Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 286: Norwegian Black Metal Part II - Orc Urinal

Episode Date: September 16, 2017

On the second part of our series, we introduce murderer Varg Vikerness, cover the dozens of church burnings attributed to what was referred to as the Norwegian Black Circle, and discuss the type of medieval Satanism that these guys believed in and eventually practiced.

There's no place to escape to. This is the last talk. On the left. That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? Man, oh man. Norwegian is just difficult to learn. It's difficult to read. It's difficult to say. This is when I'm kind of upset. We're going to begin today. I'm looking at you, Kissel. I'm looking at you, Dogmeat. Neither one of you decided to bring your Mjolnir amulet. To be honest, I feel nude without it. I feel without courage, without valor, without assertiveness, which are the main qualities of the God Thor of the Isir branch of the Tree of Life.

I'm fully into it now. This is wonderful. I can't wait to get to today's episode. Last podcast on the left, I am Ben Kissel. That's Marcus Parks. We have Henry Zabrowski in full, just, man, you're into it. Yeah. It's almost like he adopts anything that's put in front of him, like Scientology. I don't want to start to slowly absorb it. I kind of have that ability because Alsatru is, we'll talk about it as a very provocative religion.

It's Alsatru. Alright, we're on to Norwegian Black Metal Part Two. So around the same time that Euronymous opened up his record shop, Hilvete, a young man from Bergen on the west coast of Norway named Varg Vikernis showed up on the scene. Oh God, he appeared to be exhausted. I like Varg Vikernis. He sounds like a kicker. Like an unbelievable NFL kicker. He does sound like the least talented person on an NFL football like a team.

So Varg born Christian Larson Vikernis had spent part of his childhood in the Middle East where his father had worked for Saddam Hussein developing computer programs to manipulate Iraq's economy. His father was Donald Rumsfeld. No way it wasn't. Unlike a lot of these Black Metal guys who came from fairly liberal backgrounds, Varg's parents were both and still are a vowed racist. But that still didn't stop him from getting upset with Varg when he started getting into Nazi shit at about the age of 15. Varg, what's you doing? Varg, put the helmets down. Varg, stop trying to put all of the dogs into that weird chicken fence construction that you've made in the backyard. It's tough being a parent. You never know what you're gonna get, you know? What's your kid gonna be like? But you see, mother, I only put the dogs with the black hair into chicken wire.

No, Varg, you don't understand. The problem is not what type of dogs you put in there. It's the fact that they are dogs and they are dogs. Norwegian parenting, never easy. Varg said the reason why he liked the Germans were because they looked sharp, they killed Americans, whom Varg hated, and they had better weapons. Is that true, though? They had pretty good weapons. Yeah, the Luger's a fine pistol. They had a big gun. They had UFO technology. They were zips hopping around, scaring the fucking hill to folk, scaring the countryside. They knew that weird shit was going on. They had true contact with frill energy, which these guys have been searching for. Varg, he was obsessed with these weapons. For some reason, neo-Nazis are obsessed with weapons. They talk about weapons all the time.

Well, you know the reason. The world domination portion of their ideology. I think also, I think it's probably got something to do with lack of pleasing a woman. That's possible. So at about 14, Varg started playing guitar, and by 17, he had joined a band called Old Funeral. Hell yeah. Honestly, that's just a normal funeral. Like, old, young funeral is kind of edgy, sort of sad. Old Funeral was just like, it was a long life, a healthier life, baker for 50 years. Welcome to Baby Funeral! See, Baby Funeral, that's a name for a band. Baby Funeral. Boy Funeral.

Any funeral doesn't rely on the actual normal decay of the human body. Old Funeral also sounds like what my father used to suck down before going into work. Just a bunch of oysters with cigarette ash on top of them. Eventually, Varg left Old Funeral. This is the reason why. These guys were just interested in eating. They didn't care about my sort of shotgun, or my dynamite, or any of these things. They were just interested in hamburgers and food. They had absolutely no interest in the weapons that I liked. Hey Varg, that's a really cool sawed-off shotgun, but have you seen the new burrito bowl over at Taco Bell? You do not understand. Will the burrito bowls kill your friends?

Over years, maybe, yes. With your corporization, New McDonald's. Your horrible Americanization. That's what you do sucking down your hamburgers. Here, sawed-off shotgun. It's nothing American about this. It's just like the film Reservoir Dogs. I might have to agree with Varg on this one. A band that just talks about food called Old Funeral. It just sounds like everyone sits around waiting to get gout. What do you do with these people? No, we're going to see this conflict a lot in black metal in general, where it's like they don't like normal teenager fun things. They all criticize each other for wanting to go get laid instead of and eat food and hang out and smoke fucking cigarettes and drink beers and have a great time because you're in a band, you're touring everywhere, you're making friends everywhere.

All he wants to do is talk about the fucking revolution. I don't give a shit about your stupid revolution. I'm trying to see tits. Yeah, that was one of the things that they said about Euronymous from Mayhem. He just hung around in the record store eating kebabs and drinking Coca-Cola all day. If you've wanted to burn churches. Alright, well, teach their own. What about the hamburger thing? I mean, to bring Police Kill Me back into it, Police Kill Me is like an oral history of punk in the 1970s in New York City. Didi Ramon talked about hamburgers most of the time. Hamburgers were big at the time? They were hungry. They were starving.

The Ramones came from the street and so when they finally got a chance to just liberally buy burgers at any point, they were super jazzed about it. They didn't come from the street. They came from Queens. Well, which is on a street. There are streets in Queens. Yeah, well, I bought that. Oh, hey, that's really my city, my blood. I mean, I like that conversation. This is before Food Network. This is before Guy Fieri, Triple D. Oh, no, don't you fucking say that the Ramones were the first Guy Fieri. The Ramones were the Guy Fietties of music. Lovin' food. Flavortown. Out of bounds.

Welcome to Flavortown. Deep deep deep deep deep deep grave. It's grave. Oh man, I'm getting hungry. After Old Funeral, Varg left the weapons and even the Nazi shit temporarily and moved on to role-playing games because all the older boys were getting into spellcasting. Oh my goodness. And role-playing took Varg to two places, occultism and fantasy, particularly Lord of the Rings. It took him to one place, everyone's grandparents' basement. That's where it took him. Technically, in the end, what this could have done for Varg is make him the coolest man in the face of the planet.

