When people think about early days, underground proto-black metal, the first two bands that come to mind are usually Bathory and Venom... and Motörhead, for the more musically astute. And maybe even Helgrind if you're completely crazy. But for some reason, people always go back to Bathory. And for good reason.
Just at how many bands in the Norwegian scene, from Darkthrone to Enslaved, have said that they were directly influenced by the music of Bathory, and thus of Quorthon - the band's only frontman.
While Bathory is often overshadowed by the towering success of their contemporaries, just look at the gigantic career of Mayhem if you want a fair comparison, there is no point in attempting to deny the massive influence of albums like "The Return" and "Blood Fire Death" on the underground black metal scene. Or even the death metal scene for that matter.
The Complete Quorthon Interview (Bathory)
While Swedish extreme metal is nowadays associated - some would even say, tainted by association - with the mainstream sellout acts like Dissection and the "mellow death" of Arch Enemy, it wasn't always the case. There was a time where Swedish extreme metal was defined by bands such as Bathory.
In an interview published in the book "Real Satanic Black Metal" by Antoine G, perhaps the last interview given by Quorthon before his unfortunate demise, Bathory is asked why so many people point to Venom (a NWOBHM) band, instead of Bathory, as the "founders" of black metal... Quorthon mocks Venom (those "Newcastle guys"), and says that his influences were mostly found in Motörhead instead.
Quorthon: Well, [VENOM] were the first of course, if you want to get rid of MOTÖRHEAD and ANGEL WITCH and all those bands, but they never received any of the attention those Newcastle guys did. [...] The people who are doing those magazines and the people who are playing in bands today, were young kids, thirteen, fourteen years old, into VENOM in that age, so of course you have to give a big respect to them for having started it, but they didn't treat people very nicely and they turned out to be dickheads in the end anyway. There have been hundreds of bands that have influenced Black Metal and Death Metal in millions of new directions since them, so you have to look forward.
He then comments on bands changing their genre, and the schism that has caused to many microgenres - viking metal, deathgrind, war metal, sewer metal, goregrind, etc. - to appear.
Quorthon: I don't know. When the whole thing escalated in San Francisco, everyone called their own music for something different... Black Metal, Death Metal, Speed Metal, Thrash Metal, Crossover, Hardcore, anything you know. Today you have millions of terms for it... bands are also changing their styles from one album to another. If you look at the evolution of our music, you can see that it wasn’t an overnight change... we built something over the years and it's hard to put a label on it that lasts ten years.
This echoes slightly a Fenriz interview he gave recently, in which he claimed to play "heavy metal, period". Clearly, the microgenre trend has gone way too far when you have stuff like "blackened shoegaze influenced retro-thrash revival" and other nonsense.
"Swedish Black Metal Bands All Sound The Same..."
Another subject of controversy is the dilution of the once serious Swedish metal scene, and its absorption by commercially minded acts like Arch Enemy, In Flames, Dark Tranquility, and the rest of the mallcore crowd. To say nothing of bands like Antekhrist, Watain, Dark Funeral, Demonecromancy, and the "black metalcore" scene.
Quorthon: I think Black Metal itself is more close to my heart, cause that's what the whole thing started. Today bands concentrate too much on playing a little bit too fast and sounding alike. I know a handful of these [Black Metal] bands in Sweden, but I can never separate them from each other and I've never been in touch with them personally. But it's good though, cause once in a while they give a little credit to [BATHORY].
And indeed, many of the original second wave black metal bands often credit Bathory as their primary inspiration, alongside Helgrind, Motörhead, Sodom and often even Morbid itself.
The influence of Bathory not just on black metal, but on death metal and grindcore as well, cannot be overstated. They also pretty much invented the "viking metal" genre, although some would say that Manowar were pioneers in that field. RIP Quorthon, you will be missed. Legend.
Ad
> Black Metal Blasphemy: A History Of Third Wave Black Metal (Best Selling Book)
Return to Voice Metal News.
Tweet