IThere is a legend based on cannibalism, Viking rites and necklaces of pieces of skull that black metal lovers and all those who like to give themselves the thrill gladly recount. It features one of the founding groups of the genre, and also one of the most sulphurous in the world: Mayhem, from the English term meaning “disorder”, “chaos” or even “mutilation”.
Originally formed by Øystein Aarseth (known as Euronymous), bassist Jørn Stubberud (known as Necrobutcher), and drummer Kjetil Manheim, the group rose to prominence in the late 1980s with a debut demo, “Pure Fucking Armageddon (1986) and an EP, Deathcrush (1987). “The pioneers of black metal then seek to produce the most radical music possible”, underlines the academic Bastien Lesage, specialist in contemporary philosophy, but also in the origins of black metal in the Slavic countries.
Visual shocks and gore imagery
Influenced by groups such as Celtic Frost, Black Sabbath, Slayer or even Venom – the name of the group is moreover inspired by the song “Mayhem with Mercy” by Venom –, these musicians seek excess in their sound (riffs of screaming guitar, guttural cries, tormented rhythm…) and in aesthetics. Their visual “signature”, they forged it particularly from 1988, when a new musician entered the group to replace Maniac, a singer recruited in 1987, but interned in a psychiatric hospital in 1987, following an attempt to suicide.
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The man who builds the Mayhem mythos calls himself Dead (easier to remember than his baptismal name – even if he certainly denied the Christian sacrament – Per Yngve Ohlin). The reason for this choice of pseudonym? The boy, born in 1969 near Stockholm, is convinced he is a walking corpse. The black metal musician Stian “Occultus” Johansen, who rubbed shoulders with him, said of him: “He didn’t see himself as a human, he saw himself more as a creature from another world; he said he felt his blood freeze in his veins, that he was dead. That’s why he borrowed the name Dead. »
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And Dead will mark with its icy and bloody imprint the aura of the group Mayhem. Under his influence, the group’s lyrics become more raw than ever, exalting suffering, extreme torture, death, “demons flying in the sky” and Satan in all its sauces. On stage, visual shocks and gore imagery create an unhealthy atmosphere: the group impales pig’s heads, and Dead scarifies himself “sometimes seriously, to the point of not being able to finish a concert”, explains Bastien Lesage.
In 1990, the group acquired an old house in the heart of the Norwegian forest (but not far from the capital, Oslo, in order to be able to easily give concerts). Between the members of Mayhem, there is often water in the gas. The leader of the group, Euronymous, and the singer Dead engage in arguments of anthology, which often end in night departures of one or the other of the musicians, exasperated, gunshots fired in the air and even, says a member of the group, a stab wound.
Brain Stew and Skull Piece Necklaces
It was in this sepulchral atmosphere that Dead bowed out in 1991. “Sorry for all the blood,” he wrote in his suicide note, before slitting his veins, then shooting himself in the head. The members of his group find him at his home, dead. Did they really, as their leader Euronymous would later claim, ate pieces of his brain, spread on the ground, according to a cannibalistic rite inspired by Viking tradition? Did they, as they will tell, collect pieces of his skull to make necklaces, which they then offer to the most “pure” elements (read: the most extreme) of the black metal scene in Norway?
“I think most of these sordid details are false, judge Bastien Lesage. First of all because one does not pollute the scene of a violent death with impunity. That they did something around this corpse before calling the police: it is quite possible, the photograph of the corpse which illustrates the cover of one of their bootlegs attests to it. But the stew of brains and the necklaces of pieces of skull, I think it is part of a folklore that they had every interest in cultivating to gain credibility in the middle of black metal. »
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Between the suicide of Dead and the rumors of cannibalism that surround him, the sulphurous dimension of the group takes the lead. But the worst is yet to come. Euronymous opens a black metal store, Helevete (“hell”, in Norwegian) in Oslo. This is where the Norwegian black metal scene gravitates, but also the Inner Black Circle, an organization with nationalist and satanic tendencies, considered a sect, involved in around fifty burnings of Christian churches in Norway between 1992 and 1996, but also in the homophobic murder of Magne Andreassen. The man is said to have made advances to Faust, the drummer of the group Emperor, who stabs him 37 times, strikes him violently on the head, then declares to have “no remorse” at the time of his trial – which will earn him 14 years in prison, sentence which will be reduced to 9 years.