Because I know several people that started life very early doing role-playing games. And I'm not going to put even myself on that list. I think that you are putting yourself on that list. I am just saying that there's a lot of kids out there that started role-playing games at eight, nine years old that have blossomed into successful, creative, loving people. And that added positive things to life. What about Varg? What about Varg? That's what I want to know.

My big question on today's episode is what about Varg? What about Varg? What about Varg? Well, Lord of the Rings in particular is where the name of one of the most influential black metal bands of all time, Varg's one-man project, Borsum, comes from. Borsum! His original name for Borsum was Urukahai. Now, in case you don't know, Ben, you may not know this. I don't know.

Yeah, because you're uneducated. I don't know about that. Yeah, you were in a part of the Cool Kids Club like I was. Yeah, you're a reject. Well, I do have to say we were mostly practicing Bret Hart's sharpshooter in the figure four in the basement. So I don't know who was more nerdy growing up, but mine had more physical pain involved. I will say mine had more writing and dice rolling, and yours had more sexual play with other boys. Well, if you looked at it through a certain lens, I suppose you could see it that way.

Well, the Urukahai, this is for you, Ben. The Urukahai were created by Sauron late in the Third Age from Lord of the Rings. And in the War of the Ring, the Urukahai made up a large part of Saruman's army, together with the Dunlendings, man enemies of Rohan. They were man enemies. Oh, I see. Well, yeah, there's orc enemies and man enemies for the Dunlendings had sided against the rest of man in the War for the One Ring. Oh, I'm just so flat. I need a hit of my inhaler after hearing all of that.

I'm flabbergasted. Now, these people, the orcs and Sauron, they were the people that Varg identified with, the bad guys, and he despised the heroes in Lord of the Rings. He said, quote, I hate dwarves and elves. The elves are fair, but typically Jewish. But they're not. Well, this barely makes sense in the context of the Lord of the Rings. Well, apparently, if you read the Silmarillion, the elves also have a traditional wedding dance that has a bunch of people lifting people on chairs. I don't know.

Well, that doesn't sound like an old funeral to me. Well, that's a joke, but in the context of the Lord of the Rings series, as it actually is, the Silmarillion suggests that the orcs were actually descendants of the east elves who were captured by Melkor and warped into the foul creatures in service of Sauron. So really, his whole metaphor about the elves being too Jewish and him worshipping the orcs doesn't work at all. Now, where does Liv Tyler come into this? Because I thought she was wonderful in those movies. All the guys in the band, all they wanted to say is, ooh, I wish I could bang Liv Tyler, Queen of the Elves. Please put me in the forever place with Liv Tyler. Wouldn't that be amazing?

And I said, no, put me in Mordor. That's where everything is cool is happening. Give me a King Kong or Ked game. That's one American thing I like. And you put it in the main hall of Mordor next to the bathroom so I don't have to wait behind all those stinky orcs. So I can play my game and use the bathroom freely as a free man. Orc Bathroom, that sounds more disgusting than Woodstock 99. The Orc Bathroom situation, I don't ever want to think about it again.

And even that's a better name for a band than Old Funeral, Orc Bathroom. Orc Bathroom's a great name for a band. Orc Bathroom's a good name for a fucking band. That's pretty sweet. Orc Urinal. It could be that Vard himself put two and two together just like I did. And so he changed the name to Borsum. Now Borsum comes from the inscription on the one ring, which reads...

Ashnaz, Durbatuluk. Ashnaz, Gimbatul. Ashnaz, Thracatuluk. Ag Borsum ishi, Grimbatul. If you summon a demon in this room, man, I am gonna be pissed. I've got so much to do today, I cannot be fighting a dark lord. The old thing he has summoned is a 375 pound man who's about to knock on the door of the studio and go, um, excuse me, actually it's pronounced Ashnaz, Durbatuluk.

Ashnaz, Gimbatul. Well that is the dark tongue of Mordor. And it means... One ring to rule them all. One ring to find them. One ring to bring them all. And in the Borsum, bind them. It's Nerd Church.

It is Nerd Church, and I wish I had one of Varg's, one of Varg's, start-off shotguns right now. Of course. The word for darkness is Borsum. See? Kissel, even you learn today. I learn every day. Every day I learn something new. But that isn't even the nerdiest thing about Varg's doctrine. That is not the nerdiest thing about his adoption of Tolkien terminology. For his black metal name, Varg took the name Grishnak after the orc captain from Baradur,

who tried to eat Mary and Pippin, but was killed by Treebeer. Oh! But that's the thing, it's like when Natalie and I watch nature videos together, she always gets sad when that coyote eats or the cheetah eats, and I'm like, but no, that animal's got to eat too. That animal, of course! I root for the orc, eating the hobbits, because he's got to eat. I love the trees when I watch the movie.

Treebeer. I love the trees. I wonder why. They're tall and they protect people, and they're nice, and they're not mean like little people are like you. Would you seem like you would just maybe go with one specific tree named Bent, which is a tree that just sits off to the side just getting hammered and telling all the trees what to do? That would be a great tree! So I guess we are firmly in the camp, but Bent is an ant, Henry is of course a hobbit, and I would be an elf. Oh, okay, so you're here with the bow.

I am tall and fair. So are you a part of the elvish cabal that runs the media in our government? Interesting. Well, if just the Grishnak wasn't enough to be nerdy, he went ahead and added a title to go along with it, and so Count Grishnak was born. Yes. What the hell makes him a count? Well, he said that Count was, he actually took it from the Latin word comtis,

which means like of the people or some shit like that. So he was like, I am a count. So of course people took it to be like some Dracula evil bullshit. It is typical that they would do that and not look at the Lantern roots. We'll just call himself a comtis because that's a funnier name as well. It's a little more rock and roll. Comtis sounds like a lovely woman, like a mea califa. She's a real comtis, like a royalty of com.

But he would do the thing too, very often is what we'll talk about further on. He would blame stuff on the count. Like he would say stuff would be like, well, that's something that the count would say. That's not something that Vogue would say. Because he also changed his name Varg. He changed his name from Christian to Varg anyway. So he has several different personas inside of himself. And later Varg is really what I'm going to say is the YouTube generation of Count Grishnuck.

