RedHanded - Episode 256 - Norwegian Black Metal: Pure F**king Armageddon

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

The Norwegian black metal scene of the early 90s started with pigs’ heads impaled on spikes, buried clothes wrapped around dead birds, and other notorious onstage antics. In three years, it spiralled into dozens of ancient churches going up in flames, violent bigotry – and the gruesome deaths of three people. In this week’s episode, the girls chart the bloody origins of one band, Mayhem, and how they fostered the most feared music scene in history… Become a patron: Patreon Order a copy of the book here (US & Canada): Order on Wellesley Books Order on Amazon.com Order a copy of the book here (UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus): Order on Amazon.co.uk Order on Foyles Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter Visit our website: Website Sources: https://tv.apple.com/gb/movie/until-the-light-takes-us/umc.cmc.1g292qd3qhrj40k63ocy4z6we?action=play https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32iX5lbVDto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKX9OjNy_NI https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/mar/22/before-you-know-it-its-not-a-big-deal-to-kill-a-man-norwegian-black-metals-murderous-past https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/exploring-the-real-life-horror-of-90s-norwegian-black-metal/ https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190213-lords-of-chaos-the-grisly-film-that-has-caused-outrage See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to a very scary Red Handed. This is scary stuff. I think there is nothing less scary than people attempting to be scary. And that is what this is all about. But before we get on to our story for today, if you take yourself on over to patreon.com forward slash red handed, you will see that our bonus episode for the month of July was on lobotomies.

Yeah, it was a hell of a case. A hell of a case. It's such an interesting thing. I mean, totally barbaric. And until we did it, I had absolutely no idea that Ava Perron was lobotomized. Did know about JFK's sister, but someone got in touch with us and they said that because it was sort of recorded that she had learning disabilities growing up. Apparently when she was born, the doctor was late.

So the midwife shoved her head back in and she was starved of oxygen. And that's why. Rosemary Kennedy. Yeah. Oh, wow. We don't talk about that specific bit, but we do talk about lots of people getting lobotomized. And we start all the way back with prehistory. Trepanning. Trepanning. And we do a full chronological mental breakdown of the lobotomy. Oh my God. One of my favourite ones we've done, actually. And then, if you're like, you know what, can't become a patron right now. Would love to, can't. Don't worry, you can still get...

We love you, but... You can still get your ears on some delightful extra red-handed content. Because every single Tuesday, in your red-handed feed, you are being delivered by a beautiful golden stalk. Do you know the S in RSS stands for stalk? What am I fucking talking about? That stalk will deliver to you every single Tuesday a brand new episode of Red-Handed Shorthand.

And it's just as exciting as a baby, but less expensive and won't take up so much of your time because they are about 20 to 30 minutes long. Perfect. Perfect for a commute. Perfect for a quick lunch at Desco. So go check that out. We've already covered Maddie and a NASA experiment that ended in a woman

having sex with a dolphin. Patient zero HIV AIDS. Got that one. Got that one coming up. Harrowing, but worth knowing about. Absolutely. Got another episode coming up on how forensic linguistics

caught none other than the Unabomber. Loads more like that. Ready for your listening pleasure. All in the stork's egg cupboard. That's what my mum used to say because I'm the oldest. So like brothers and sisters. And I'd be like, well, where were they before they were here? And she was like, they were in my egg cupboard.

And on that note, we will leave the announcements behind. But basically, go over to Patreon for some extra, extra content. If you can't, then listen to Shorthand every single Tuesday. Now let's get on with today's show. When you think of heavy metal, what is it, Saruti Bala, that comes to mind? White painted faces, black eyeliner, shaggy black hair, tongues out, and the Hell Satan sign. Yep, so kiss. Yes.

Some people might think of Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat. Or maybe Lordi bringing hard rocked Hallelujah to a Eurovision of all places where they won. Bizarre. Or is it Eddie Munson from Stranger Things shredding to Metallica while demon bats swirl all around him. I haven't yet watched that season of Stranger Things. I watched the first two episodes and it was too sad and I had to turn it off. But I have TikTok, ladies and gentlemen. I have seen the scene and it is pretty iconic.

