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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
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Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And I am Tobias.
And this is a very special edition of Morbid.
Guys, we've been waiting for it. We told you about it a while ago.
So you've been holding onto your butts for a long time waiting for this.
We have Tobias Forge from Ghost on the show today.
And we are so grateful that he's taking the time to do this.
Thank you so much, Tobias. Thank you very much for having me.
Thank you. Of course. Anytime. This is very exciting for me.
I've been like raving about you guys for weeks, like probably months at this point.
Months, definitely. I'm a newer ghoul. I've entered into the space very like this year.
And the way that it happened was kind of funny because I had...
I had no idea that I was missing out on so much.
I was so mad at myself. I was like, oh my God, I'm so late to this game.
But what happened was one night we were recording because we have another show.
It's a horror movie podcast and we usually do it late at night.
And we were recording it for hours upstairs.
And when we came back downstairs, my husband was sitting in the living room in like the dark and he was like...
I have to tell you about something. And I was like, what?
And he's like, I just heard about this band Ghost and I can't believe I didn't know who they were, but I just sat and listened to the entire Impara album and you have to listen to it.
So for the next like three hours, we just sat and listened to it and we were both freaking out about it.
It was like this cool little like bonding thing because I haven't really felt this way about music in a while.
So I just, I had to tell you that because I appreciate it so much that you guys have like brought that back for us.
Yeah. Well, that's very nice to hear, especially since I know that the record is like 44 minutes.
So you must have heard it several times.
We literally went through every album after that.
Okay, okay. Well, thank you very much. No, absolutely.
Welcome into the weird place. It's a great place.
That's where we thrive in the weird place.
And we were so upset because we found out that you were in Worcester, Massachusetts.
I think it was like the week before and we had just missed you and then you were going to a European tour.
So we were like, no. It was right when you found them.
Yeah, we were like, no. Well, great news is that we tour now and then.
So we're usually back somewhere in the vicinity again.
At some point. Well, that was what came up finally.
When we saw you were coming to Providence, Rhode Island, we were like, all right, we can do that.
We can make it to that one. And we made it to that one.
It was an amazing show. I think it was last week.
Yeah, it was last week. I've never seen Elena happier at a concert, and I've gone to many concerts with her.
Yeah, it was a real moment. And I also have six-year-old twin daughters, and I know you're a twin dad.
I've been told that by many people now. Yeah.
Correct. Correct. Yes. Twin vibes. They also love ghosts now and they were very angry that they couldn't come to the show.
So they made me film like several videos and show them.
Well, I mean, we're going to be around, so there's plenty of time.
If they still like it next time, they're more than welcome to come with you.
Oh, yeah. We saw a bunch of kids in the crowd, actually, with their parents, with those little headphones so their ears didn't get hurt.
It was so cute. It was so cute to see. Yeah, there are always a lot of kids in our show.
It's a very, very wide span of kids. Not only, you know, styles and sort of subcultures and to very normal looking people that just look like they just accidentally stepped into the wrong thing.
That might have been Ash, actually. That was me.
No, but it's spanning, like... Yeah, dare I say four generations?
Yeah, probably. The oldest in the room is usually old rock fans born in the 40s, 50s, like our parent generation. and then you have, you know, the sixties, the, the, the first breed of kids and then, uh, you know, down to, uh, the newlyborns.
So yeah, it's, it's, it's a very, um, it's sort of a family oriented thing, which, which, uh, you know, sometimes I sort of scratch my head on that one because there's a lot of F words and, and, uh, Yeah, insinuations on this, that and the other.
Oh, yeah. About things going here, there and everywhere and stuff.
So it's like, well, but OK, if people like it.
I mean, I come from a very, very liberal background.
So where there was hardly any censorship whatsoever in our home.
So I am just glad if that. But because I've also realized growing up and especially in the As a grown-up, I've understood that my upbringing might have been a little bit of an anomaly.
Yeah. So that's why I'm always a little bit of like, you guys know what you're, have you seen the show or did your kid just ask you to come here?
What happened? No, no, no. We like your band as well.
Okay, cool. Yeah. Because I don't want to, you know, you don't want to, you know, as much as you want to provoke and all that, or, you know, I spent my first 25 years in life wanting to provoke and piss people off.
But as a grownup, you're a little bit more, you know, especially in this day and age when people might react negatively in a way that That is very negative to anything that they don't like or that they might find offensive or not God-fearing or whatever or political or anything.
You don't want people to have that reaction with their kid on a rock show.
No. Yeah, that's not what you need. You're just trying to have fun.
Their hate fork out. Yeah, no. Yeah. We don't need that.
And that's, I think, like, because the way that obviously my girls are six years old.
So there's been a lot of like, what was he saying there?
And I'm like, yeah. I don't know, like peanut butter.
Don't worry about it. Up to your interpretation.
You just like the music. It's okay. You're like, go to school.
Yeah, no, I had to go through the whole... Because my kids has also sort of picked up on not only me being in a band, but also this... Yeah, maybe this is a later question, but just on the note of how you have to explain something.
And a question... came my way and I was like, so my friend is saying like, uh, Mary on a cross is, uh, it's kind of kinky.
In what way? In what way? You're like, we'll talk about it later.
In what way? No, but we, we have a pretty open conversation about like, uh, about things.
And, and, uh, I try not to divert too much.
Uh, and you know, Try not to have too many taboos.
You might say before a subject, like, this is things that you usually don't talk about, but just because we're talking about it, let's... plow through it.
But it, you know, it came to that point where it's like, because we're obviously in our family, we speak English as well.
My, my, my son even is almost more fluent in English than he is in Swedish.
I mean, he speaks Swedish pretty well. But, but sometimes, you know, I have to double check and that's where it really comes to a point where it's like, you do know what go down means, right?
Yeah. It's hard to miss that. Yeah. Then you had to.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. You know that. All right.
Yeah. So in this context, it doesn't mean go down.
It means like you're going down in history or you're going down as in you're falling from grace.
But I wrote it in a way that makes it sound like I mean going down on.
Oh, okay. That is a perfect explanation.
Yeah. But how are you going to have a conversation like that if you're bound to not talk about sex or bound to talk about what people do in real life?
That does not work. No, not at all. On the other hand, just because we're talking about funny things here.
Um, years ago when I'm not going to say who asked me, I don't want to throw anyone under the bus here, but, but, but, but it was extremely funny, even though I found it to be cringe at the time we were sitting on the subway in Stockholm.
And, uh, you know, there were a lot of people sitting, you know, everybody's kind of silent.
And then one of my kids asked me like, dad, what does vagina taste like?
Oh yeah. And you just see the woman next to my kid.
It was just like looking at me like, what are you going to answer?
She's like, I'm waiting to see the answer to that.
That's a lot of pressure to answer that question in front of a train full of people.
Oh yeah. That is amazing. Yeah. Mic drop.
That's like parenthood right there. That's a win, though.
Yeah, well, that depends on what I answered.
