Mayhem is a Norwegian black metal band formed in Langhus in 1984. They were one of the founders of the Norwegian black metal scene and their music has strongly influenced the black metal genre. Mayhem's early career was highly controversial,
primarily due to their notorious live performances, the 1991 suicide of vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin ("Dead") and the 1993 murder of guitarist Øystein Aarseth ("Euronymous") by former member Varg Vikernes ("Count Grishnackh") of Burzum.
The group released a demo and an EP that were highly influential, and amassed a loyal following through sporadic and notorious live performances, attracting further attention through their ties to the string of Norwegian church burnings and the
incidents of violence surrounding them. Mayhem disbanded after Aarseth's murder, shortly before the release of their debut album, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, regarded as a classic of the black metal genre. Surviving former members Jan Axel Blomberg
("Hellhammer"), Jørn Stubberud ("Necrobutcher") and Sven Erik Kristiansen ("Maniac") reformed the next year with Rune Eriksen ("Blasphemer") replacing Aarseth. Attila Csihar and Morten Iversen ("Teloch") have since replaced Kristiansen and
Eriksen, respectively. Their post-Aarseth material is characterized by increased experimentation. The 2007 album Ordo Ad Chao received the Spellemann Award for best heavy metal album.
Mayhem was founded in 1984 by guitarist Øystein Aarseth (known initially as "Destructor"] later "Euronymous"), bassist Jørn Stubberud ("Necrobutcher") and drummer Kjetil Manheim, taking their band name from the Venom song "Mayhem with
Mercy". The band members were mainly influenced by groups such as Venom, Death, Kreator, Motörhead, Necrodeath, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Bathory, Sarcófago, Sodom, Destruction, Celtic Frost, Hellhamm4] and Parabellu5] The lineup began
playing cover songs by Black Sabbath, Venom, Motörhea] and later recorded the demo Pure Fucking Armageddon. After its release, Aarseth, who used to sing lead vocals, along with Stubberud, during first demo's studio rehearsals, recruited two
session vocalists, Eirik Norheim ("Messiah") and Sven Erik Kristiansen ("Maniac"), in 1986 and 1987. Norheim performed vocals only for a concert, which took place on 20 April 1985 in Ski, and by the end of that year he had quit Mayhem. He later
formed hardcore punk band Within Range and Oi!/street punk band Cockroach Clan. Whereas, with Kristiansen, Mayhem recorded its first EP, Deathcrush, in 1987, and released it through Euronymous' newly formed label Posercorpse Music. Manheim and
Euronymous only played at one show on 22 March 1986 at the Ski theater as L.E.G.O. and the show was recorded on video. This was a side project about experimental music against mainstream.
The initial 1,000 copy release of Deathcrush quickly sold out. It was later reissued in 1993 by the newly renamed Deathlike Silence Productions as a joint venture with Euronymous' Oslo specialist record shop Helvete (Norwegian for "Hell").
Manheim and Maniac left the band in 1988.
With Dead (1988-1991):
After two brief replacements, Maniac and Manheim's positions were filled by Swedish vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin ("Dead") and local drummer Jan Axel Blomberg ("Hellhammer"). With Dead, the band's concerts became notorious. For concerts, Dead
went to great lengths to achieve the image and atmosphere he wished. From the beginning of his career, he was known to wear "corpse paint", which involved covering his face with black and white makeup. According to Necrobutcher, "[i]t wasn't
anything to do with the way Kiss and Alice Cooper used makeup. Dead actually wanted to look like a corpse. He didn't do it to look cool". Hellhammer claimed that Dead "was the first black metal musician to use corpse paint". To complete his
corpse-like image, Dead would bury his stage clothes and dig them up again to wear on the night of a concert. While performing, Dead would often cut himself with hunting knives and broken glass. Additionally, the band often had pig or sheep heads
impaled on stakes and planted at the front of their stage.
Stian Johansen ("Occultus"), who briefly took over as vocalist after Dead's suicide, made this statement about him:
"He [Dead] didn't see himself as human; he saw himself as a creature from another world. He said he had many visions that his blood has frozen in his veins, that he was dead. That is the reason he took that name. He knew he would die."
In 1990, the members of Mayhem moved to "an old house in the forest" near Oslo, which was used as a place for the band to rehearse. They began writing songs for their next album, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. Mayhem bassist Necrobutcher said
that, after living together for a while, Dead and Euronymous "got on each other's nerves a lot" and "weren't really friends at the end". Hellhammer recalls that Dead once went outside to sleep in the woods because Euronymous was playing synth
music that Dead hated. Euronymous then went outside and began shooting into the air with a shotgun. Varg Vikernes claims that Dead once stabbed Euronymous with a knife.
On 8 April 1991, Dead committed suicide in the house rented by the band. He was found by Euronymous with slit wrists and a shotgun wound to the head. Dead's suicide note started with the sentence "Excuse all the blood" and included a brief
explanation "nobody will ever understand this, but as a sort of explanation, I am not human, this is only a dream and soon I will awake". The full text has become public and it ended by saying "I didn't come up with this now but 17 years ago".
Attached to the note, Dead left the lyrics of the song Life Eternal. When Euronymous found all this, he went to a nearby store and bought a disposable camera to photograph the corpse, after re-arranging some items.
