, it is definitely like that,’ but I must say it is a fact.







Hard rock fans are enormously loyal. For the most part, it is positive. The negative is that you have these fans, and most bands that have recorded more than one record know this, (that you have this) confrontational relationship with people that you’ve never known personally. Because of their dedication to your end that might have just ended, or they might have taken serious offense to your record not being what they imagined it or expected it to be. That is the backside; you end up feeling like you hurt people you’ve never met because some people take it very seriously.







I, myself, have an enormous understanding to that sort of elitism. I come from the metal underground. I know what it is like to be the only one in school listening to that music. You end up liking a lot of things that you feel are yours. Then you when you bump into someone who claims to like it or all of a sudden the wrong person is wearing the band that you love. It is an immature way of seeing things, but it is not to be disregarded. They are people’s feelings, and you can’t disregard people’s feelings. You can’t base your life around it either. You can’t please everybody, and that sometimes is a hard thing. We do have a tremendous amount of fans that are loyal and very supportive. Then all of a sudden you have this one fan that has been very, very supportive turns completely. They basically tell you to fuck off and goes on rants online. And still his/her best friend is sitting next to them, and our new record is the best thing they’ve ever heard. You can’t really win. It is hopeless trying to please people in that way.







There are some bands that have nurtured this intuitive feel for what is right and what is wrong. You can obviously do something that is downright fucking wrong to your fans or to your legacy. I think that there are parameters, but I sometimes think those parameters can be way too tough. And that is to say that you don’t have some sort of responsibility. If you are a band and expect people to buy your music or listen to your music or buy your tickets, I think you should be very well aware that you are nothing without your fans. You have to respect that. It is very important.