That's very true. And I'm not going to go that far.
You don't have to. Just that was amazing.
You had some questions? You had some questions?
Yeah. Well, first of all, I agree with you that sugarcoating stuff to kids doesn't really work that well.
So we're of the same mind. That way, I try to be not skeptical. scary when I answer things like about like death and all that because they're six now so those kind of things are coming up you go just far enough just yeah I give you the facts otherwise they're gonna later be like you lied to me yeah exactly yeah no I I think you should avoid that to the best of your Exactly.
But I'm going to take like a hard shift here because one of the songs that I love off of Impera is Respite on the Spittlefields.
It's like one of my favorites. And I know that it's like about the aftermath of Jack the Ripper and, you know, how everyone was kind of living in fear and there was no real conclusion to that case.
Yeah. And we actually just did a five part series on Jack the Ripper where I think I had like almost 80 pages of research at the end of it.
It was wild. Alina did a quick dissertation.
Yeah, just like I could not stop. It just that case sucked me right in.
And I had to ask because I know that you are at least like mildly interested in that case.
I'm obsessed with it. Oh, I love to hear it.
Perfect. Love to hear it. That's exactly the answer I was hoping for.
So the double event with Liz Stride and Catherine Eddowes, do you think that was a double event?
Do you think Liz was a Ripper victim, or do you think she was just lumped in there?
I am as convinced as you can be without having been there.
Um, which obviously means that you can never know for certain, but I think everything proves everything is pointing at that double event being an actual, um, uh, deed of, of Jack the Ripper.
Uh, and the reason why that happened was that he, for once, um, chose not to do it at four in the morning on a, on a normal weekday.
And, uh, he did it outside his normal pattern as well, because it was very near where his mother lived.
So he probably did it, uh, after, or in some sort of conjunction with having been to his mother because apparently his, uh, yeah, because it's, it's, I do believe they know, they know, we know there, everything points to a certain person.
Um, because there's, there's a general misconception when it comes to Jack the Ripper as a phenomenon and as a, as a, um, as a, as a time, um, or as an event or a series of events, which is kind of mind-blowing considering what we do know now about serial killers.
Anyone who's interested in serial killers and we do know a lot now about basically the general background of a person like that.
And there's a lot of general information reoccurring features among these predominantly male figures in a certain age of a certain social class and background and just marital status and all that.
And somehow those facts have not been applied to the case of Jack the Ripper.
And there's been this fascination and this fixation of it being someone that was from a different social class than was predominantly in the Whitechapel area.
And that defies sort of like everything that we know about how every other serial killer has ever done it.
And also bear in mind in Whitechapel at the time, if there would be like an aristocrat just waltzing in there with all clean clothes, that person would like stand out like a shining, like big, throbbing, glittering thumb.
So that is out of the question, like that wouldn't happen.
So it's using the Razor Vakum. It's a local person.
That does make sense. He's going to fall into the criteria of the normal serial killer, you know, between 30 and 40. uh, broken back, broken home background, uh, problem with this, that the other asocial, like, uh, all of those features that, that for some, for some reason they've never spoken about that.
It was always some, some weirdo who's like a well-known and, uh, who had a fascination to go to openly do this weird thing, collect that, or, you know, who, and, and, Basically, one thing that is mind-blowing about this theory, which is presented in a book and is also presented in a documentary on BBC.
If it wasn't BBC, it was one of those English channels.
And this is the mind-blowing bit about the theory, is that if you've seen more than one documentary, And you're interested in, but one documentary or read one book about Jack the Ripper.
And if you're somewhat interested in it, you know that the sequence of events somewhat.
And you know the basic characters. And the character that they're pointing at is someone that we all have seen.
We all know about that person. And that is the mind-boggling revelation because all of a sudden you see him right there.
And if you know about who it is, you can go back and rewatch everything that you've ever seen and read it.
And now knowing that that is the person, you're just like, holy shit, that's it.
That's him. All of a sudden it fit. Yeah, because he was one of the persons who found one of the bodies.
And the reason why it's believed that he found it was because another person came and saw him.
And he was smart enough to just stand up, stood up and said, oh, I found this woman over here.
I know exactly who you're talking about.
And this other person came and just like, oh, shit.
Oh, is she alive? And they were like, oh, no, police.
Yeah. We don't know. Maybe we should pat her up, he says, the other person that came to person one.
And he says, no, we shouldn't do that. Person number two looks at the body and sees no blood.
But the coat is being closed up all the way up to her shin line, basically.
And Then he says, we should go and find a police officer.
And they both leave. Around the corner, they bump into a police officer.
Person number one, who was standing first at the body, he says to person number two, hold on a second.
I'm going to go talk to the police officer.
And he went over and said, Mr. Police Officer, A colleague of yours was asking for assistance around the corner because he found a body over there.
All right, said the police officer and ran around the corner and ran towards where the body was lying.
And this is the fucking magic here is that when he sees at the other end of the street, another police officer had already found the body.
So when he runs over and sees the police officer right next to the body and those other two, they have already left.
He thinks nothing of it because he was tricked into believing that that police officer was already there.
So the murderer had an incredible luck that he was just gonna fint, like lure this police officer out of his way.
But luckily, his lie turned out to be true.
And that's how we escaped. That is pretty genius.
Because when they came there, I'm not gonna lie.
Because when then, obviously when the police officers met over the corpse or over this dead body, it was drenched in blood.
So... What that tells you is that at the moment when person number two comes up to person number one, there was no blood.
That was because the blood was, the cut was so fresh.
It just happened. And he always strangled them before he started cutting.
Starting from, because he was a butcher.
He knew perfectly well that if you're going to cut into meat, You need to stop the blood flow.
Otherwise, you will have blood all over the place.
So he knew perfectly well how to strangle first and then you start maiming because the maiming, that was not how he killed them.
He did the maiming. That was part of the lust ritual.
Yeah, but his name is known, and that's the guy.
Must be. It makes sense. Yeah, and they can connect him to all the murders.
His mom lived down there by the double event, and he grew up north.
He grew up south of... What's it called?
Whitechapel Road, right? The big long one that sort of crosses like into the whole map of the murders.
And the double event was the only thing that happened south of that street.
And that's where his mother lived. And that's where he grew up. i didn't know that part about the mom living there and that's after like 80 pages of research there's always more to learn this has been uh because this is a very unsexy uh version of the story because he's just a local yeah he's just a local dude and he works at uh he works as a car man and um And he was handling meat.
He was driving out. He had like a big, you know, big cart with horses.
And his work was in the morning, early morning hours, was to distribute meat to butchers.
So he could also pass very easily in case he was dirty or had any... He was already dressed for that.
That's one of the things we were pointing out, that it had to be somebody that could walk away covered in blood and nobody would blink an eye, which that's why we were saying a butcher would make sense.
But my only thing with it was the anatomical knowledge of the human body.
That's the only thing that kept me from fully believing it was a butcher.