Varg. Count Grishnuck. Now probably not surprisingly, Varg is not alone in the metal world and taking his name from Lord of the Rings. And honestly, most of these bands that take their name from Lord of the Rings references are pretty fucking awesome. Like Morgoth, Sirith Ungol, Sirith Gorgor, Amon Amarth, who's fucking great. And Gorgoroth. Think about the amount of money that Old Spice could make making a black metal series of deodorants. Just calling Morgoth Sirith Ungol.

You don't wear deodorant? I don't think that they do wear deodorant. The black metal community, they want to have a full essence about them. You make it smell like blood, you make it smell like dog shit, you make it smell like rotten corpse. I'm pretty sure that Ax already smells like all of those things. You kissle. Classic hot take on modern day. Spray deodorants. Ben Kissle, come here to the last podcast on the left for his hot takes on odor repellents.

I'll tell you something about it for about after five or six of these BLs, that's what I call Bud Lights. This Ax body spray starts tasting pretty good. You're spraying it in your mouth, huh? Yep. You told me to review it. Oh, it burns. Oh, it burns. It burns.

So let's get back to Varg. With the arrival of Bursim on the black metal scene, what Euronymous referred to as the Norwegian Black Circle was complete. And the shit talking and one upping that would eventually lead to arson and murder got kicked into high speed. The Norwegian Black Circle is also, if I was a doctor, what I would call colon cancer. I just want to pull that. You've got a black circle in your gut, Mr. Kissle, that is the size of a, I gotta say, a honeydew melon. I'm trying to find new fruits to compare tumors to. No, when Varg arrived on the scene, Euronymous was the de facto figurehead as he owned the central meeting place of Helvetta.

In fact, Varg sometimes lived in the basement of the store when he was visiting Oslo. And at first, the two got along great, along with opening the record store, Euronymous had also started his own label. Death-like silence productions. Death-like? Death-like silence, yeah. But what's so, what is that like? Like death, because death-like silence means, because when someone's dead, they're silent, except for when they start farting, because sometimes the body farts and then sometimes also the air will come up out of their lungs and they'll go,

or when you felt shit, like we've talked about before. But death-like silence is also kind of fun, because they're ironic, because they're anything but silent. That's what I'm thinking. Because it's music. Right, so it doesn't make any sense. No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. They were originally called poser corpse.

Now, I think the name poser corpse tells you quite a bit about the attitude of the scene, especially with what was going to come later on. These people were obsessed with being authentic, being true as they called it. True cult. True cult. It's gotta be true cult. True cult. That's what it means. Yeah, and most importantly, they were obsessed with being evil.

And after a while, it will- But at some point, when you're so obsessed with being evil, you just become super lame, right? Well, yeah, of course. Okay, yes. Well, that's what these guys were doing, is that after a while, it wasn't enough to just look weird, hang out in a dark room, pay for it by your parents, and throw pigs' heads out in the audience at shows. Eventually, in order to set yourself apart from what you think of as trend fans, you actually have to put your talk into action.

Okay. And that's kind of where we should learn here. This is a learning moment. This is a teaching moment of enjoy the journey, not just the destination. You know what I mean? The trip is the journey. Right. It's not just getting there.

So enjoy it, all right? Just have some fun living in Euronymous's mother's record store while you're sitting there playing with heads. And guess what? Some of those heads, you know what you could do with them? Toss them in an oven. Cover them in olive oil and some black pepper and some salt liberally. You toss it in there for about 350, three hours, pig head in there. You get the fat to start to render on the cheeks of it.

You shave it off on there. Ooh, mm, mm, mm. Get that porkchata. Mm, you suck all the meat out of all the crevices of the skull. It's so juicy. It's filled with fat. Brain is nothing but fat. Mm.

It sounds like you're a member of, what was the name of that band that just talked about food? Huh? What's the name of the band that just talked about food? I don't know. Old Funeral. Sounds like you're a member of Old Funeral right now. Yes. Well, the funny thing about all that evil talk is that it actually came from a very Christian place.

Now this guy, these guys' brand of Satanism was not Leveyan, but was actually closer to what's known as theistic Satanism. Meaning they saw Satan as an actual real entity. Which just means that they were, they were sad. Because in the end, because that's why they gave so much shit to Leve and they didn't like Anton Leve, because again, he was out there using Satanism as a way to kind of have fun and express himself. Because what we now know as modern American Leveyan Satanism is that it's a political stance a lot of the times. And a lot of times it's really just about, what we've talked about in the show before, it's a funny form of atheism. Where they really just felt that if they were evil enough they could end the world.

Just they just acted like it to each other. And so Vargan Euronymous had a shit talking competition where they probably got along with how much other shit that they hated in common. And then eventually grew to fact, maybe we could just summon Satan. I mean like, do you think maybe if we clap our hands hard enough, if we just want it enough, if we could really just put it all out there on the microphone that we could summon Satan? I think so. I support you, Euronymous. So it's like a black metal version of a roast battle, but regarding religion.

So they really did believe that Jesus was a real person at one point and was still the Lord and Savior and all that stuff. Well this theistic brand of Satanism says that both God and Satan are very real. They are locked in an eternal battle of good and evil. The twist is that the black metal dudes were fighting on the side of evil in league with Satan, as it were. Which one is Elijah Wood fighting for? Elijah Wood is fighting for, I guess God? Alright. Good to know.

Now ironically, their belief in Satan actually made them more Christian than the majority of Norwegians. Out of the entire population of Norway, only 2-3% regularly attend church services, despite Protestantism being the country's official religion. Yeah, that's surprising. Yeah, there's a saying, they talk about in Lord's of Chaos, there's a saying that Norwegians go to church 3 times in their life and the first and third time they're carried in. Oh. Yeah. That's when they do something really good and the whole town folks, they love them and they say,

yeah it's celebration, yeah you killed the beast, you killed the beast. Now the black metal guys definitely explored evil the way they saw it in other ways. Euronymous, according to Varg, figured about the evilest thing you could do to spit in the face of God would be to have anal sex with another dude. Hey Varg, hey Varg, come here man. Hey, you know, wouldn't it just be like the most evil, like crazy thing in the world to do, right? We do this thing where I mean another dude, right? We go out to like a movie, right? And we see a movie and we laugh a lot, you know, we get some popcorn together and we're here together and then we go get some beers, right?