But what we are actually going to tell you about today, all of the things you've just heard totally pale in comparison to the very real horror that came from the Norwegian black metal scene of the early 1990s. This is the story of how a teenage rivalry and counter-cultural rebellion grew into the most feared musical movement in history and how that movement was responsible for the burning down of dozens of churches across Norway and the deaths of three people. The links between Satanism and popular music run all the way back to the late 1920s,

when of course, blues man Robert Johnson was believed to have sold his soul to the devil on Highway 61, in exchange for some pretty mad guitar skills. There's a documentary about Robert Johnson, and I always just thought it was like a like a bit of a folk tale right but they interviewed people who were around at the time and they were like no you don't understand what he was doing the way he was playing guitar was like he had two hands and before he went away he was shit so like and it was a really short amount of time they were like it's humanly impossible to get that good in such a short period of time so that's where it comes from obviously everyone has two hands two hands on the on the stem i see i see he was playing guitar he was playing two hands no on the uh on the frets they were like it's like he had 10 fingers

on the frets wow there's somebody who is musically a talented that is very very impressive so yes after mr 10 finger robert johnson the link between satanism and music continued into So yes, after Mr. Ten Finger Robert Johnson, the link between Satanism and music continued into the birth of rock and roll and of course into the Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. And as many of you spooky bitches are well aware, it came to a head in the satanic panic of the 1980s because we talk about it all the fucking time on this show. So for a full rundown on that, you can of course listen to our two-parter about the murder of Betty Ann Sullivan and how that murder fed into the modern QAnon movement.

And that two-parter is available, of course, wherever you listen to our podcasts and also now on our YouTube channel, which is fun. Oh, yeah. Well remembered. But all you need to know about the satanic panic for this episode is, starting in the 1980s, a devoutly religious public and media became terrified that Satan was trying to poison the minds of impressionable children through music, TV and films. There were more than 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of ritual satanic abuse reported during this time. And as the mania reached a fever pitch, the public grew more and more paranoid that the devil himself

had a hold on the airways. And yes, some music of the era certainly rose to meet that challenge. Metal, along with punk, are at their very essence about counterculture and rebellion. And so of course they push against the boundaries of square society. And the increased infamy and controversy brought on by the satanic panic only egged some metal heads on. So today's story is about how that desire for infamy and authenticity got out of hand. Metal is one of those types of music with a million subcultures. But the particular strain that we're looking into today traces its roots back to jolly old England.

Newcastle upon Tyne, if you can believe it. And to be very specific, we're talking about the Geordie heavy metal trio Venom. They released their second album, called Black Metal, in 1982. They were disillusioned by commercial heavy metal. But I bet they still paid their rent, didn't they? I find it such... Do you remember when you went on that date with the guy who was like used to be a musician and now he works in like media yeah i never thought i'd be working for the man i was like the music industry is the man

i was like you don't live off the grid like eating berries in a fucking shack like ted krasinski like you have to work for the man you have to yeah like friends of ours have a recording contract and they were talking about it and they were like oh it's a 60-40 split in favour of the record company and that's considered good that's crazy town like the music industry

full stop is the man it is I'm sorry yeah man long live podcasting so still though in the 80s they were disillusioned

so they kickstarted a new more extreme aesthetic giving themselves the pseudonyms Kronos Mantas and Abaddon.

They wore jet black studded outfits and surrounded themselves with satanic imagery. And they took themselves incredibly seriously, despite looking like they are in Rock of Ages the musical and have like extreme v-neck. Mankini. Yes, Mankini, yep. The album cover of Black Metal shows a smiling devil with horns, a goatee and a pentagram on his forehead. Pretty standard stuff.

The music on that album was harsh and dark and it struck a chord with a lot of metal fans in Scandinavia, presumably because they are in the dark half of the year. Over there, even more than in the northeast of England, winter's a dark, long and cold. And rather than listening to Jack Johnson, they seem to want to lean into the dark and the cold with a craze of heavy metal.

And Venom's black metal was released on november the 1st 1982 just in time for one of those incredibly long scandinavian winters to start inspired by their sound black metal bands cropped up all over the region making intense doom-laden music with shrieking guttural vocals sweden had bathory maybe, maybe after Elizabeth Bathory one would think. Denmark had Merciful Fate. And up in Norway, black metal absolutely thrived thanks to bands like Dark Throne, Emperor, and the most infamous of them all, Mayhem. Which is funny to me because there is a drag queen called Mayhem Miller, who is now very famous. Not a lot of dark metal coming out of West Hollywood. Really missed the boat on that one.

