"CULT ART FOR ANTIHUMAN BEINGS: THE OLD TRUE MAYHEM"

This page contains an interview with Euronymous of Mayhem, and is taken from the norwegian mag Beat no.2 / 1993. The interview is co-edited by Lord Sauron

Beat has managed to visit the closed store ‘Helvete’, which means Hell in english. Black Metal has been very focused on by the medias the last time, since Count Grishnackh of Burzum has been arrested, suspected for murder and setting two churches on fire. Another central person is Euronymous. He plays in Mayhem, runs the record company Deathlike Silence Productions and a mailorder store which is the remains of Helvete.

A pr-trick?

—Black Metal grows because people gets tired of ordinary Death Metal. In Black Metal you will find the really exciting personalitys, and the musical quality is much larger than in the other categorys, says Euronymous.

He doesn’t belive in a Black Metal trend because satanism is an obligatory part of the Black Metal pack as we call it.

—Black Metal is so extreme that not anyone can get into it. This isn’t any funny hobby which stupid kids shall have after they comes home from school.

He and the rest of the band thinks it’s very important to get away from the rest of the metal society.

—It has always been a lot of cliches in metal, and not even the metal society has taken it seriously. When it then comes someone who is serious about what they are doing, everyone is shocked. Black Metal is meant to be serious, not because other shall take us seriously, but because we are serious. It is talk about religion, and we praise the evil and we belive blindly in a godly creature just like a christian.

What is so solid with evilness?

—What is so solid about goodness then? It’s just the way it is. I neither will or can definate it. It is a basicly hate to humankind. I have no friends, just the guys I’m allied with. If my girlfriend dies I won’t cry, I will missuse the corpse.

Pragmatitions

—Just because we doesn’t sing “Satan come eat dinner with me”, it will always be a satanic concept behind it, says the Mayhem guys.

But isn’t really the satanic thing to deny the logical?

—Yes, in a way, but the human is nothing compared to the great cosmos. Scientists can’t disprove the excistense of religion. No matter how hard you try, you can’t explain the universe. You can’t leave out a religious belief.

All of you in Mayhem have a good relationship to your parents, how does it harmony with this thing that you shall be evil all the time?

—As long as you can have personal royalties, why not? A christian can’t be 100% good all the time either. The thing that is most important to us is to be active with the spreading of evilness. We don’t have to prove that we are evil, and we don’t care about what people thinks about us. If you will you can look at us as unserious. WE ARE NOT FOR YOU!

Is this interview a part of the spreading of evilness?

—It is publicity for us and the bands, then we sell more records and spread evilness through them. Satanists with wellpaid jobs don’t need interviews like this.

War against humour

—This thing is meant to be dark. Even if I listen to bands like Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd and Marillion, I try to create my own mood out of the music. I’m listening after the dark, says Euronymous. On the Deathcrush record the humour element is absolutely there—it’s a picture of a cow on the label.

That was then. Now we mean partying is bad. It’s better to sit and cut yourself, than to go out and have fun. Sometimes you have to face some challenges, but they must be fought with a hard hand. It’s many years since I managed to feel love. This is just the way it is. This is a main concept.

Rumours

One of the members of Mayhem was found guilty when he mutilated a person badly. The victim’s face is disfigured forever.

—I crushed a bottle in the head of a guy which was shaking a lady that was together with me. When his pal came against me it blackened. I don’t remember it, but I drove the crushed bottle right in his face.

I’ve heard rumours about the thing with your old vocalist. I’ve heard that it was the rest of the band which killed him. Pieces of his skull shall have been used as necklasses. The police is sure about the thing that he commited suicide.

—It was a time when we didn’t want to disprove the rumours. It was good publicity for us, but now it has become so heavy, that we thought we should do something about it, says the Mayhem guys, and thinks about the ‘niceguy’ interview in Dagbladet.

—They who got brains to think with will understand it.

The rumours about the thing that a innercircle of ten satanists shall kill other people?

—No comment.

Middle-age satanism

It has been operated with three categories of satanists

They who call themself satanists after they have practiced occult rituals

The followers of The Church of Satan and it’s grounder Anton LaVey

Often called ‘the violent satanists’—Satan worshipers

The guys in Mayhem are against the people in category 1 and 2.