We're just drinking lots and lots of beers, just slapping each other on the lower back, touching each other's knees and stuff. And God is up going like, oh, stop it, Euronymous, you stop it. And then I go back to the apartment with him and I put on some Al Green, you know? And it's been like... And he's sitting there and he's removing his shirt and God is up there being like, oh you do this, oh what am I going to do? And then we fuck each other and then we stay together for 15, 25 years. Well that is one way to spit in the face of God. Yeah, this is what Varg said.

Because in the Bible, it says that you shall not let sperm fall to the ground. And we reason that if you shoved it up someone's ass into the sewer, then that's the worst thing you can do. That's Satanism. And Euronymous has said, yes, very loud. Did he call it the sewer? The sewer, yeah, he's like, into the sewer. Oh my goodness. Yeah, but the whole like...

I will say that's not the term to use when having foreplay. Sewer? Yeah, just stick it in my sewer? Honestly though, you hit the right person. The right person will really like that because they can connect it to teenage mutant Ninja Turtles. Oh, I see. And it's like my butthole is where they live. It's where Leonardo lives.

Right. All this homosexual talk, this was going a little too far for Varg, who is a well-known homophobe along with the likes of Hellhammer. And they seem to have a justification for hating every other group, but it seems like gay people, like a lot of homophobes, just makes them feel a little bit icky. They don't like the feelings that it makes them feel because maybe kind of deep down inside they wish they could kiss another man. Yeah, probably. I mean, the fact that Varg feels icky about anything is hilarious to me. Yeah, they just don't like to say, ugh, these gay men will get much more into that in the next episode and how that attitude actually led to murder. Okay.

Now Varg also said that Uranimus was into pretty much anything involving extreme sex acts from child pornography to snuff films featuring dildos covered in nails and labias being hammered down to tables. But as we know, right, one thing is snuff films are total complete horseshit. They probably existed like the highest levels of wealth and decadence, but I seriously doubt a deadass broke musician running a record store in Oslo could get ahold of one. No, no, no, you need to be invited to a Bilderberg meeting in order to get one. And then also, you could just see that being total horseshit, covering the fact that Uranimus was just a normal gay guy, that he's hanging out with Varg, and they're just talking shit about everybody. Like, Uranimus is talking shit about Hellhammer, he's talking shit about dead, he's talking shit about the entire scene, he's talking shit about Mayhem, and the entire time going to Varg being like, you get it, you get it, just like me. And Varg is for a while kind of playing along, because what he is interested in, I think at this point is specifically when he met Uranimus, he's like, I'm going to destroy Uranimus, I should be the center of the black metal scene. Meanwhile, Uranimus is sort of weirdly bathing in all of this attention, and what apparently also Varg got really upset with is that Uranimus had a, he really loved crop tops, and he would wear these crop top shirts.

And Varg would be like, he's sitting there, and he's watching his disgusting fat belly, just hanging over his black pants, and I just couldn't watch it wobble anymore. Huh, alright, like the blue meanie, great wrestler. Now there is some debate as to who really introduced the evil brand of Satanism into the black metal scene. Some say it was Varg, some say it was Uranimus, but as Henry pointed out, and as it's pointed out in Lords of Chaos, what's most likely is these guys were just egging each other on, and shit got way out of hand very, very fast. They realized, especially after Dead Suicide, that if they just kept it to talk and never actually did anything, they would slowly lose their street cred and become nothing more than a joke. And if there's one thing, quote unquote, evil, hates more than anything, it's being laughed at. Ooh, don't laugh, Adam. That's all we do, that's our job. That's our job.

I'm not laughing, Adam. I'm not laughing at Varg. Honestly. I'm not going to do that. This got sent to several black metal bands, the last episode did. It did get sent to many black metal bands. The fans of the music. I just want to go to the concerts. I think they have more of a sense of humor now.

There are definitely some black metal bands that were very into it. We apparently angered a few black metal bands quite a bit. No, I don't think that's possible. That's alright, it's on brand for them. You can't anger black metal bands, they're a fun-loving bunch. And so, since these guys decided they needed to put their words into practice, the church burnings began. Ooh. Now it all started with just a little vandalism and theft at a church where the guys stole a bunch of goblets and crosses and shit to decorate the record store with.

Hell yeah. I mean, churches are filled with really cool things. So that's kind of on the church. It would be kind of cool to drink, like out of one of the chalices that the priest has, and then every once in a while just dip my balls in it. You know, there's a bone in all of the, in the Catholic church, they all have a saint's bone in the main table. Really? That's dark stuff. Yeah, oh yeah man.

Cool. Then, right around the time of a Morbid Angels show in late 1991, there was a rash of cemetery desecrations. Ooh. Then, on Saturday, June 6th, 1992, the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth day of the week. A group of black metal seamsters, strongly suspected to be led by Varg, set fire to fantoft church five miles south of Bergen, destroying a structure that had stood for over 800 years. Wow. Now, why do I feel that if you have a bunch of Norwegians following somebody in a forest, it has to be led by flute. It must be.

Like, why do I feel like you have to go do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do in order to get Norwegians to do anything as a group? Like with a pum-pum-pum-pum. Like somebody with a big tuba and like a people like running next door with like a big stick with like streamers on it for a pagan thing. I almost started marching when you were doing that, Henry. Maybe I got a little Norwegian blood in me. I don't know. I think it's just, it's like when we were in Scotland, you remember they started playing that fiddle music and we all did. I had to dance.

My knees, my knees started hitting my belly button. I was just, I was jerking. Yeah, I had that same thing walking through Grand Central yesterday. There was a woman playing like John T. Fiddle and it heartened me. It's unbelievable. What is it? We're just, what is it with being white and fiddle music? It just, you have to move.

According to an interview Var gave, before the group burned the church, they chased down a rabbit, which he said was actually more difficult than burning down the church. Well, no kidding. The rabbit's moving. The church is just sitting there for 800 years. They then decapitated the bunny and laid the body on the church steps. Varg said, quote, The point was to spread more sorrow. I was like when I was the first person to ruin the ending of six cents for all of Norway.