He... you know, he automatically, I mean, a body, what you have to understand about bodies is, is, is how to, to sever.
And you have to have tools and you have, and simple things like knowing how to, to, you know, separate things from bone or bones detaching.
And of course he knew that he worked with that all day.
That is true. Elena knows all about that.
Yeah, I'm an autopsy technician. So I think I was like, super critical of the butcher theory first, because I was like, where did you know how to find like a woman's ovaries?
You're like, I spent a lot of time learning that.
But it's true that it's like a very specialized, skilled thing.
And there is always the thing that it could have been luck that he could find these things.
It would just be hard. That's why I have trouble landing like fully on one that I believe.
But that one makes sense. And I know exactly who you're talking about.
Yeah. First name Charles. Yep. Yep. Yeah.
And another misconception in order to fully realize the story about him, if you sort of strike out the word Jack the Ripper as this sort of Chappaquack-wearing aristocrat, which is like the common shadow caricature of him, if you sort of look at him and you disregard the idea of the canonical five,
And put in rather in a context where they actually did find bodies before and also after.
You also see the trajectory where the canonical five is sort of in the middle.
Mm hmm. where even within the canonical five, it goes from pretty basic using, I'm being cynical here, but from a very basic stabbing to absolute carnage.
Yeah, absolute carnage. there are a few before that are mild and it ends up after, uh, the canonical five being, uh, body parts scattered and like a torso that was found floating in the river.
So it just paints a picture rather of, of, of this person who was a pretty classical serial killer, uh, And I think that that is a very interesting story.
It really is. And it makes it really does make sense with like the escalation.
And I think you're right that people put it into this like like nightmare fairy tale kind of thing instead of looking at what it was, which is just a straight up serial killer, like a terrible human being and not this like Phantom in the night kind of thing.
It's not like a Grimm Brothers story. Yeah, exactly.
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Some cases fade from headlines. Some never made it there to begin with.
I'm Ashley Flowers, and on my podcast, The Deck, I tell you the stories of cold cases featured on playing cards distributed in prisons designed to spark new leads and bring long overdue justice.
Because these stories deserve to be heard, and the loved ones of these victims still deserve answers.
Are you ready to be dealt in? Listen to The Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.
So you don't believe that it's the Aaron Kosminski who they found the DNA, quote unquote, because I don't either.
And I'm really glad that you don't. I'm really glad you don't.
Yeah, the mitochondrial DNA drove me nuts.
I am as certain as I can be. I am as certain as I can be.
I've got to look into him more now. I've seen enough various stories and presentations and documentaries and run-throughs of this whole story, and I've seen enough... mass murderers, serial murderers, serial killers, and read about them to understand, to see the connection and see the simplicity, it's usually not as complex.
You don't walk over the stream to find water.
It's usually not that hard. And all the other stories are just complicated.
And most of them are stories, as I said, that where the accusation of guilt is thrown from one social class to another.
And it's usually from the lower up. Very true.
And I don't think that there's a coincidence that many of them are either royal or Jews or this, that, or the others.
The people that would, especially back then, people would love to see guilty of something.
Like a scapegoat kind of situation. Oh yeah, there was so much of that in this case.
I could go like on and on. Like Sir Charles Warren, I could go on and on.
We could be here for like four hours, I wish.
But... Thank you so much for answering those questions because I really wanted to know your opinion on this.
And now I'm going to look further into Charles because we mentioned him and we talked about him, but I didn't go too far into him.
And now I'm like, huh. A little further.
Because I'd like to be convinced. And that sounds pretty convincing.
So we decided to put together rapid fire ghost questions, but not ghost the band, like paranormal ghosts.
Because we figured we wanted to get, you know, a different side of things.
Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Sweet. So number one, are you afraid of ghosts?
I have always been afraid of the dark. Same.
And so, yeah, I guess so. I don't seem to, I mean, I try to rationalize.
I have this mind game where where I think of if I were a serial killer, you know, if I'd just been dropped one more time head first on the floor, maybe I could have been one.
You never know. And if I were, theoretically I could be, what would the odds be that I would run into some other fucking lunatic here?
That's true. Yeah. And yeah, and so forth.
And I like the idea of this friendly sort of ghost that you can sort of be friends with.
But regardless how much I try to theoreticize and it never really works that way.
It always, my imagination always screws with me.
But that's why I try to avoid being, I would never be alone in like a house or something like that.
We live in the park, so. I couldn't do it.
Yeah, I'm the same way. I don't like the dark either.
And like, I have to sleep with a light on and like sound because I can't handle like silence and quiet and darkness.
But I think with ghosts, it's the spontaneity of ghosts that I don't like.
Like, I don't even know if I'm scared of ghosts.
I just don't like that they don't. plan or warn me when they come like announce their presence yeah i don't want to be surprised by anything and like they always surprise you so yeah i'm going to say no i'm afraid of ghosts i would love that sort of gentle knock before yeah yeah just a little bit a little something hello i'm coming yeah And then you can make a decision.
Oh, no, you're fine. Then it's a yes or no.
I answer the door. I don't. I can say no, not right now.
Yeah, you have an option in this scenario.
I agree with that. I think I'm really just scared of like the very scary ghosts like poltergeists that want to mess with you and can come through your electronics.
I'm not really into that. But in our childhood home, Elena and I grew up in the same house.
And we've mentioned it before on episodes, we had tons of ghosts in that home and so many paranormal experiences.
And in a weird way, some of the experiences made me feel protected.
Like there was somebody if I was at home alone, and I did like there, we've said it before, there'd be like a perfume waft that would go by you.
And you would just feel this overwhelming sense of calm.
So those ghosts I'm cool with. The menacing ones I don't like.
I would say number two, are you a Casper, Patrick Swayze, or Beetlejuice guy?
If you had to choose. There's a reason for me to dress myself and behave more like a Beetlejuice guy on stage. probably a little bit more Swayze, I guess.
I don't know, actually. I love that. I don't have a fun answer on that one.
No, that was a great answer. But there's a reason that I'm flipping between personalities.
That makes sense. Yeah, that's fair enough.
Yeah. What about you? Beetlejuice. You're Beetlejuice.
No explanation, just I'm Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice.
Okay. I'm Casper all the way because I like to think of myself as friendly.
Yeah, that makes sense. Perfect. Well, the thing I'm just going to cut in here and just say.
No, go ahead. Sure. One thing that I've always had very, very vivid dreams.
Me too. And... And still, as a grown-up, even though I don't understand that I'm dreaming always, but if I understand that I dream, when I was a kid, I could fly all the time.
But still, as long as I know it's a dream, I can fly in the dream.
That's so cool. And another thing that I've learned... in in the dream which is actually quite quite handy when it comes to scary things is um always to attack you always attack uh whatever you see in the dream that is threatening um even though it might sort of go against your um intuition you just have to remind yourself like hit first just fucking you know, attack.
Go for the throat immediately. Yeah. Apologize later.