—Church of Satan call themselves satanists because they think it’s funny and provoking. They are really atheists and are against the church because it has caused so much evil upon the time. They predicate that the christians are evil and theirself are good ones. We are against The Church of Satan because we’re against goodness.

A central name for satanists has been Aleister Crowley (1875–1947). His ‘Book of Law’ has been in use of very many which is interested in the occult. The guys in Mayhem is against him too.

—Aleister Crowley called himself ‘The world’s most evil person’. But what the fuck did he do which was so evil? NOTHING! Conclusion: Crowley was nice.

Crowley is most famous for his device ‘Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Law’.

—That law is totally wrong. People shall do what we want them to do. We’re against freedom, and forced a band from Rogaland in Norway—Belsebub—to split up. We started the whole thing in Norway and we are in command, it’s just the way it is. It’s hard to explain why. Both Crowley and The Church of Satan preach the thing that people shall get strong, only the strong ones have the rights to survive and the weak shall be crushed. “True satanists are superhumans” says the Mayhem guys as it was a normal thing to be.

Norwegian school

—There are three Real Black Metal bands in Norway, says Metalion in ‘Slayer Mag’. Those are Mayhem, Darkthrone and Burzum. Burzum’s mainman is Count Grishnackh, and the most of you surely have noticed that he is arrested, suspected for setting two churches afire. Besides these three we have the ‘family’—Enslaved, Emperor and Arcturus—and all the garagebands which only time will show what stands for. Norwegian Black Metal isn’t only good to be norwegian, says Metalion. He means that Norwegian bands are totally serious both with music and what they stand for.

—The music is really special, it has a mood which you almost never hear anywere else.

Euronymous talks about a norwegian school.

—In foreign countries it’s most focused on riffs, but we in Norway does it more intricate. We compose the songs, and do not have the standarized flatt sound that the foreign bands which goes to Florida (Morrysound) or Stockholm (Sunlight) has. Soon Norway will get all the atention, says Euronymous.

Gothic

Many of the bands has left the speed behind, and picked up the slower, darker and more gothic moodness.

—Burzum doesn’t exactly sound brutal, but creates the sound of fog and depression, the evil groundmood can be as well as important, explains Euronymous. He is experimating with classical structures in his own band Mayhem, but puts thundering speedy drums in the background.

Enslaved is another band that is experimating with classical elements. Their fifteen year old mainman—D. Ymer—is really into Grieg and Chopin.

—Musicaly we’re differnt from most of the other bands because we use a lot of keyboard. It sounds more majestic, says D. Ymer and tells that they play epic viking symfonies. Enslaved is practicing a viking-concept which contains norse lyrics and a inversed norse belief.

—Loke (the supreme), Fenris and Votan is our gods, and we are therefor not a Black Metal band. But we feel a musicaly frienship with them, explains D. Ymer. They are soon to release their debut record—‘Hordanes Land’—on the English company Candlelight.

PERSONALY

On the same company as Enslaved is Emperor from Notodden (Norway). The guy who runs Candlelight asked Euronymous if he knew about some good bands in Norway, says drummer Faust.

Emperor don’t look at themself as a Black Metal band either. —I am not a satanist, but I praise the evil. It’s as simpel as that. Satanism is a personal thing, I don’t ask other people about things like that, says Faust. But that did the mother of the bassplayer in the band when she read about Count Grishnackh. She told him to quit the band or move out. The twentyone year old guy have dropped the bassplaying…

Musicaly Emperor is different from the rest of the band because of their extremely shrieking vocals and with speedy changes from slow to ultrafast. The slow parts is a thing they share with the Oslo band Arcturus, which have released an 7". They are something special, because their music is based on synth. Immortal is also a part of the family. Their debut—Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism—is out in these days on the french company Osmose. Their music is more primitive than the others.

‘Life metal’

With all the atention around the norwegian Black Metal scene—nationaly as well as internationaly—the bands maybe will start to sell more records. Euronymous thinks that is a good thing.

—It is better that we in the ‘family’ earns a lot of bucks, than that all these Life Metal bands does it. They are just an insult to the old Venom which created the whole thing, and they can thank for their existence. No matter, we will never get commercial. If we can manipulate a lot of stupid kids, that’s great.

Anno Satanas 2004-2005, SchattenSturm

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