Oh, poor bunny. A month later, Revheim Church went down. Then a month after that, Ormoja burned. Then skewed. Then haketu. Then eceni. Then came Serpsborg, which was the site of the first true casualty of the black metal scene. Oh no, so no more, not just having fun anymore. We got real ramifications.

No, no, no. This is when shit gets actually real. There, a firefighter lost his life trying to put out a fire that these dickhead kids started because life was fucking too good in Norway. And it is a damn shame that this guy is largely forgotten when people cover this story. This shit had very real life consequences. Like, you know, like, leave out the part where they're destroying beautiful historical art. They're destroying historical landmarks. This shit is dangerous.

It is killing people. And rabbits. You see, I also, I mean, like, I, you know, of course, being on brand, I fucking hate. I don't care about churches being burned, but I do understand that there's a part of it being like you're destroying centers of communities, which is really fucked up. And because in the end, it's kind of interesting when you do the breakdown of stave churches anyways, a lot of times they're built in the formation of the serpent as it is.

They have dragon heads. They've got scales on the side of it purposely built. And so they're very metal. It's actually like, I mean, I will say you like looking at them. I also understand how the Burning Church makes a great album cover, but it's, you know, it's bad in reality. Yeah, churches are beautiful buildings, some of the best buildings in the entire world are based, are created because of religion.

And you can do anything with them. You can turn them into a bed and breakfast if you really want to. Yeah, see, that's the thing. You could just, it's actually, for me, way more metal to buy the church and flip it into the new Helvet Aurenicard store. See, that would be pretty sweet. You can just keep all of the art in there. The Catholic Church, when they do the Stations of the Cross, it's a horror movie.

It's very brutal. I remember that growing up. Now, it's hard to say just how many church burnings the Norwegian Black Circle was responsible for, but it's estimated that as of 1998, they were the cause of about a third of all church arsonists in Norway. However, that number... What were the other two thirds? How many church arsonists were happening in Norway? Well, the thing is about church... The thing is about arsonists is that churches are actually very popular targets for arsonists

because they're empty, they're out of the way, and most of the time, arsonists aren't looking to kill anybody. They're getting a sexual pleasure out of watching it burn. A part of it's about the chaos. And that's kind of what they try to actually analyze these guys saying that, well, maybe they got some pleasure out of it, but I think a lot of the times they were goading each other. It was this thing where it was this Topham game where someone had to do something

and you had Varg stoking the flames, literally, out there making everybody do it, but then you have all these copycat crimes happening at the same time because as soon as it starts happening, it's like what we talked about with the Zodiac killer when there's a bunch of crimes in Son of Sam, when shits are already happening, it's much easier to throw other crimes in the mix because it's harder to investigate them. It just seems like they're only one third of the church burnings, and they're really making a big deal out of it. They're two thirds of the church burnings, but the two thirds of the church burning people are actually more metal than they are.

Well, that number could actually be higher. Out of 44 church burnings from 1992 to 1995, every single case solved involved a black metal fan or a musician in one way or another. And amazingly... It's a lot of churches. It's a lot of churches, yeah. And amazingly, none of this shit was organized. It was all spur of the moment, let's go out and do it right now type of shit.

It wasn't like they had like a cemetery division or like a church burning committee. Yeah. All this shit just happened. There was no hashtag trending on Twitter, burn down the churches or anything like that. No, that would be controversial. That would be controversial. Yeah, honestly, there would be a lot of think pieces that would come out of that. Oh, yeah.

Now, according to Lords of Chaos, as we said, the vast majority of people who burn down churches are your regular run-of-the-mill jerk-off arsonists who get a sexual thrill from seeing a building burn down. But one of the reasons why Norway is special as opposed to a lot of other Scandinavian countries is that Norway has a large number of stave churches. Okay. Stave churches are medieval structures made of wood. Of course, making them highly flammable, much more flammable than a lot of the stone churches that you see around Europe. Right.

So not only do you have a structure that is almost guaranteed to burn, you also have in stave churches a powerful symbol for the black metal community, namely the replacement of Norse mythology with Christianity that occurred in Scandinavia in medieval times. The erasing of their culture, the rolling of stone over blood, Kissel. The way you look at me, it's like you don't understand the struggle of the Germanic people, which at the same time, according to your skin and hair and eyes, you most certainly do. I have red hair and brown eyes. What's going on here?

So these guys are just being dumb, dumpy kids. Yeah, yes. And they're drunk the whole time. I guarantee you that. Yeah, a lot of them are drunk. Oh yeah, oh yeah, because that's how you spur yourself to do the crimes. They're sitting hell, Vetta. They're fucking, they're killing a 24 case of Breakin' Brock.

I don't know what a Norway should be like. I have no idea. Yeah, that's tough to say. They're getting just motivated to go outside and we're like, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because again, they're Germanic people. I just recently rewatched the Bride of Frankenstein. They love getting into groups. And we don't know if you, I don't know if Bride of Frankenstein is the greatest example of the Germanic people.

Yeah, I think all those were Americans that were playing those people. No, no, no, no, no, no. True or then true. See, for these guys, some of them were burning churches just for the sake of it to be evil. Others were burning them to prove themselves, to show that they were worthy of being a part of a scene. But others were burning the churches in a symbolic act of revenge. Their motive was to erase Christianity completely from Scandinavia and particularly Norway. And the man at the forefront of that sect was Varg Vikernes.

Varg. Varg wanted to return Norway to the spirituality of his ancestors before Christianity arrived, that of Odin and Thor. Well, actually, it's actually Odin. Is it Odin? Or is it Vooden or Voken? Or what is it? They don't have no one agrees on this stuff. I think it's Odin.

Can a man or a woman contain pantheons? I'll tell you what dog meat I believe they can. Each one is many. And each many is one. I don't even know what the hell you're talking about. Al sutra. Well, according to Varg, that first church burning actually had nothing to do with 666 Satan. That was just a bonus.