Yeah. As soon as you see a scary, like stairway or something that's dark, just, just run up, right.
Run down it. Just jump down. And that usually shifts the dream just like, and all of a sudden it's under control.
It does. You take the power. Because usually when I can realize that it's a dream, I just, I'm going to try that next time because I can lucid dream a lot.
And usually I'll realize it's a dream and something terrible is about to happen and I get annoyed.
Like my first thought is like, ugh, like I get super annoyed and I just like run the other way.
See, I can switch dreams when I'm dreaming.
Like, I can go somewhere else and turn it into a different dream.
Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah. Damn. I want to try all this stuff.
I'm just like, I don't like that scenario.
I'm going to go over here. You guys are getting stuff done in your dreams.
I'm just like, oh, this is annoying. I'm going to run the other way.
So what would be your favorite type of ghost?
Like a poltergeist, Victorian child, a chic ghost, an angry bride?
Or something we haven't mentioned. Yeah.
I guess it would be Victorian Child. I knew you were going to say that for some reason.
I actually... I don't know if we're sort of touching the subject later, but just generally, I am very dismissive of most horror films made last 25 years.
But one... or one genre or one production house, if you want to be that sort of specific, that I really did enjoy was basically most of the film that Guillermo del Toro sort of touched.
I love him. He's one of my favorites. Just because he always... And I don't know if he... But I guess that sort of started... a little bit with the Japanese films where at the end, you know, after all these horrible things happen, there was always like a big excuse at the end.
No, this, it was actually this deed made the kid do that.
This happened to the kid. So all of these murders are okay.
And then it's like a beautiful ending. Yeah, they're all validated because actually the person that was most, the poorest was this one.
And so a lot of the things that he has done, you know, Hero and Orfanato and a lot of those, I love those sort of, when there's like a conclusion and that you feel like, wow, that was, and it's tragic, but beautiful at the same time.
But they break my heart as a parent as well.
I can't see them. I can never see them again.
I always see them once and then I never see them again.
I feel that. But, so I'd probably prefer one of those if I'm going to have something around.
It needs to be like someone like that or like an older person woman or something like, but, but I would love for it to be some kind of a, I don't like screaming.
And I have a problem with people who are like twitchy.
I don't like twitchy people at all because I'm a control freak.
I like people who are like subdued. Yeah.
So it needs to be one of those, but Victorian, I like that.
And then if you, if you class, if you dress properly as well, that that's like that.
There you go. I like that. I'm taking it to a full-blown place of chaos because of who I am as a human, and I would want an angry bride kind of haunt.
Yeah, you would. I love a good angry bride.
Yeah, that makes sense. And I'm cool with like yelling and loudness.
Screaming bride. Yeah, just let it all out.
Yeah. And weirdly, growing up, there was like a three-year stint where I was a dead bride for Halloween three years in a row.
There's probably some psychology behind that.
I'm sure there is. So I felt like I had to choose angry bride.
You were manifesting that, I think, in some way.
Yeah. I think, you know what, I would want a Victorian person.
I don't know if I'd want a child because I think it would just make me cry.
But I think an older Victorian woman. There you go.
I could get down with. You have a lot of kids to take care of already.
I do. So I feel like it's, you know, and again, I would just cry and I don't want to cry.
Also, Pan's Labyrinth and Devil's Backbone are like two of my favorite movies.
Just had to throw that out there. But...
The next question would be, when you become a ghost, are you going to be a sheet ghost?
Are you going to be a quilt ghost? A fancy lace curtain ghost?
Checkered tablecloth ghost? What kind of ghost are you going to be?
What are you going to wear? Are you going to wear a sheet?
A blanket? When you said sheet ghost, I came to think about the grudge.
You know, the ghost that sort of appears in between the sheets.
And, you know, even though in between the sheets is a good position to be in.
But it's a funny... If you're the... The ghoster, I would assume that it's a very effective way of terrifying people.
I don't think so. There you go. But I guess I more realistically would be the sort of ponderer that would walk around aimlessly and amongst, you know, the old stuff.
Imagine a ghost version of Citizen Kane in the end.
I'm a collector, so I like to collect a lot of stuff.
I'm sure I end up with roaming around, all that stuff.
Just with all your stuff. Oh, no, you just made me rethink this now.
Because I also collect a lot of stuff. That's very true.
Oh, no, I didn't even think of that, that I'm just going to be roaming around.
I guess that's fine, though. I'll just be roaming around in my stuff.
You know what? You made me feel better about it.
It's all stuff that you love. Why would you not want to roam around in it for eternity?
Yeah, that sounds great. And other people's stuff.
And if my stuff is lost, then I'm going to be that cheap ghost.
Exactly. Because then you'll be pissed. Yep.
There you go. See, I would want to be like a sheet ghost, but I think I would end up being like a furry blanket ghost because that's just like how I live.
Because you like to be comfy. I just always am in a furry blanket.
I want to be a fancy lace ghost because I'm not that fancy currently in like real life.
So in the afterlife, I want to be a little more fancy.
I think you're pretty fancy. I think that's correct.
I mean, I'm wearing Johnny Cupcake sweatpants right now, so I appreciate that.
You know, it's all relative. It's fine. Next question is Ouija boards.
Are you for or against them? Because people have very serious thoughts about them.
I am probably an against person. Yes, me too.
I find them to be irritably fake. That is true.
We're against them for different reasons.
And, you know, I split my brain in two very much when it comes to belief and knowledge and, you know, humility in front of the fact that I don't know everything.
But, you know, as much as I do believe in... that there is a great universe that we don't understand I'm also pragmatical enough to shoot down anyone who says that they understand because that is bullshit because you don't know so I'm all open for paranormal activity but I also know that you who wrote a bullshit book about it don't know shit So, and Ouija boards is, I think it's pretty well-established fact, also being one that I've tried it, that there's always someone fucking moving that little cup around.
It's very true. That's what I'm like, I'm like, I like straddle the line.
Like, I don't really care either way. Like, I'm not super against them.
And I'm not like, yes, Ouija boards. But I kind of feel the same way that I'm like, I don't know if anything bad would happen.
Because everyone I've ever done, like I've done them growing up and someone was always moving that thing.
So I've never had an experience that was like... a ghost came through and we were followed for 10 years and don't ever touch it.
So I'm just kind of like, all right, if you want to do it, you want to do it.
Yeah. For me, I told Elena, I think I should be exempt from this question because I'm very against personal use of them.
I've had friends in the past and kind of like what you were saying, Tobias, I feel like there's a lot out there that we don't know about and there could be very easy ways to open those channels and we don't know how to close them.
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The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex.
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Bloody Mary, what version did you grow up hearing about or playing?
I think that Bloody Mary is, when I hear that, I think about a drink.
One of my favorite drinks. We had, oh, what was it called?
I think that the most commonly similar game was called Svarta Madam.
Oh, okay. which is The Black Madam. I think that that was similar.
So I can't really, really, I don't know exactly what Bloody Mary the game is.
