They say you need to face your fears to overcome them, which is why Ghost frontman Tobias Forge is hoping to get his scuba diving license.
No, Forge isn’t afraid of fish. Instead, he tells Metal Hammer that the years he’s spent wearing a mask onstage during Ghost concerts have led him to developing “quite a not-comfortable claustrophobia,” and he hopes scuba diving might help with that.
“I’ve always wanted to do that, for all my life!” Forge says of scuba diving. “But I didn’t have any money and couldn’t afford it. Then my next problem was I didn’t have time. Now I’m like, ‘I need to do that.’ I need to make sure that I get to terms with my claustrophobia.”
“I’ve always been very ‘maritime’ and drawn to the ocean,” he continues. “In my alternative life, I’m a wreck diver!”
Forge previously told Metal Hammer that he had a panic attack during a Ghost concert in 2015 while wearing his mask.
“I was told there was only one entrance into the venue; you had to walk in on the right side of the stage, past the stage, and then into a backstage area,” Forge recalled of the show. “So, essentially, you couldn’t get out. You were locked in. That was what I was told. And I didn’t think of it until during the show, when all of a sudden I was like, ‘I need to know where the door is…I can’t get to the door. Stop! Stop! Get the mask off!’ I had to get everything off. Restart the whole thing.”
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