What it really had to do with was on June 6th, in the year 793, one of the first Viking raids in history occurred in Britain at Lindisfarren, where Vikings plundered a monastery and murdered some monks in the style that Vikings were known for. It's fucking sweet. I can't imagine if Vikings had fucking... I think the monks should have gone all Shaolin on him and tried to beat him, but they didn't, I guess. What a cool movie that would be, Monks vs. Vikings. And then the monks got Shaolin, but all the Vikings got double fucking axe blades, and they're spinning back and forth, and then one of them's got like, he came from the future,

so he's got a gun, but it's got a fucking like a harpoon axe in it, and he shoots it at a Shaolin monk, and he's like, and he fucking kicks it into the face of like a man who's got half a face because he's got metal eyes. Yeah, next time we're pitching the show for Last Podcast on the left, just do that. Just say that. If the pitch is going, if it's derailed, just pitch that movie, and I think we got ourselves a screenplay. Now, related to that, the church in Phantoft held a specific significance in the war between Norse paganism and Christianity. Phantoft's cross had purposely been built on a Norse altar of worship, known as a horg.

A horg? Yes, like hog, but with an R put in there. Also, that is also a Norwegian for ex-girlfriend. Horg. Interesting. Varg has been quoted as saying, Basically, I am a worshipper of Oatham, God of War and Death. Bursam exists exclusively for Oatham, the one-eyed enemy of the Christian God.

I don't know about this Varg guy. I'm starting to think he's kind of a D-bag. I'll tell you, Kissel, why don't you go ahead and spend about the two and a half hours that I spent watching Varg's personal blogs on YouTube, which we will talk about even more so in the next episode. I did! And it's sort of like, it is like being trapped in a carpool to work with the IT guy, and then you find out that he has a lot of opinions about ethno-nationalism and why bodybuilding is bad and the ways that you should eat and having white babies.

And as you hear it again and again and again, with the same, he talks like this, and today we'll talk about, it's like, is Varg a white supremacist? Let's find out. He's the beginning of every YouTube video, just like that. Single one. He has a little thesis statement and then he says, let's find out. Let's find out. Okay, yeah, I watched a little bit of it.

Interesting guy. Oh yeah. In no way did I want to hang him out of the window like Sugnight did to Vanilla Ice. Well, Varg is a follower of Asatru. Asatru. Whatever. It's in Asatru. Asatru.

It's in Asatru. Well, that means loosely belief in the old gods. It's a paganistic way of worship that focuses on the polytheistic pantheon of the Norse gods, as well as a great reverence for nature. Honestly, it's a very beautiful, it's kind of a beautiful religion in terms of like, there's cool imagery in it, right, because it's kind of based on this concept of the tree of life, which is all reality as we know it. And then there's the tree, and then there's the well, the well of Myriar,

which is like, you basically put all of your karma, all of your present deeds go in there, and it's basically like your spiritual bank account. Things pop out of it. And all the gods are fucking awesome, like Woden or Othen, whatever. He's like psychedelic. Like he did all that, he popped out his own eye and he threw it into the well of Myriar in order to get true wisdom. And then he hung himself upon the tree of wisdom. What does it even fucking mean?

Because that's just reality itself. He did it for nine days and survived, and came out with the power of their ruins, which are called Seeds of the Earth. And you go out there and he could create all reality. He fucking went all the way there and back. And then you've got Thor, who's super cruel, super friendly, but he's super aggressive. And then you've got, um, he's no, no, no, no. We've got a nerd alert.

I'm interested, I want to hear this stuff. This is a religious nerd alert, as a matter of fact, an extra nerd alert. Uh, is it nerdy that Othen has two wolves, Gary and Frecky? Yes, it is. And he has two ravens, Hugan and Muenin. I almost vomited, but yes, we, yes, it is all nerd. And they all get along, but I get Hugan is the dumb one, and Muenin is the smart snarky one. And then Gary is the sweet one.

And they put their rings together and they summon Captain Planet, and a lot of fun things happen. No, just saying no. The problem is, is again, I also threw, I ended up turning into some sort of racist religion because it's very, it's by the people that practice it, because it's very much about, like, being proud of being from Norway and how like the most beautiful thing you've ever seen is like a sparsely tree covered hill covered with graves and snow. It becomes racist and anti-Semitic and white nationalist because it's created by human beings who are racist anti-Semitic white nationalists. No, it wasn't created by people that were racist and anti-Semitic. They're all racist.

No, they're not. In the beginning it was not. I want to see their record albums. No, in the beginning it was not. It's one of the oldest religions in the entire world. It's one of those things that got taken and made into a racist thing. Exactly. But that does not make it inherently racist just because it was co-opted by racist people.

Which ruins it. It inherently has a us-versus-them mentality built into it because it's the idea that nobody respects nature the way the followers of Alta Trude does, which actually makes it work perfectly for the metal world. Because metal fans, more than any other group, especially black metal, like the people that practice it, are so much us-versus-them. It's crazy. Like, it's very, like, because they believe that they're their own army and they need to wage a weevil war against everyone else. Or be like, no man, just bridge the gap. Help bring black metal to America.

It would be pretty sweet. I'm just saying why they killed the rabbit. Why are you- Alright, alright, that's good. Never mind. I'm gonna let it go. You're just being stubborn. I'm not being stubborn.

I'm asking why they killed the rabbit. Well, you can't take the actions of a couple of dickheads in 1994 and completely throw away a religion that's been around for 40,000 years. I love it. I love it. I do believe that they should change. In the end, I don't think anything should be around for thousands of years without changing. At some point, you gotta change it. But the problem is, you have the two people.

What the coolest part about Alpha through is all the fucking- the- the- the emblems. Oh, the symbolism, yeah. All the cool talismans. And all the fucking- every story in Alpha through should be a fucking comic book. They're fucking awesome. The story of, like, tear, fate and facing, Fenris the wolf is sweet. They did. It's a cut- it's called Thor.

That's what Thor is. No. Oh yeah, there's a movie coming out. There's a second movie or third movie coming out. And then Freya, who's nude all the time. And then Frey, who's the god of the fertility. And his cock is so big and long that they had to build him with statues. They didn't want to show his cock, so they put a towel over it.