So Mayhem were actually named after the Venom song, Mayhem with Mercy. Mayhem was started in 1984 by Oistein Orschet, Jorn Stubbard and Kayetel Mannheim. If you can tell, I struggled my way through that particular list of names, but luckily for us, they also had pseudonyms. I can't even do a Norwegian accent. Nah, fuck, I'm just not even going to try. Can't even really do a Swedish one.

It's a bit German. Listen, okay. I need to go to an accent workshop. Let's fund that. Okay. So Orsher, the guitarist and early frontman called himself Euronymous. Stubbard, the bassist, was Necrobutcher. And drummer Keitel Mannheim was known as Keitel Mannheim.

Boo. What a poor sport. I know, right? I'm just going to call him Mannheim. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus.

In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two

of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today, I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so

sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. So with Euronymous and mayhem at the center, Norwegian black metal grew into its own. Euronymous developed what would become the typical riff of the genre, an eerie, cold sound that used all six strings instead of just the power chords. Their music was still dark, but less furiously fast and more atmospheric.

And curiously, and this will become important later, they didn't necessarily run with the Satan stuff. They focused more on death and corpses alongside a lot of like pagan imagery. You know what? I think they do what we do when we're doing topic selection. We're like, Pandit done to death, man. Like, what can we really offer to that? And they're like, the Satanism stuff, it's been done where is our niche yeah and being norwegian it's paganism absolutely they nailed it it's a very very good choice and that's

branding but i did think it was interesting that they did kind of carve out this little niche for themselves instead of taking the obvious and the easy road of just going with satanism particularly given that these dark prophets of doom had started out as kids. Euronymous was just 16 when he founded the band. But within a few years, they put out their first demo. It was called Pure Fucking Armageddon, which does feel like, okay, 16-year-old, throw that. It does, though. But then I kind of feel like the whole scene to me,

and I do not know, I'm sure that we have lots and lots and lots of metal fans listening to the show. And I have to be honest, I don not know I'm sure that we have lots and lots and lots of metal fans listening to the show and I have to be honest I don't know anything about it my best friend's boyfriend is in a metal band I immediately know without you telling me who it is I know exactly I did text her this morning and be like what's Tim's band called but she didn't reply so I don't know oh she's missed the chance to promote Tim's band but yeah so i'm sure that we have lots of fans i don't know anything about it but i also feel like there is something very like tongue-in-cheek about a lot of it that is like we're just going to be really fucking on

the nose and i feel like are we missing the point of pure fucking armageddon we're like oh it's so obvious but maybe it's kind of meant to be maybe i think that's a good point I think I've never been a metal person I don't necessarily understand metal people because I'm just like what the hell I'm trying to go to sleep but then maybe there's an element of you know I don't think anyone really likes dubstep I think you listen to it to get fucked up you know like you listen to it because you want to dance and you want to dance until 8am I think with metal and again don't know, so I might be completely incorrect. I think it's also about the culture. It's about the group. It's about you having these people that you hang out with. And it's about the lifestyle almost, and not just the music. But you know, more power to you.

I think we might miss the point on some of these things. But I'm here for it. I feel like it's all about rebellion. And it's all about in your your face because things like pure fucking arbageddon dark throne all of this stuff mayhem everything we're about to tell you the one thing that sits at the heart of it all is none of it is about subtlety no no and i think maybe british people specifically we like subtlety we don't generally like things that are too on the nose like we don't like slapstick comedy generally we do a lot of sarcasm and a lot of like underlying themes of like which is basically us just being giant bitches to each other all the time but I think we are a nation that likes subtlety more than on the nose and presumably it's similar

culture in Scandinavia maybe that's why the metal scene thrived in those areas because it was so counterculture. It was so contrary to the norm. It was so in your face. But anyway, coming back to pure fucking Armageddon, this album had, of course, Euronymous on vocals and it featured the classic tune, Chainsaw Gut Fuck. Should we listen to it?