How do you play that? It's different for everybody.
It is. We grew up playing a similar version, but yours varies a bit.
Yeah. So it usually starts off with you have a mirror in front of you and you're in the dark.
Usually in the bathroom. We were always supposed to be in the bathroom.
And you say her name a certain amount of times in the mirror.
Okay, it's exactly like Sveta Madame. Oh, okay, cool.
Yours just has a way cooler name. I was going to say it sounds way cooler, but we also had this weird little modified version that now, especially as an adult, I'm like, wow, that's rude.
Because you were supposed to stand there and say the Bloody Mary however many times, and then you were supposed to say, I have your baby.
That's real weird. Which now as an adult, I'm like, I would come scratch you out of a mirror too if I were her.
Like, are you kidding me? And I don't remember what the whole thing behind that was.
It was like this witch who got her baby stolen and you were supposed to be like, I have your baby and then be upset when she comes through the mirror.
That's wild. But yeah, I never really did it.
I was too scared to do it. I remember doing Bloody Mary once and being so terrified.
I shrieked downstairs through like my whole entire house and I got in so much trouble.
I love that. Yours definitely sounds way better than Tobias.
I'm not going to lie. For sure. Just for the name alone.
Yeah, it's a catchy name. It is. So the last one I'll ask in these ones so we can get to the listener questions.
If you had to have a famous person's ghost haunt your house, who would you choose?
Oh, good question. I mean, I'm a, I like, I'm a sort of a generally a laughing person.
And It would help. It would be practical if it was someone who's kind of funny.
Yeah. You know, but the sad thing that is that a lot of comedians aren't necessarily very funny when they're private.
That's very true. So, but yeah, you know, someone who's cracking jokes all the time, that would be nice.
Yeah. uh, I don't know, Richard Pryor, maybe.
Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. There you go.
Someone like that. Or like Robin Williams.
I can sort of loosely sort of joke with all the time.
That's a good answer. Yeah. So it helps.
I mean, in our home, I'm very sort of, I just, uh, make noises and, and, uh, and, and jokes and, and, and try to, I always try to uh, I don't know how to explain my behavior, but it's, it's very, uh, and just because I'm hanging out with, uh, my wife, who's kind of similar and our kids who are now like, you know, we're all sort of the same size nowadays.
And so it's like four people at home who all sort of behave the same in a similar way where, uh, uh there's sort of trigger words that just that just uh unleashes this sort of series of words that sort of echo throughout the apartment uh i'm a little bit like that yeah it just swear words and and certain if someone sort of says a certain word i have to echo that yeah and uh and and obviously now i'm just scratching at the surface of like a whole whole slew of internal jokes But anyone who's going to haunt our house needs to be in on that.
They need to hang. Otherwise it might be weird.
Yeah. Or else they won't fit in. I love that.
You need to contribute with your own stuff as well.
Yeah, you got to go. So you can't just sit here and feed off of our jokes.
You have to contribute. Yeah, be original, okay?
It's not a free show here. You have to contribute.
Exactly. I love that. Who would yours be, Alina?
I would say David Bowie. Just one, so I could look at David Bowie.
And two, his outfits are great. So I feel like they would always just, yeah, and it would always like cheer me up.
He can sing to me. He can pretend to be Jareth from the Labyrinth.
I would make him do that daily. He's a multifaceted character.
Yeah. I think it would be great. That's a good choice.
I'm kind of hoping it happens, actually.
I'm hoping I'm just manifesting it as I'm talking about it.
We can summon him later. Yeah. I would say mine would have to be Tom Petty.
Like, for similar reasons to you, he could sing to me.
There you go. He'd play guitar. He's also friends with very cool people who would, like, come hang out with us.
Oh, that's a good point. When Stevie Nicks crosses over, God forbid, someday.
Yeah. She could come over. We could have a lot of fun.
It'd be great. I think it sounds great. I think we all nailed that one, guys.
Also, my husband sings 90s R&B ballads all the time, so our house is very similar.
So I think we'll end on the listener questions just so we can make sure we get some of those in.
Definitely. Because people are very excited to hear you answer their questions.
Okay. So the first one comes from Rachel and Justin.
Okay. And they want to know, when will we ever see the quote unquote film project briefly mentioned a couple of years ago or do a horror film project in general?
Let's just say that any horror film and another film project is not necessarily the same.
There are several ideas and one or several might come to fruition within a few years.
Sweet. That was a great answer. All right.
Our next question comes from Anita McCormick and also myself because I'm a cat person.
We want to know how many cats you have. I have no cats, unfortunately.
No cats. I wish I had. No, I am very, very, very much a cat person.
I love cats. But one problem is that my daughter is allergic to them.
That's not great. That's not great. Which, you know, we can circumvent that by, you know, there are certain cats that doesn't have that dandruff problem.
But on the other hand, it's also like a very – it will prohibit a little bit of our lifestyle.
I could see that. Because we don't live in a house, so they can't be out.
So you have to have them inside. And currently, I think we all feel that one day, if we ever live in a penthouse that's big enough to sort of roam around –
Because you won't have two cats while you want them to have like a friend.
And it needs to be big enough for them to be to roam around.
And so we don't have that yet. yeah well i hope you get it someday you could get one of those um like a sphinx cat the naked cats yeah exactly there you go yeah no i'd love that as well i mean i like those cats as well so it's like yeah i'm i love cats i had cat when i was little so i miss uh i don't miss him he was a crazy cat yeah He, yeah, he scratched my face.
And unfortunately, after that, he attacked me.
And then unfortunately, they put him to rest.
And that was very sad. I didn't want that to happen.
But he was a crazy cat. Traumatizing. You know, he was attacking.
Everyone. Yeah. Can't have that. No, it wasn't traumatizing to me.
It was like, because I loved it. So I, I, I was, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You didn't mean it. Yeah. He didn't mean it.
The aftermath is traumatizing. Yeah. Yeah.
We have three, or I have three very chill cats, so I've recently become a cat person.
And I am a dog person, but I won't let that stand in the way of our friendship, Tobias.
We'll get through it together. I've been okay with Ash's cats, but... My cats love you.
They do. They do. We get along. So maybe...
Maybe, but I'm a dog person. But the next question is from Audrey.
And she says, outside of Elizabeth Boutry and Jack the Ripper, is there any ghost song or will there be any future ghost song with inspiration from true crime?
Possibly. I can't promise anything, but why not?
I have many records to write, so... I'd love to hear that.
Sooner or later, as well. It's gruesome.
When the inspiration comes. Yeah. No, you have to promise right now.
We need it in writing. Okay. I'll send that later, guys.
Cool, thanks. Our next one question comes from Shay Q, and they say, Tobias, I'm wondering if in light of the religious and mythology-related subjects, you have a similar experience of choosing to walk away from an organized religion that no longer served you, or if it's more of an outside observation.
Uh, somewhere in between. I, as I said, I grew up in a very liberal home where religion had no place, um, more, more so than from a cultural aspect, like more like a pop cultural aspect.