Kind of like when you do, like, when you, like, trick your girlfriend when you have a hard eye and you put, like, a little, like, washcloth over it and you're like, hey, look what I and look what's here, you know? And then they do that with all the statues until later on to the 80s, so they started building new statues of Frey. And his cock is like 12 inches long and they like that. Well, the other funny thing about these Black Metal guys is that, yes, they were taking on Christianity because it had destroyed their places of worship and had tried to erase their

gods from their national identity. But the other reason why they treated Christianity with such disdain is because they saw it as weak. They thought that Christianity wasn't brutal enough anymore. They wanted to return to the days of the Inquisition, when people would be tortured to death with implements like the anal pair and the Spanish donkey. The Iron Maidens. Yes.

What's this? Oh, the Spanish donkey. That's a brutal one. Oh, yeah, the Spanish donkey. What's your two? Yeah, the Spanish donkey is the kind of, like, triangle that has, like, a sharpened edge on it and they put you, you ride the triangle and they put weights down on your feet and it slowly splits you in half.

See, there's nothing Spanish to me about that. When I see Spanish, I think of taking a nap at 4 p.m. and eating a bunch of olives and octa. Having fun. That's not torture at all. Well, the Black Metal guys believed that by burning churches, they would make Christianity stronger, which would cause the Satanists to strike back again and that small conflict would start a war that would annihilate the world.

But in the end, they did this for PR. Yeah. They did this to bump their numbers. Varg realized that Varg was very canny. The move to Altatru in my mind from Satanism was him understanding of there's a gap here that I can basically do what PR companies are doing now in the United States of America and attach an ideology to people buying records. And if I can attach, like, this kind of, this lifestyle to our work and what we do, then

that's going to make our audience super loyal. Right. He's very, like, that's what he did. So that's where all of this came from. That's what makes him, technically, to me, more evil is that he did all this shit to move some units. Yeah, for branding reasons. Oh, yeah.

And it did definitely spread into fandom. On July 26, 1992, a house belonging to Christopher Johnson, lead singer of the Death Metal Band Theorion, was set on fire following an argument with the Count. The fire was put out before any real damage could be done, but investigators found a note. It said, The Count was here and he will come back. Shortly after, Johnson received a longer letter which read, Hello, victim, this is Count Grishnak of Bursum.

I have just come home from a journey to Sweden. And I think I lost a match and assigned Bursum LP. Haha. Perhaps I will make a return trip soon. And maybe this time you won't wake up in the middle of the night. I will give you a lesson in fear. We are really mentally deranged. Our methods on death and torture, our victims will die slowly.

They must die slowly so that we can leave because we run slowly. Haha. Alright, so he's going through his kind of Lisa left eye Lopez phase when she burnt down Andre Ryzen's house. Haha. Interesting. This is very aggressive stuff. But it wasn't him. It was a 60 and 18 year old girl named Suvi.

It wasn't him. It wasn't him. She was just looking for the Count's favor. And when they asked her why she had done this, she said, I did it on a mission for our leader, the Count. I love the Count. His fantasies are the best. Oh my.

So, I mean, that's that thing is Varg is the smart one. Yeah. And then they just get dumber and dumber as the followers go. This is where it gets dangerous. Yeah. It's very similar to any white supremacist movement where the smart ones are on top and the dumb ones are on bottom. It's like, that's kind of what he did. Is that he basically was just like, I'll use all of these idiots as chess pieces because they're going to want to look as cool as me.

Which is sad. There are no smart white supremacists by nature. By definition, they are stupid. Yeah. Now, for her troubles, they locked her up in a mental institution for two years. Oh. But that's not to say that these guys weren't burning down a shitload of churches. They were definitely doing that. One of them said after being asked how it all happened without any real organization, he said,

I don't know. I guess after the first church burned down in Berg and people got very enthusiastic about it. It seems like it. That's the tone of all these guys. Like when they talk about the church burnings, like when they talk to them now, or at least when they talk to them in the 90s during Lords of Chaos, or the late 90s, early 2000s, they were like, yeah, you know, whatever. Look, church burnings, it's fine.

Whatever. I don't care. Like, I like it. I like it fine. I think there's other ways to do it now, but I like it. I wish more churches had burned. It seemed to become a pastime for these guys, huh? Yeah.

Well, now they're just so over it. Yeah. It was just so like, yes, church burnings, and they act like all the shit, but it's all an act. Every single thing that they do is an act. The closest person to being honest now is Fenris. Yeah. Who came back from Darkthrone. He's like, kind of rejected all the lifestyle and trying to be real,

where Vargas thinking he's doing the same thing, but he keeps telling the same stories again and again and again, where it sounds like you're not over it. Because he says the Euronymous story like five or six times in his hundreds of YouTube videos. And that's the thing about Euronymous. Is that he was the guy that was supposedly at the forefront of the whole scene. He was supposed to be the leader, the figurehead, but he actually didn't participate in a lot of this stuff.

It seems like the majority of it was done by guys like Varg and Samoth of Emperor, who said he burned churches because, quote, It felt right to do so. Like when one wants to sing a song in a musical. Yes. The emotions kept so big that you begin to sing and express yourself. You see how natural that is. Well, that, Henry brings up a good point.

When do they play music? Are they performing it all during this time? They play, all they do is play, I mean church burning is not, that's an evening. That's an evening. So the context during the day and the church burnings are at night. Yeah, but they're not burning churches every single night. They definitely don't have jobs. No jobs.

Yeah, it's not like they're going to a job all day long and then going and burning churches at night. And that's the other thing about these guys, you know, they're trying to rebel against Norwegian society. Every single fucking one of them are on welfare. Yeah. Yeah, these guys are all living off of the government dime. And this is the society.

That's the fucking ironic thing about it. And that's what's ironic about most of these people is they're complaining about society being too good. They're complaining about the standard of living in Norway being too high. The reason why the standard of living in Norway being too high, that's why you can be a black metal musician. That's why you can spend all day hanging out in a record store, being so philosophical about the nature of evil and Satan.

Yeah, because the government's taking care of you like an asshole. And then you have to go there and you have to do anything. Like, because it's very, it's ridiculous. Yeah, because it's also the posing. It's all of the posing. They've got everybody in trouble. And then what we're going to find out, what Var calls the media event in next episode

and all these things are the way he builds it all up. They all get used. And essentially this whole church burning movement ruins all of their lives. And that, yeah. Well, see, Euronymous, his star was starting to fall a little bit in the eyes of some of the musicians in the scene. And not surprisingly, Euronymous was a shitty businessman.