Yeah, why not? I get it. I mean, you're in a mosh pit. You're in a mosh pit. I get it. That's what you want. So after Pure Fucking Armageddon came out, the group Mayhem moved into a house in the woods

outside of Krakstad, which is 30 miles from Oslo. And after a few line-up changes, a la early 2000s sugar babes, they found their missing piece, a new singer, pairing the Olin, otherwise known by his pseudonym,

Dead. Yeah, I think... I don't know if Dead is my favourite over Necrobutcher, but it's a pretty good one. It's very snappy. Yeah, straight to the point. The band thrived on reputation and notoriety, and Dead really upped the ante. He was obsessed with Transylvania and Gothic imagery.

Bandmates have since said that he considered himself to actually be a creature from another world. He said that his blood had frozen in his veins and that he had already died, which is why he called himself Dead. Dead was actually the first to start wearing the white corpse paint makeup, which of course went on to become a real calling card for the black metal scene.

Very influential of him. It's incredibly influential. Like, if you can achieve one thing like that in your life, you're like, okay, I can die now. Absolutely. Dad also collected dead birds and hoarded them in his bedroom. Which, although it's nice

to have a hobby, maybe it's worse if you don't even taxidermy them. No, he wasn't, and it is definitely worse if you're not even taxidermy them. Just letting them rot in his bedroom. Yep. Nice. And that's his private life but on stage he was quite the showman. And the birds did actually play a role in his showmanship on stage because Dead would actually bury his clothes for weeks sometimes even wrapping them

around his dead rotting birds so that they would start to well rot themselves and pick up that corpsey stank that he just couldn't get enough of. Then he would dig them up on the night of a show for a quick costume change. Occasionally, Dead would be carried onto the stage by his bandmates, lying in a coffin. He even started to self-harm on stage, cutting himself with medieval weaponry, broken glass and sacrificial knives. He's committed.

Oh, I would never even dream of implying otherwise. And as if this wasn't enough, the band would also have pig and sheep's heads impaled on spikes at the front of the stage. They and the other select few bands in the early Norwegian black metal scene were obsessed with authenticity. I always find it very interesting, like something surrounding like rock bands especially, is the idea of being a poser. Like you're not actually doing it, you're posing. I think this is the posiest shit I've ever heard about, but like maybe if it's a real pig head then that's okay. Who knows? I'm not qualified to comment on that.

I'll take my papamache pig head home with me in my poser bus. I guess maybe what they mean by poser in the sense is you can't just be someone who like checks in to the lifestyle for the stage. You can't just put on the white makeup and get on stage, do a show and then go back to your nice, comfortable house where you sit around and watch the fucking Cosby show or whatever. You know, you've got to live in the fucking woods. You've got to live with dead birds in your bedroom and like bury your clothes for weeks before you come on stage. I think it's about, and I might be wrong again, but I think it's about you have got to live and breathe this metal culture and that otherwise you're a fucking poser okay i think that makes sense so from the beginning all of these sort of competing metal bands were constantly trying to

outprove each other to prove who was the truest black metalhead this meant more and more provocative behavior on stage and more and more infamy in the press. It was, if you will, the Edgelord Olympics. Because despite all of the crazy, crazy things that we're going to tell you about in this episode, it's important to remember that behind all of these things were just a group of young people with dark ideas railing against society. And for Mayhem's frontman,

the misery and self-mutilation weren't just for show. Dead was seriously depressed, and soon began to withdraw from his friends, which is generally what happens if you live in a room full of dead birds. And he was harming himself more and more in private. And when he wasn't on stage, he'd spend increasingly long periods of time isolated in his bedroom. On the 8th of April 1991, Mayhem's guitarist, Euronymous, came home to their house in the woods. But he'd forgotten his key. No one was answering the door, so he climbed in through a window. And he found Dead, dead, lying on his bed. At the age of just 22, Peringver Olin,

formerly known as Dead, had slashed open his forearms and throat and shot himself in the forehead with a shotgun. Euronymous took in the scene. His best friend and bandmate was lying there, having taken his own life. He was missing half of his skull. Euronymous knew what he had to do. He would have to call

the police. But the ever-industrious Uranimus figured that since Dead was already dead, he might as well use this situation to ramp up the notoriety of the black metal scene and add to the band's legend, which is maybe what Dead would have wanted.