It was part of, uh, we, we were high consumers of TV, uh, radio films, uh, music.
So, so the concept and art, my, because my, my, um, my mother worked with art.
Um, so, uh, the concept of religion was ever, you know, ever, ever represented in, in, in film and art and music.
So I, I already knew from, for as long as I can remember, I was fascinated by the idea of, of, of, of the history and, And of course, as any kid, you know, you start asking yourself about God and anything beyond the realm of what you can fathom.
But I think there were a few things that sort of outside my home that really colored my life. my stance on as to how I felt about religion as I'm as a more of an organized social exercise.
And one of them was my first teacher that I had grade one to.
She was a very mean, very mean, like disciplinarian woman.
This was the 80s and she was probably just about to throw her towel in at that point.
I think she retired a year after us or something like that.
She was very old for us, obviously, if she was 65 in the mid-80s, later 80s.
She was she was very old school. And I remember her telling I don't know if she told the whole group, but I think I remember at least I was in the room where she told me or she looked away, looked at my direction and say that, you know, we're not allowed to hit the children anymore.
But if I could, I would. Oh, my God. Stuff like that.
She's just very upfront. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
And she did not like me at all. She was very upset with just because I, you know, I wasn't.
I was never very good at school and I've always been kind of anti authority person. same but but you know and and i was uh foul-mouthed i was swearing a lot and so i mean i i have no problem looking back and seeing like i probably provoked her a lot but my memory of her because she from what i recall and if any one of my old school friends or ever hear this and they say like no no no that that's not true Maybe it wasn't, but my memory of it was that she was implementing an abnormal amount of biblical theory and biblical class on us.
And she was also very righteous. And she combined her religious belief with meanness and very condescending.
And she was very angry all the time. I remember I did a double knot on my shoes.
So I went in and asked if she could help me untie it.
And she was just like, oh, give me that.
And you just get a yelling for anything you do.
That's ridiculous. You're like, I'm eight.
And my relationship with her was combined with several others that was religious people who were actually kind of mean people.
So I got the impression that this is just bullshit.
This is bullshit. I can separate. And I think for as long as I can remember, I can separate the history lesson of the Bible.
Yeah, there was this dude born Jewish. 2000 years ago that had ideas and he started this little cult and then he got trashed for it.
That's not hard to understand. Nope. And yeah, because that doesn't really fit into our story, you know?
So we had to sort of curate it a little bit.
And, you know, so a lot of those thought processes started for me very early, especially as soon as I, you know, when I when I sort of became a Satanist was it was if it was if it was not on the day, but it was pretty much exactly coinciding with my adolescence.
So that became a very powerful thing. tool to oppose anything that I found stupid or weak or hypocritical.
And I still think it is. I look at many of the most vocal religious people in in your media climate or whatever or around you that are claiming righteous thoughts about what to do with female bodies or or whatever it is and it's all stems from evil ignorance and just pure low life dumb assness yep wow do you want to come every week i know And yeah, I still find it as provoking and as much, you know, as when I was a child.
And it makes me just want to scream and rock.
Scream and rock. Play loud, obnoxious rock music.
It seems to be like a lot of people's experience when they're, when they like take themselves away from religion is they see people who are not practicing what they preach.
Like it's the exact opposite because it's supposed to be like preaching kindness and goodness and that's all great.
And it's like, awesome. And you can do that outside.
Like love thy neighbor and all that. And it's like, all right, cool.
That sounds great. But then you meet like someone like your teacher and you're like, how though?
Like how does this correlate? We're not practicing what you preach.
Just help me untie my shoe, please. Yeah.
Well, I think it's, you know, if you want to be the more sober person in the room and just look at it, you understand that there are other aspects usually rooted in the reason why people utilize religion as a as a as a life code that more than often sort of subject others to to grief and torment exactly and um but but again yeah like how how how much of a slack do you want to give people you can't just look at anyone and just like oh man you know If he or she was just a little bit happier, he or she will understand that that is a bad, bad judiciary move.
You know, it doesn't, you can't, some people are just fucking dumb.
And a lot of people should be put out of our misery.
But all I can do is rock. That's all we ask.
And that's my... my lot in life. And I am very lucky with my lot.
So we're happy you found your lot in life.
I know. Thank you for answering that. Hey, weirdos.
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Um, the next one that I'm going to ask you is from Saima and she says, growing up in Sweden, what was the scariest urban legend or story you were told as a child?
And does horror as a genre differ in Scandinavia versus the United States?
So it's like a two-parter. I think a lot of, uh, folklore and it's similar just because we, you know, Sweden is a very, um, what would be the word, rural.
It's very nature-esque. A lot of forest, creeks, valleys, you know, rivers.
So, and we have a lot of, since it's an old country as well, you have to remember that, you know, it's been a functioning, somewhat functioning country for almost a thousand years.
So it had a lot of old tradition of trolls and a lot of various forest beings and different... weird characters that live near the stream and underneath the waterfall.
And, and it's a lot of folklore that is based on nature and, uh, you know, the nocturnal side of the forest.
Um, and I, I find many of them to be equally fascinating as terrifying.
Uh, I mean, especially if, if you, if you look from a person, you know, a historic perspective, which I, you know, I always liked that.
I mean, I'm, I'm very interested in history, but also trying to understand the psyche of people historically.
And you have to realize that people not very long ago, as much as, you know, there's, there's plenty of, of, of, um, uh, of simple tonnery.
Uh, nowadays, um, there was obviously, uh, um, you know, the standard, uh, mindset hundreds of years ago were pretty uninformed and, um, it must've been a terrifying environment to live in not only you know, just a hundred years ago, you could kill people left, right, and center.
If you had more than one brain cell, you could get away with killing people so easy just because the forensic forensics was not up to snuff.
So, so on the one hand you had the real life that was just filled with, with bandits, murderers, and rapists that would come and rape your wife and kill your children and rob you and and and but on the other hand you know as soon as you sort of veered away from from from society you had the very very threatening forest outside your door as well with with uh trolls and vets and and all kinds of things haunting you fairies are scary Yeah.
And, oh, let alone the wrath of God, you know.
Oh, yeah. And that. There's always that.
There's always that. Yes. So, yeah, horrible times.
But, you know. Good times. Good times. They all lived through it for us to sit here.
That's true. You know, I did what most people, or most people, but a lot of people have done in the last couple of years.
And I did the whole ancestry thing. thing and, you know, built my, my family tree and, and, uh, I just found it to be, yeah, very, um, um, I got very, um, touched when you see all these people who's lived their lives and, you know, tried to survive and, and through hundreds of years, throughout wars and all kinds of famine and all these things, just to survive and sort of try to get a little bit ahead and for the next generation to do a little bit better.
And, you know, that sort of put me in a mindset that it's, you know, you're just a one generation, one part of this tree that will continue growing hopefully.
And I mean, just because my branch, if for some reason, if that would, and did the brand, it has so many branches.
