Ghostemane: "I was very introverted, very secluded and really didn’t have any friends."

Ghostemane: "If you’re skipping from interview to interview, that stuff can get kinda muddy. I have a lot of different passions, and I tend to dive into them super-deep."

Ghostemane: "To me, astrophysics is the ultimate spirituality. If nothing else, it proves that we aren’t at the centre of the universe and there definitely is this bigger thing out there. It was my way of escaping into another realm."

Ghostemane: "I sometimes need to pinch myself and come back to reality."

Ghostemane: "Something I had to come to terms with is that darkness and heaviness I identify with isn’t necessarily synonymous with loudness. It’s a mood."

Ghostemane: "I’m not going to have a logo on me. I’m going high fashion. I don’t want to look like anybody else."

Ghostemane: "In hermeticism, the ultimate outcome of the ultimate equation is breaking base material down and being able to reform it. The phoenix rises from the ashes. For me, it was about breaking my old self down, killing it, rising from the ruins, and becoming this new person: this healthier mind."

Ghostemane: "I feel like ‘icon’ is one of those terms that just gets thrown around in the internet age."

Ghostemane: "Defining rock music these days is kinda like tip-toeing, he reckons. I tend to say ‘guitar music’ more often. Is there a lack of danger in modern rock, compared to rap? Sometimes. But the feeling of inauthenticity is more about the lack of intent."

[On wearing name brands for street credibility] 

Ghostemane: "To me, it was always so oxymoronic and hypocritical."

Ghostemane: "I think that modern rock – and pop, any kind of mainstream music – is holding back massively. There isn’t one truly sad, or angry song on the radio anymore. I think there should be more intent to actually connect with people: the broken, the lost, the sad, the angry, the psychotic. For me, that’s the biggest difference from the old days."

Ghostemane: "If that’s an icon, it’s not what I want to be."