Satyricon is perhaps one of the most interesting bands in the Norwegian black metal scene. Halfway between Dimmu Borgir and something more esoteric like Burzum or Darkthrone, the band is still active today... even if they don't consider their music black metal anymore... or do they?
Satyr has gone back and forth on this question over the years.
In the book "Real Satanic Black Metal", he said he wanted "nothing to do" with the modern black metal scene. And in another, more recent one, he went off about bands like Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth cheapening the genre with their "vampire edgelord" gimmicks.
"I think SATYRICON were outcasts in the whole Black Metal scene"
Sitting down with the legendary Morsay Magazine, it was about time Satyr and Frost - the two main men behind the Satyricon phenomenon - gave a straight answer to the question.
The first interesting point brought up by Satyr is that he wasn't into extreme metal at first. He preferred the hard rock of AC/DC. Although, some would say that AC/DC was itself pretty "extreme" for its day (and even for today!).
Satyr: The first record that I bought with my own money was AC/DC's Let There Be Rock when I was eight. [...] I was in a trance-like state of mind when I was listening to music. I was not to be talked to, or distracted.
On the subject of the infamous Norwegian Inner Circle, both men provide diverging answers.
Frost: I was never part of the Inner Circle... (laughs). Maybe you should ask Satyr.Satyr: How [I got] into the circle? Meeting people at concerts. Mayhem's legendary singer Dead committed suicide, and I met him selling Metallica bootlegs outside a Morbid Angel show in Oslo. I was into the whole fanzine thing. I think that would be Greek to most people today. But you made fanzines and people would go and sell them outside a show, hand out flyers for demos and things like that.
Frost claims that Satyricon was never close to anyone in particular when it came to Norwegian black metal bands. Which is strange, because Satyr himself was involved with Darkthrone on several occasions - notably, via the short-lived label Moonfog Productions.
Frost: There were many emerging bands at the time. We were all more or less close, yes. Many of us knew each other in Olso. But we weren't all part of the Inner Circle. It was the beginning of the Black Metal scene. A lot of things started to happen. Some of them quite horrible. But at the same time, we were always two in Satyricon, we worked essentially as a duo, Satyr and me. I think we were outcasts in the whole scene. Besides Samoth (EMPEROR, ZYKLON-B) we mostly kept to ourselves. [...] It was certainly an extraordinary movement. It was a way of thinking, a way of being, a way of dealing with things that was highly unusual. It was very political. [...] Things were so extreme back then and so... unbalanced, because we were so young. Many of those things were good things, you know? Many of those good things were as a result of the fierce drive you only have once in your life during your teens. But some of that seen in hindsight, and with mature and adult eyes, seems stupid.
Maybe even two close band mates like Satyr and Frost can have different points of view, even from within the same band.
Satyricon: "They all said they were Satanists"
One even more controversial aspect of the early Norwegian scene is the accusation of satanism. Outside of a few mentally ill individuals who claimed to "practice rituals" and "summon the devil" (see Infernus of Gorgoroth), most black metal artists have repeatedly refuted the accusation of Satanism and "devil worship", which they claim is a "media creation".
Here, Frost and Satyr provide even more detail.
Frost: They all said they were Satanists, and they had to go back on it. At no point did I ever say I was a devil-worshipper or a Satanist. Rather, the contrary, I said that it was too primitive and wasn't my cup of tea. [...] Many of those people weren’t really into it either, but pretended they were because Euronymous of Mayhem told them to.Satyr: There were about 30 people in the inner circle, and nobody worshiped the devil or anything like that. The media at the time just made it up. It [was the work of] just one journalist from BT [Bergen Times, tn.].
Interesting how pretty much everyone involved - Attila, Hellhammer, Varg Vikernes, Fenriz, Nocturno Culto, Necrobutcher, Ihsahn, Abbath, and even Mortuus - all reject the media's - and Hollywood's, see Lords of Chaos - portrayal of what the Inner Circle of second wave Norwegian black metal was really like.
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