That's also like a mind blowing thing where you're doing that.
I have, I have relatives like all over the world, like in America, tons, so many, um, just because there was a great migration, um, wave in Sweden in the late or mid to late 1800s.
And that, you know, it puts you in a, you sort of see a little bit of a, you understand that you're just one part and your job is to just push it forward and do the best you can do in order to just make it a little bit better for the future.
But you're out. eventually. That's a good way of looking at it.
But you're doing it for all these people.
Because otherwise, they would have done this for nothing.
Not for nothing. Because they obviously did it for their future.
But yeah, I think that that is important to understand that you're just... a part of a flow.
Yeah, I love that. I think that's the perfect way of looking at that.
It's like, I forget where I heard it, but it's like your legacy is like planting a garden that you don't get to see.
Yeah. You just leave it for everybody else.
And to circle back on supernatural things, where it originated was That all these people lived through not only wars and horrors, but also all these fucking threats of this, that, or the other.
Of the wolf coming, eating your kid, and then the bears, and the boars, and...
And yeah, all the weird things that we have in our forest that actually does exist.
Right. Yeah. I love that. Swedish forests, man.
I think they must be so beautiful. I think we might have done an episode where we mentioned one.
I don't remember now. I'll have to look at it.
There's some scary ones. There are for sure.
But I'm happy that you touched on history because it actually leads into the next question.
Scarlet A says, can you please ask St. Tobias, patron saint of rats, if he was able to have dinner with any historical figure, who would that be?
Just because we mentioned him right a moment ago, I would probably, and now I'm going to out his name here, but I would love to have a dinner with Charles Lexman.
There you go. That would be very interesting.
It would. You get a lot of answers to a lot of questions.
And you know what? I would like you to have dinner with him because now I want to know.
And you can report back. Yeah, I'm high and worseningly just assuming that he will confess, but What has he got to lose at this point?
You know? Exactly. Just do it. That's all you have to say to him.
Like, what do you have to lose? Yeah, you're dead.
You're good. I won't tell anyone. Just whisper it.
But, you know, if I could curate this meal, it would probably be in the 20s because he died in 1921.
So you'd want to catch him, you know, not maybe 1921, but, you know... when he's definitely think he's in the clear you know in 1910s or something like that maybe in april 1912 and you can you know directly after the sinking of the titanic and you sort of talk about that first and then you just lure him in into yeah I like that.
You gain his trust first. Yeah, you get a little segue in there.
You commiserate over the sadness of the Titanic.
Right. And you're like, speaking of sadness, did you murder a bunch of people?
It's pretty sad. I like that. I think it would work.
So the next question we have is from Bianca.
And Bianca says, I hope you're doing well and staying safe.
As the spooky season is upon us, Halloween traditions and rituals help keep the spirit alive.
This is beautifully written. My go-to is watching horror movies all month long with the lights dimmed or by candlelight, then dressing up scary and passing out candy.
Do you have any particular way you celebrate for the months or any horror movies that are your go-to?
Not really. You just hang. It's spooky season all year.
That's how we are. No. Yeah. Yeah. You'd think, uh, yeah, that's funny.
I mean, I've, I've heard myself saying like, uh, you know, uh, when, when someone was inviting us to some, you know, you go to a masquerade, I'm like, I don't have a lot of costumes.
And, uh, yeah, I don't dress up normally.
Um, No, and I'm a very, very big fan of Halloween.
I'm a very big fan of, I mean, as the season and the holiday, what do you call it?
In Sweden, we have a school break just around that time.
Oh, cool. Lucky. Um, and, uh, and obviously in, in, in Sweden also being a sort of a Taigan forest country, we know, and on the Northern hemisphere also for us is the Halloween is obviously very, very autumnal.
Um, so it's just a very, very cozy, cozy is the word.
It's very cozy part of, uh, part of the year. point of time in the year.
And, and, um, but the thing is that you have to remember is that in Sweden, we did not celebrate Halloween, uh, before that was a commercial, it was a commercial amendment that I would say maybe with the odd exception of, of, of some theme party at some point.
And before that, but it was basically, uh, people, I think our age that started doing it in the late, uh, 90s, mid to late 90s.
That's wild. More as a tribute to, you know, what we've seen on the films.
And back then you couldn't like buy Halloween stuff that way.
We have a similar day there. It's also in honors of the dead.
The same as the one of this. It's also on the 2nd of November or 1st of November or something like that.
Is it all Hallow's Eve? Yeah, but the whole practice of Halloween with pumpkins and all that stuff, you had to do everything in the 90s, you had to sort of create all the things.
And so it became very, nowadays, you know, there's this whole package.
You can just go buy everything. And it's almost as a commercial holiday as it is here in America.
Oh, wow. Which I like. I like it. So I'm all for it.
But therefore, there's no real rooted tradition.
We don't have like a culinary tradition.
There's not a, tradition rooted in our upbringing or anything.
So I think that we're still feeling it out.
That makes sense. But we have friends who, one thing that we do is we have a friend of the family is long story short.
He, he is, he owns amusement parks and he, we usually on, on Halloween, we go together with him and his family.
We go down to one of the amusement parks, which is a, a zoo out in the forest.
And then, you know, a park full with animals and stuff.
And they, they usually decorate it Halloween like, and you go through the park and, and so that's a nice sort of a tunnel tradition.
And then we, you know, stay at the hotel there, which is right in the, in the wilderness and, That's nice.
Yeah, that sounds really cool. I was going to say that's spooky.
I like that. Kind of like similar to what we have with the, what is it called?
The Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular. Thank you.
We have something similar, not as cool as that because it's not like in the wilderness, but it's at a zoo.
And so it's at night. So all the animals are around and they have like thousands of carved pumpkins that they light up.
And they'll hang them and everything. Yeah, and it's just this like huge labyrinth that you go through.
So we do that every year too. So that's pretty similar.
Yeah. But it's like if you don't have it when you grow up, like you were saying, I didn't think of that, that like if it's not ingrained in you from like a very young age, it would be like, yeah, like we don't have traditions that we do because we didn't start with it.
I didn't even think of that because I'm just like Halloween from birth.
No, but on the other hand, the trick or treat thing is very similar to what we do on Easter.
Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So when you're a kid around Easter, on Easter, that was when you went around asking for candy.
Oh, that makes a little more sense, actually.
Yeah, we just have a bunny come and give it to us.
Yeah, which he like breaks into your home and just leaves you candy.
Yeah, we just have a home invasion. Yeah.
Well, that bunny is not real. No? No, but the rest is.
You just shattered the glass. We've just sort of shuffled around the traditions, I guess.
That makes sense. But I'm a big fan of Halloween.
I like that. Good commercial holiday. Very cozy.
I agree. Pumpkins for life. Pumpkins forever.
Well, our next question comes from Francis.
And they said, if I could ask Mr. Forge a question, it would simply be, what makes you happy?