And a lot of the guys hadn't been paid royalties from the records he'd released through death-like silence productions. What? I can't. Can you imagine having to go to Euronymous and be like, so, yeah, you know, I got rent coming up and I haven't eaten in a couple of days. It's just possible to just get the check.

Yeah, yeah, about that. You know, it would be, like, totally the most evil thing in the world. Now, my big thing is, you know how I tell people, like, I told you to wear that choker necklace that you wear. Yeah, yeah. And you look fucking cool, right?

Yeah, cool. You like that, right? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Isn't that cool? I told you to wear those shoes. You bought those shoes.

You look good. I feel cool. Right? I feel cool. What would not be the most evil thing in the world, but to not pay you your royalties? Oh. It's cool.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, yeah. Now, you're going to get out of my shop. I'm going to buy a new crop top, which is funny because what I have to do is buy a normal shirt, and I have to cut it into a crop top.

Cut the shirt, yeah. So, I'll be going. Yeah. Well, all these guys were starting to see that Euronymous's whole thing was just an act. And now, I'm not going to say that the black metal scene was a cult. It absolutely was not.

But there was definitely some cult mentality happening. And it wasn't necessarily about control or power. It was about influence. It was about who was going to set the tone. And I think above all, it was about ego, particularly the ego of Varg Vikernis. Because these dudes are all hanging out.

They're hanging out in this record shop. They want to perpetuate this lifestyle. They don't want it to ever change. People are starting to come around. There's a lot of interest starting to be developed. But the problem is true, is that Euronymous is just spending everybody's money. His whole plan is not working out.

So, you're just staring at this dude. Well, you're having three other truly dangerous people. Because Varg is now becoming a dangerous person. Hellhammer is dangerous. We're going to find out. Hellhammer is dangerous? Yeah, I cannot believe it. A man named Hellhammer is dangerous.

I refuse to believe it. I actually think he would be a lot scary if his name was just like Terrence. I think that would actually be scary if you look like that and be like, have you met Brian? And he's like, hello, I'm Brian. Like, Brian seems off today. But they go, so you have all of these elements happening

and then everyone's just staring at Euronymous who's sitting in there with a white sweatshirt on, eating a kebab with all of your money. Right, right. Yeah. And that is how it all ended in murder. Which we'll get to in the conclusion. To Norwegian Black Metal.

Alright, Norwegian Black Metal. Part two in the books. Interesting stuff. Do you feel that you've learned a lot? I feel confused on how to pronounce a lot of things. Yeah, I do too. I do too. And I know we're going to get all the tweets.

And yes, we forgot. Well, who knows how to pronounce these things? We forgot. We didn't forget Stoner Metal. I just didn't mention Stoner Metal because we couldn't spend half the episode talking about all the different kinds of metal. What's Stoner Metal?

Like sleep. Go listen to sleep. There's a band named Sleep? Yeah, they're great, actually. Oh, okay. There's an album that's one long song. Yeah. Bada-da-da-da.

Oh, that's kind of fun. And then there's Drone Metal with Sun-O, who's fucking great. There's a lot of bands that we didn't mention. It sounds kind of like this. A little bit different. different Like a helicopter landing

All right, what about spoon? What's what's the band spoon all about spoons like indie rock? That's in yeah? Yeah, that's it not even that could not be further away from metal. I saw them live. I just There was a fight at the spoon concert as a matter of fact I would actually imagine there's much more likelihood of being a fight at a spoon concert than in a son-o concert The music wasn't very violent. No, no, but there was a fight. I don't know what happened. All right everyone Well, thank you so much for listening. What do we have to talk about? We have September 22nd We're in Toronto. Please come out to the Toronto show. Please come out and then September 23rd

We're in Pittsburgh. Yeah, but that shows sold out. Okay. That show is sold out But we'll hang out with if you can't get there, you know, just hang out. We'll meet you So if you liked our series that we're doing black metal, which we're doing right now You should also check out the death metal boys. They're also doing a series on black metal That's pretty sweet. So if you can't get enough, uh-oh black metal what I think is is easy It's like there's a lot of people like really interested in the topic. Yes. It's fun It's like I fucking love this. Who knew who knew there was so much into it. Oh, I know there well Yeah

You could follow us on Twitter at Henry loves you at Marcus Parks at Ben Kissel follows an Instagram at dr Finn tasty at Marcus Parks at Ben Kissel the number one and follow us on all of the bullshits at LP on the left That's it. And let's see go to a last podcast network calm to check out all the other shows that we have here on the network We got a new one. It's called the story must be told Features round table favorites read failure read failure and Andrew short. You feel like really weird bizarre surreal stuff It's like a storytelling show. It's really fucking cool. I'm really excited to have it on the network check that out Also LP and that network last podcast network check out abling's top half for everything political round table of gentlemen page seven Sex and other human activities movie sign with the Mads

So many great shows coming right to you there on the network I want to actually reach out to some of the people that gave us the did the they gave us five stars on iTunes I've seen what you've done here There's some people I'll be someone immediately said they don't like what we're joking about I got to stop reading these iTunes podcast. You really got to stop Never it's not real I just like to go at the people that said Henry sent me because there were a bunch of people Where is it? Henry sent me? Oh, we got Emma. Hell said Henry sent me what's going on?

I don't know if you even do with that. I don't know how you know what your iTunes account is I don't even know how you'd even find that I would say that the best by Joey bags Thank you. He says Henry said me man man says Henry. I we got the real bowl a rust player did it they all did that Yeah, gyra be did that. All right. I mean, we There's a lot of these. There's I'm just looking at these I didn't realize just how many there was of the Henry sent me the love on the bluff Got on there. Thank you. Love on the bus. Yeah, everybody did good. Oh, yeah, J. Moe Gator

I like him. He sounds like a college football coach. Yeah, J. Moe Gator All right, everyone. J. Moe Gator. I love a Saturday. Hell yours. I'll raise your back Hail yourselves, everyone. Hail Satan again. Hail me and make sure before you shut off this podcast You need to go to Amazon right now buy yourself a mule near hammer to wear on a lanyard in order to show all the Norwegian on your block that they are home The Goose Delay's