Mayhem: Pioneering Black Metal

Black metal is terrible, but I like it anyway. It's a sub-genre of heavy metal that actively aims to sound awful or "kvlt" (a positive term for this specific brand of awfulness) in order to evoke feelings of despair and darkness in the listener. Why? The same reason people watch horror films. The history of this niche sub-genre is full of murder, suicide, arson, and general drama.

The early black metal scene of the mid-80s began to thrive in Bergen, a city in southwestern Norway. It was headed up by a guitarist named Øystein Aarseth (a.k.a. Euronymous), and his band, Mayhem. Early on, he recruited Kristian Vikernes (a.k.a. Varg Vikernes a.k.a. Count Grishnackh) to play bass guitar, but they kind of hated each other (more on that later), and Varg would go on to quit Mayhem and form the highly influential black metal solo project, Burzum. The most famous incarnation of Mayhem would end up with Necrobutcher on bass, Hellhammer on drums, and Dead on vocals.

Their nicknames were lame because these guys were really a bunch of losers that took themselves and their own music way too seriously. By 1991, the boys (except Necrobutcher, the sensible one), were living in a house in the woods (which probably smelled horrible) where they'd practice.

One of the most enigmatic characters in black metal history was Mayhem lead singer shrieker, Per Ohlin (a.k.a. Dead). To say the least, he was one strange dude. As a kid he was beaten up so badly at school that he suffered a ruptured spleen and was declared clinically dead at the hospital. This started his fascination with death and inspired his stage name. Some of his antics included:

• He started the trend of wearing "corpse paint" (as seen above) in order to, well, look more like a corpse
• He would bury his clothes in the ground before shows so that they would begin to rot and give him a grave-like scent during performances
• He kept a dead crow in a plastic bag and would huff it before shows in order to "add the stench of death in his nostrils" to his singing
• He would cut himself on stage with broken bottles and knives
• He would bring and toss pig heads into the crowd at shows, effectively clearing out 80% of the already limited audience this band could muster

On April 8th 1991, at the age of 22, Dead was alone at the band house. He used a hunting knife to slit his wrists and throat, then shot himself in the forehead with a shotgun. Euronymous came home to find the body and a note apologizing for the mess. He called Necrobutcher and told him, "Dead has done something really cool! He killed himself!" Necrobutcher quit the band then and there (smart move). Euronymous, like the sociopath he was, took photos of the scene, and kept some skull fragments to make into necklaces for his friends.

Euronymous's parents were pretty well off, so they bought him a record store, which he called, "Helvete" (Norwegian for "hell"). It was a place for these nerds and other members of the scene to hang out and be dark and broody. Also, no one else would stock their records.

After Dead died, Euronymous steered hard into the dark imagery, and the little scene experienced some growth. He made up with Varg and helped him release music. The growth of the subgenre came with national attention when black metal bands began burning down Norwegian churches, with Varg and Euronymous attending at least one of these arsons.

The unholy union wasn't meant to last. By 1993 tensions between Varg and Euronymous had risen. On August 10th, 1993, Varg drove two days from Burgen to Oslo. The two men had a confrontation, and Euronymous was found stabbed 23 times in his building's stairwell. Varg was arrested 9 days later, and went on to serve 16 years of a 21 year prison sentence for the church arson and murder.

Mayhem, with half the band dead, released their first album, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, the next year. They continue to make music and tour to this day.