Ghost has teamed with Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott for a new version of “Spillways,” originally released on Ghost’s 2022 album, Impera. The reimagined version will appear on the newest installment in Ghost’s long-running series of webisodes Chapter 15: Meanwhile in Dublin, and feature a video of Elliott singing “Spillways” in a Dublin pub. “Spillways” has already generated nearly 50 million streams globally since its release. Says Forge of the track: “This is an elegy for the darkness that most people have inside. When you have a dam, spillways are the run-offs so the dam won’t overflow. That darkness inside us needs to find its way out.”
Elliott says: “Impera was my favorite rock album of 2022… I found out along the way that Tobias is a bit of a fan of Def Leppard, so I guess it was inevitable we’d both find out about each other! Once we’d been introduced to the idea of working together it just snowballed organically and I’m thrilled that I got to sing on what is my favorite song from that album!” Elliot added that he was first introduced to Ghost by Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen. “I was really intrigued, so I asked him [Collen] to Dropbox me the new album. I listened to it all, and I thought it was absolutely stunning. It’s like a whole new genre of music—it’s way more Toto than death metal or any of that stuff. It’s like the song ‘Spillways.’ It starts off like ‘Hold the Line’ by Toto or ‘Jane’ by Jefferson Starship—one of those classic ’70s songs that begin on the piano before these big, chunky chords come in.”
Check out the new version of “Spillways”- here.
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