“You have to keep things in mind, when you look at the Norwegian black metal movement of the 1990s. I think most of their members were burning churches like French rappers were tagging walls, or like members of the scene American hip-hop fussed between those on the east coast and those on the west coast. It is obviously very serious, but it was above all folklore, a sign of recognition, ”said Bastien Lesage.
23 stab wounds
The Inner Circle counts among its members a certain Varg Vikernes, known as Burzum, a musician from the black metal scene who delivers his solo performances. After Dead’s death, he was recruited as a bassist for Mayhem. In the black metal movement, Vikernes is considered a true radical. “His ideology is shifting, difficult to grasp, judge Bastien Lesage. It is not really neo-Nazi, but rather close to an ancient Nordic paganism, a sub-branch of National Socialist ideology rooted in the myth of the return to nature, and with variable geometry according to the different periods of the life of Vikernes. »
The musician, who is renowned for advocating violent Satanism, is in any case not here to joke. On August 11, 1993, he murdered Euronymous with 23 stab wounds to the back, neck and head. In this case again, vagueness is master. Jealousy of Euronymous’ success on the metal scene? Financial motivations, linked to the debts of the leader of Mayhem?
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Arrested on August 19, 1993 in Bergen, Vikernes affirms, for his part, that the musician had planned to torture him to death in front of a camera, and that his gesture was in self-defense. But the police find 150 kg of explosives and 3,000 rounds of ammunition in his house. He is suspected of wanting to blow up the Blitz house, headquarters of the anarchist and communist movement in Oslo, or the Nidaros cathedral. In his defense, Vikernes claims that these munitions are intended to protect him in the event of a Soviet or American attack during the Cold War…
On May 16, 1994, the sentence falls. Vikernes is sentenced to the heaviest sentence in Norway: 21 years in prison, for the murder of Euronymous, the burning of three churches and the possession of explosives. On the day of the sentence, two churches are burned down in Norway as a sign of support.
Let the music
The Scrapbook On the Mysteries of Dom Satanas, signed Mayhem, which was released the same year, became cult. The group manages to continue to exist and renew itself despite the assassination of its leader. It reformed around the drummer of Hellhammer, singer Maniac, released from a psychiatric hospital, and bassist Necrobutcher.
After On the Mysteries of Dom Satanaswe owe Mayhem the albums Grand Declaration of War (2000), Chimera (2004), Ordo Ad Chao (2007), Esoteric Warfare (2014) et Daemon (2019), as well as 8 live albums, several demos, bootlegs and compilations. “The group remains very important in black metal, because with each album, Mayhem redefines this musical current”, explains Bastien Lesage.
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What about Varg Vikernes? The formidable metalhead will serve 15 years out of the 21 years of his sentence, before being released in 2009. His stay in various Norwegian prisons, including several high security, will be eventful. The man writes books – most of which are devoted to Norse mythology and his convictions on the purity of the Norwegian race -, records two albums on synthesizer, the only instrument at his disposal in prison, and tries to escape with several times, succeeding once – the police who find him will exhume from his hideout a vast quantity of weapons, explosives, military and computer equipment…
After his release from prison, Varg Vikernes continued his musical career, releasing five albums between 2010 and 2015. With his French wife, he settled in Corrèze. At the head of a large family, he is now a follower of survivalism. The police are watching him closely: suspicions of terrorism weigh on him, as well as accusations of incitement to racial hatred and glorification of war crimes following posts published on his blog.
A genre that diversifies
Should we be afraid of Varg Vikernes? The question is not unfounded. Does this mean that black metal fans should be considered dangerous satanists or neo-Nazis? “I estimate that today between 85 and 90% of black metal fans listen to this music, among other extreme currents [death, sludge, hardcore…] for aesthetic reasons, and for their cathartic effects,” says Bastien Lesage.
But, he adds, “there is, especially in France, especially in the South, in Toulon for example, a very confidential black metal scene called NS [national-socialiste]fairly blacklisted by the rest of the French scene, and made up of groups with fairly easily identifiable names [Kristallnacht, par exemple….]. By his side back to naturethere is also a whole environmentalist scene [comme le groupe américain très populaire Wolves in the Throne Room] ».
The specialist also cites groups with purely experimental aims, hybridizing black metal from the origins with various musical forms, ranging from jazz to drone through composition techniques from classical music. As for the ideology of the groups, it too has been largely hybridized, opening up, for certain black metal groups, to the extreme left: “I even heard of a group whose lyrics revolve exclusively around of the Paris Commune! concludes the academic. Less demonic, you die.