Necrobutcher recalls how Euronymous told him of the suicide:
Øystein called me up the next day ... and says, "Dead has done something really cool! He killed himself". I thought, have you lost it? What do you mean cool? He says, "Relax, I have photos of everything". I was in shock and grief. He was
just thinking how to exploit it. So I told him, "OK. Don't even fucking call me before you destroy those pictures".
Euronymous used Dead's suicide to foster Mayhem's 'evil' image and claimed Dead had killed himself because black metal had become 'trendy' and commercialized. In time, rumors spread that Euronymous had made a stew with bits of Dead's brain and
had made necklaces with bits of his skull.[20] The band later denied the former rumor, but confirmed that the latter was true.[20] Moreover, Euronymous claimed to have given these necklaces to musicians he deemed worthy,[21] which was confirmed by
several other members of the scene, like Bård 'Faust' Eithun[22] and Jon 'Metalion' Kristiansen. In 2018, a fragment of Dead's skull also went on sale for $3,500, along with the letter from Euronymous that it was posted with. The letter
finishes with: "OK! That should be all. I’m enclosing a little piece from Dead’s cranium in case you’d like to have it. Hear from you soon!" On a 2019 interview with Loudwire and Consequence of Sound, Necrobutcher claimed to have had plans
to kill Euronymous since he was disgusted by his treatment of Dead, but that Vikernes "beat [him] to it". It remains a trend for fans to produce artwork using blood. One such example is actually by drummer Hellhammer himself, who wrote lyrics to
Pagan Fears in his own blood as can be seen on the Instagram page for thetruemayhemcollection in a post from October 2019. Artist Maxime André Taccardi has also produced a painting of Dead using his own blood.
Murder of Euronymous, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and breakup (1991–19):
Dead's suicide and Euronymous's actions following it affected Necrobutcher so much that he left Mayhem, thinning the band's ranks down to two. The group rehearsed for a short time thereafter with Occultus, joining the band with plans to begin
recording vocal and bass tracks for Mayhem's debut album, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. However, this was short-lived; he left the band after receiving a death threat from Euronymous. In July 1993, Live in Leipzig was released as the band's
tribute to Dead.
In late 1992, the recording of Mayhem's upcoming album resumed; thus Aarseth engaged three more session musicians: Burzum's Varg Vikernes (stage name "Count Grishnackh"), Thorns' Snorre W. Ruch ("Blackthorn"), who handled bass guitar and rhythm
guitar respectively, and singer Attila Csihar, of Hungarian black metal band Tormentor. Due to complaints by his parents, Euronymous closed his scene focal point record shop Helvete, claiming as reasons adverse media and police attention. Much of
the album was recorded during the first half of 1993 at the Grieg Hall in Bergen. To coincide with the release of the album, Euronymous and Vikernes had conspired to blow up Nidaros Cathedral, which appears on the album cover. Euronymous's murder
in August 1993 put an end to this plan and delayed the album's release..
On 10 August 1993, Vikernes murdered Euronymous. On that night, Vikernes and Ruch travelled 518 km from Bergen to Euronymous' apartment in Oslo. Upon their arrival, a confrontation ensued, which ended when Vikernes fatally stabbed Euronymous. His
body was found outside the apartment with twenty-three cut wounds — two to the head, five to the neck and sixteen to the back. Vikernes claims that Euronymous had plotted to torture him to death and videotape the event, using a meeting about
an unsigned contract as a pretext. On the night of the murder, Vikernes claims he intended to hand Euronymous the signed contract and "tell him to fuck off", but that Euronymous attacked him first. Additionally, Vikernes also claimed that
most of Euronymous' cut wounds were caused by broken glass he had fallen on during the struggle. Vikernes was arrested within days, and a few months later he was sentenced to 21 years in prison, the maximum sentence administered in Norway, for
both the murder and church arsons; he was released from prison in 2009. Blackthorn, who waited for Vikernes downstairs and took no part in Aarseth's murder, was charged with complicity in murder and sentenced to serve 8 years in prison. With
only Attila and Hellhammer remaining, Mayhem ceased to exist.
In a video interview with Consequence of Sound on 15 October 2019, Necrobutcher discussed his bitterness toward Euronymous after being replaced in the band with Varg Vikernes before the recording of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. Then he turned to the
murder of Euronymous, offering an eye-opening revelation:
"OK, I can tell it right now, because I’ve been holding it in for many years, but actually I was on my way down to kill him myself. And when it happened, I saw the morning paper, thinking ‘Fuck, I gotta get home to my place and get out all the
weapons and drugs and shit I had in my house, because they’re coming to my house because I’m probably going to be the No. 1 suspect for this.' But little did I know that the Norwegian police already knew that Count Grishnackh [Varg] was going
down also to kill him. Because they bugged his phone, and he actually talked about this killing before he went to Bergen so the cops already knew that he was coming, so they probably were thinking to themselves, ‘We didn’t nail this guy for the
church burnings, so let’s nail him for murder, and get rid of this fucking guy in Oslo the same time.’ So that's basically what happened.
In May 1994, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas was released and dedicated to Euronymous. Its release had been delayed due to complaints filed by Euronymous' parents, who had objected to the presence of bass guitar parts played by Vikernes. According to
Vikernes himself, Hellhammer assured Aarseth's parents that he would re-record the bass tracks himself; being unable to play bass guitar, Hellhammer left the bass tracks unchanged, and so the album features Vikernes as bassist.
