Previous to Cardinal Copia, Ghost was fronted by Papa Emeritus I, II & III. So it was a little surprising when the promotional cycle for Prequelle began that Tobias Forge took a slightly different approach to the frontman character. Though the album is called Prequelle and frankly we should've made sense of that.
In an interview with KLAQ, Forge says Copia is currently working his way up through the ranks and he looks forward to the day "where he could also have his additional papal robes." Forge adds that when Copia becomes a pope, if he ever does, there would be a lot of cool theatrical stuff the band could add in to its show.
“One thing that I’m looking forward to is having a pope back in the lead,” he said. “Technically, we do have… Because Cardinal Copia is not the leader yet; he’s working his way up. And I’m definitely also looking forward to him possibly becoming the real deal. I also miss the skull-painted pope figure… I’m okay with the Cardinal — I think he’s cool — and I guess that’s the idea when you have a protagonist villain; he’s a lot of those things that you’re not, and I regard him the same way — he is a lot of the things that I guess I wish I was… We differ quite a lot, him and I. But I’m definitely looking forward to, in the future, where he could also have his additional papal robes. And I think that, given the right production setting, there’s definitely a lot of things that we can do that will be even more theatrical, more gags and more things changing. That’s also the part that sometimes is a little bit hard working with a two-hour show — to try to get the stage to appear in different ways. So there’s a lot of things like that that I’m looking forward to exploring in the future. You’ll see.”
Ghost may or may not be releasing an EP or full-on album of original material in 2019, though all signs point to that happening.
