As you may have noticed, this past week I have been quite busy re-reading Heavy Metal Master Class, the best-selling book on heavy metal history. What interested me the most was the chapter on early Norwegian black metal, which I only had a faint memory of.
It's actually quite fascinating. There are many (tons) of exclusive interviews, often translated from obscure and out-of-print Norwegian zines... the type with only 25 readers, that could someone land an interview with legends such as Dead, Euronymous, Necrobutcher and Hellhammer.
Of course, it's not all about Mayhem, there were other bands too, but since a large part of the early Norwegian scene revolved around Euronymous' "secret meeting place" Helvete...
Hellhammer Interviewed About Euronymous
Hellhammer (Jan Axel Blomberg) is typically a man of few words. He'd rather let his actions speak for themselves. But that is not to say he never talked to the press. Here are a few anecdotes he had about fellow Mayhem band members, starting with the "new" vocalist Attila Csihar.
Hellhammer:His [Attila Csihar's] vocals were something new, totally inverted and bizarre. It was grim and dynamic. You might not like it much but you can be fascinated by it. It takes time to understand what he's doing and how he's singing in different voices, and it really adds to the recording. [...] I have a cool memory when I was helping Attila with the vocals of "Buried by Varg and Dust". We had a drape around us like in a circle with lots of candles inside. He wasn't sure how to sing it, so I was phrasing these words. It's a good memory.
He also had to mention the "old" vocalist, the legendary Dead (Per Ohlin) of both Morbid and Mayhem fame. Hellhammer was immediately impressed by the lyrics on "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas".
Hellhammer: Dead had a dark personality, I suppose, so his lyrics were all very scary, dark and eerie. It really reflected his personality.
Which brings us to the guitarist, and founder of Mayhem... the no-less legendary Euronymous, who sadly passed away after being killed by Varg Vikernes (of Burzum).
"It was obvious that Euronymous was crazy"
According to the drummer, it was "obviously" to everyone that Euronymous was "crazy" in more than one way.
Hellhammer: He [Euronymous] was quite a social person, contrary to Dead who was as antisocial as one can be. It was obvious that he was crazy, although you didn't notice that from him in everyday life. When I first met him he seemed a very normal person. But the more I got to know him, the more I understood that he was cracked in the head. I mean, eating other people's brains is very disturbed. After Dead blew off his head, Euronymous took a small piece of brain, put it in his food and ate it. [...] Euronymous, Dead and I used to live together in this old house in Norway. We had our office there and our rehearsal place. It gave being in the band a cool feeling. That house was actually the place where Dead killed himself. The police removed Dead's corpse, but the stains of the blood and the brains remained. Euronymous moved in with his parents again, because he could not bear the stench. I had to live there for months because I did not have any other place. Sometimes I had to go into Dead's room and came out puking.
This echoes some of the stuff Euronymous himself claimed in various interviews, notably that he wanted to distance his band - and himself - from the fakes, the trendies, and drive away "wimpy" people from his shows by engaging in extreme behaviour.
You can also read the compilation article "What other musicians thought of Euronymous" to get a sense of how the Norwegian scene thought of the Mayhem guitarist and frontman, as a whole.
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