Here's the whole Mayhem story from some website. Interesting read for everyone:
Let’s start with a one or two sentence history of Black Metal. Borne from the death/speed metal combos of Slayer, Venom, and other bands of lesser importance BM was hybrid of the hate and a “Yay Satan” groove but without any of the humor. It’s the fastest metal out there, mixed with all kinds of weird shit like organs and flutes and loaded down with Viking lore (hey, Beelzebub has horns… Vikings have horns… makes sense) and a zest for making any definition of “over the top” you’ve ever associated with the term a comparative parody.
And since this is going to be long enough already, thankfully Mayhem is right there at the beginning (some want to give Bathory credit for being first, but for total comedy purposes I bought a Bathory album way back in ’89. To this DAY I consider it the worst music purchase I’ve ever made... and I bought the first Sum41 CD for Chrissakes. Therefore Quorthon gets no love here, except for his cover of “God Save the Queen” which is pure
ing art).
Mayhem began as a four piece troupe in 1983 but it wasn’t until the lineup of Euronymous, Hellhammer, Necrobutcher, and Dead started working on De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas in ’88 that they first become noteworthy. Why? Because in between the time they began working on it and its eventual release, the lead singer (“Dead”… in addition to the name he wore worm-rotted shirts onstage and huffed a bag filled with the carcass of a dead raven before performing. Who didn’t see this coming?) blew his brains out with a shotgun. Bandmate Euronymous (later to have the CD dedicated to his memory and who becomes central to the story shortly) was the “unfortunate” who discovered the body. For obviously no reason besides absolute concern he jumped out the window, ran to a drugstore, and purchased a camera before calling the police. As the ultimate tribute, the benefits were reaped by way of their infamous bootleg “Dawn of the Black Hearts”:
Whoa!! Legit snuff on an album cover? Pffft… bitch we aint EVEN gotten started yet.
In addition to his photojournalism skills, Euronymous was pretty much the master of ceremonies for the whole Norwegian Black Metal movement. Besides his guitar work for Mayhem, he also owned the record store (“Hell”) which was ground zero of everything. Disenfranchised teens looking for something to direct their boredom-induced hatred flocked to the place, with the most die-hard calling themselves “the Inner Circle” that would talk about how great death and blood is and cut themselves and plot ways to drive Christianity out of Norway and return it to Satan or Odin or Hagar the Horrible or whatever demonic Viking happened to be available. “Hell” also had a makeshift recording studio, where under the flag of the swastika Mayhem and others let the magic happen.
Eventually, they made the leap from discussion to action. A rash of arsons, the targets being centuries-old churches, was quickly traced back to the movement (I imagine it didn’t take Scotland Yard’s finest to put the pieces together. “Well Sarge, our top suspects are this guy who served a little time in an arson-for-hire scheme… and these kids, one of whom wrote a love sonnet to a burning church in pig’s blood on a picture of the pope then masturbated all over it. Call it a hunch, but we may not need the sketch artist for this one.”). As the police began to center their investigation on a main suspect, the chubby minion of Lucifer Euronymous boldly predicted that while impressive… the real fireplug, Mayhem bassist Kristian "Varg" Vikernes AKA “Count Grishnakh” AKA “Burzum” would soon do something far grander to get his face in the papers.
If you can take one life lesson from this story, it should probably be “Do not predict a guy made up to look like a victim of the plague gaining national attention for burning historical churches to the ground in the name of Satan is going to do something even bigger to get attention… especially if the nutjob in question hates you.”
November 10, 1993. Having abandoned plans to do something even bigger with a big-ass axe, The Count and another BMer decended upon Euronymous’s crib under the guise of signing a record contract. Twenty three stab wounds to the neck and back later the rotund gatekeeper lay dead in a pool of his own blood. Grishnakh, strings being pulled by the Dark Overfiend himself, calmly left the scene with his buddy and drove to a lake to clean off the gore and dispose of some evidence. Unfortunately for them, Satan doesn’t really give a shit about the perfect crime. The cunning criminal left bloody fingerprints everywhere, showed the knife off to friends the next day, and just in case they had The Sinful Dwarf cops investigating he LEFT THE CONTRACT WITH HIS SIGNATURE ON IT THERE!! When he was captured, rumor has it the first question he was asked in interrogation was “Look, we don’t quite have enough evidence yet. I don’t suppose you videotaped it, did you?”
The Count, now known only as “Burzum”, is currently serving a 22-year prison sentence that apparently is so bereft of freedom he’s able to record CDs from it. No longer a follower of Black Metal, he’s much more into being a Neo-Nazi these days. But believe it or not, that wasn’t the end of Mayhem. Original members HellHammer, Necrobutcher, and Maniac reformed the group which led first to an EP then to 2000’s Grand Declaration of War. Yes kiddies... the banner at the top of this post, which all of you know to be my absolute favorite ever of all the hundreds I’ve received since (it was like the second or third I ever got), which just makes me marvel at how many contexts I love it in every time I look at it… is nothing more than my name on top of a CD cover with the “Mayhem” logo cropped out.