There are many things that make me happy and I like when one of the best feelings I can ever have is be with my family and there's no have-tos.
When I'm done working, There's not a whole lot of stuff that I need to do.
That is one of the weird things about, you know, getting what you wish for.
Because you spend so much time not being a professional at what you do, wishing to be a professional, thinking somehow that if I just get to not have a job, I can just do my my passion, my hobby.
And then you sort of reach some, some sort of new platform, some sort of status quo when, when you're all are your problems is sort of out the window.
And what, where I've noticed that like my working situation, because I do have a job, even though I don't feel necessarily like I have a job in the classic sense, I work all the time and I have a very hard time not working.
My brain is constantly just spinning. And there are moments when I can stop doing that.
And that is a very nice feeling. But that's usually when you let yourself.
Okay, so tonight I'm with my family. Tonight I'm with my family and my friends.
I'm going to have a GT. And I'm just going to let it flow.
Yeah. I feel that so hard. And knowing that you're not going to go up in the morning.
You have nothing. There's nothing but a day in front of the TV tomorrow with no have tos.
That's a nice thing. That is happiness. You just spoke, like, into our souls.
I think that's exactly what makes us happy as well.
Yeah, that was, like, perfect. Should we do one more question?
Yeah, why don't we do, what are your favorite guilty pleasure songs?
And that's from Marissa. I don't feel too ashamed of music that I like, but it's...
Of course, I have a different, you know, on one hand, I'm a nerdy collector, a fascinato about certain things and certain bands, certain styles. you know, where I collect everything I see, know everything about it, or try to get to know everything about a certain band and anybody who's been in that band and any demo that they've ever made.
And what different versions was differentiated differentiates the first, first version of the demo with the second.
Yeah. Because they changed the address to all that stuff.
Um, Whereas I also like a lot of songs by artists that I don't give a rat's ass about who they are or what their background is.
It's just a nice, it's just a great song.
I've always been very, very song driven ever, ever since for as long as I can remember, as I said, the TV was on, the radio was on.
We listened to music. My brother had one set of records that he listened to my mom and myself, and it was just a constant flow of music.
So, um, Therefore, I've never really shunned away.
And then obviously, it can be a band or something that you'd like.
I don't necessarily like the totality of their thing.
But this song is really good because of this little transition over here.
That's very brilliant. I have a weakness for early 90s Euro disco.
Wow, I love that. I didn't see that coming.
I love how specific that is. Yeah, it's, you know, someone who is really in the know might argue that it started before, but I think that's generally true. between 1990, 1991 to 1994.
And that's the cutoff date, basically. There are a few songs that came in after that, around 96, 97, that's okay.
But uh, not only was it a very creative, they, they created, there was a lot of new technology that they used a lot of new sense and then a lot of that.
I just liked the sound of, but there was a lot of great songwriting in that.
That was a powerful songs. And, uh, I think it also coincided with, uh, you know, that was the age I was when, you know, I was adolescent and before you'd seen the loop, you know um and before you'd really started um exploring what it's like being a teenager and and all the heartache that brings with it uh you know being a 12 year old walking through the city and and at night on on my way home with a friend having been to the uh you know, the equivalent of blockbusters.
And we had a bunch of films. And then you, you know, you went by the the nightclub, you know, we all sort of lived in the city.
So it was a very like that. The nightlife was very near us, near around us.
And yeah, you saw like cute 18 year old girls and you heard the music from inside and it just sounded appealing. when you heard what is love and stuff like that.
So I associate that with nightlife, the dangerous, very enticing nightlife that you could only watch from an outside point of view when you hadn't really explored anything of it for real.
So therefore, I am very fascinated with Eurodisco between 1991 and 1994.
That's incredible. There you go. So you like a feeling associated with a song?
Like you like when you can bring some nostalgia with it?
I don't know if I like it, but I like the feeling of it.
But I have to control it as well because I can get stuck in. in feelings and then i need to then i need to break it by listen to something else and just sort of take my head out out of that because it it opens i i have um as much as i'm a very imaginary or imaginative what's the word how do you say that i have a lot of imagination yeah you got it yeah um Um, it also plays tricks on me.
So I, I, I have, uh, um, I don't want to say a good memory because I don't necessarily remember details and I maybe not, especially because you, you didn't, I hadn't reached a certain maturity level.
So you couldn't really handle what you, um, what you saw.
So I might, my recollection might not be correct of what I saw. what I saw or what happened of something.
But I have a very, very vast memory bank of almost my entire life.
I can remember things pretty clearly from two probably and onwards and ever since I and ever since I asked my mother once like what year is it from that date I also know pretty much which year something happened or which month it's like an inner calendar which and by listening to music or by listening to something or watching a film or something like that I can sort of open up uh, gateways into, into the memory bank quite easily.
Um, and that can be a little, um, overwhelming sometimes because you're just like, Oh shit, you know, you just transform yourself into, to this place.
Uh, and, and, and, and it's not only negative, it's just like, it's, it's sometimes hard to, to, um, know what to do with that information and those feelings because you remember so clearly, like, Oh, this song.
Oh, yeah. I remember I was at his house and that film had just come out.
And we started talking about that. And then on the evening, he went over there.
And oh, yeah, it was an election just the day before.
Wow. And when you just... You'd be a great witness.
Yeah. I don't know. As I said, I have a wild imagination, so it sort of spins.
I wouldn't trust myself. Yeah, it can fill in the blanks sometimes.
Yeah, this is why I work in the entertainment business.
As you should. Yeah. We have kept you so long.
We want to thank you so much for doing this.
We can't tell you how much we appreciate it, how much our listeners are going to appreciate it.
And this has been a lot of fun. Yeah. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this.
Thank you very much for having me. It was very nice talking to you too.
You are welcome back anytime. And again, this was great.
Thank you so much. And we hope to see you.
Thank you. Again soon. Definitely. Likewise.
Take care of yourselves. You too. You too.
Bye. So that was the coolest thing that's ever happened.
I don't even know what to say. That was just like so much fun.
He was so lovely. Yeah. That was amazing.
Obviously, you guys listened to the episode.
You saw how lovely he was. He answered all of the questions that we like sent in.
That's crazy. Yeah, we were trying to be good with time, and we went way over, and he just hung out and chatted.
That was glorious. We could have done that for another six hours.
I sure would have, but I wasn't going to make anybody else.
That was amazing. We want to thank Tobias so much again.
And his whole team. His entire team for making this happen, because they've all been so amazing.
Guys, go listen to Ghosts. Go to the shows.
I'm telling you. Buy some tickets. When I say that the shows, the rituals are worth it.
Oh, yeah. So worth it. I'm telling you, go.
So it sounds like they have stuff cooking, too.
Yeah. So that's exciting. So stay tuned for whatever they have next.
But I'm telling you, go listen. Go get merch.
Go do all that stuff. Let's keep them around forever.
And we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird.
But not so weird that you don't follow everything that Ghost does until the end of time.
Bye. Thank you. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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