And so he walked to a local shop and picked up a disposable camera, because apparently in Norway they sell disposable cameras in the middle of the woods. And he did that because he was going to have himself a little photo shoot. He even moved some of the stuff around in the room and repositioned the body to get the best shot. And one of those very photos of Paring Ver-Olin, with his skull blown open,

lying next to the shotgun and knife he had used to kill himself, went on the cover of Mayhem's live bootleg album, Dawn of the Black Hearts. Which, if you want to see it, you can. I'm not going to describe it. Euronymous even collected parts of Olin's skull, which he made into necklaces and later handed out to anyone he deemed worthy. He told his friends and anyone who would listen that Olin had killed himself because he was so disillusioned with the scene and how commercialised it had become. But it's more likely that he was severely depressed. In Olin's suicide note he wrote, excuse all the blood. Nobody will ever understand this. But as a sort of explanation, I'm not human. This is only a dream. And soon I will wake.

It's almost, and I know this is very on the nose, and it's probably not accurate, because I'm sure people with this condition would probably be sectioned far sooner. But it's almost like he had like catard syndrome or something this whole writhing around in the dirt thinking he's literally dead thinking he's from another planet thinking this isn't real like it sounds very reminiscent of the symptoms of catard syndrome so just months after dead's death euronymous set up a record label death like silence productions

you know what i do like the names i'm getting getting into it i'm getting into the names i'm Euronymous set up a record label, Death Like Silence Productions. You know what? I do like the names. I'm getting... Getting into it. I'm getting into the names. I'm really enjoying it. And he even opened a record shop in Oslo called Halvatar,

which is a Norwegian word for hell. Where did he get the money? Well, luckily for Euronymous, it was bankrolled by his mum. Sellout. Oh my God. Not very authentic of you. Is it because you're railing against the commercial music industry isn't paying the bills, Euronymous, maybe?

Palvita became a gathering place for the movement. Only members of what they called the Black Circle were allowed into the Inner Sanctum. The Inner Sanctum was a damp basement decorated with weapons, skulls and armoury, lit only by candlelight. And down there, the Black Circle would get together, talk about how they were being misrepresented in the press, the hatred of mainstream religion, and of course, Norway's pagan history. Some kept up with the Satanism, but many lumped it in with Judeo-Christian religion.

Which makes sense. Absolutely, that is 100% true. And down in the sanctum, sad to say, there was a fair amount of fascism, white supremacy, and straight-up Nazism flying around. And with their notoriety at a high, and spending every day trying to out-metal each other, a few of the more disillusioned members decided that it was time they started to act. A few members of Mayhem left the band and a few new members from the scene joined up, including, on bass, a man named Varg Vikernes.

Vikernes was born in Bergen in February 1973. He called his upbringing idyllic. And according to him, one reason that it was so perfect was that Bergen was, quote-unquote, homogenous. And that might give you a little clue into what his politics might look like. As he grew older, he started to believe that all things had become corrupted. He resented the Americanisation of European society and prayed for the day when people would keep their own ancestral lands. In what period of human history has that ever happened? He says that when McDonald's first appeared in Norway, he and his friends collected rifles, cycled down and started firing at the windows. Very strong feelings to have about McNugs,

but I understand the... Keep the red, blue and white McDonald's parade out of Europe. That's his vibe. He's like, get the fuck out. Yeah, I'm going to stick to my rotting crayfish thing. He also said that they stockpiled weapons and actually hoped for a third world war so that the current order could be overthrown.

I'm not even convinced Norway fought in the second world war. Sweden was definitely neutral. I know Finland did. What makes you think that you're going to convince your government to not be neutral in a third world war? I don't know. As a teenager teenager he started making music under his solo project buzzoom he played all of the instruments he wrote the theme

tune and he sang the theme tune and he insisted on using the most lo-fi recording equipment available which he called corpse sound his first ep was recorded on a headset mic, and it truly is completely fucking dreadful. By the time he moved to Oslo and started playing bass in Mayhem, he was calling himself Count Grishnack. And he got that name from Lord of the Rings. Not very authentic. No, but Lord of the Rings pretty racist. And inspired massively by old Norse stuff. In fact, Tolkien

actually taught himself Old Norse so that he could read all of the old tales in their original writings so that he could write Lord of the Rings, which I thought was really interesting. He could invent Elvish and stuff, yeah. That is cool. What a nerd. To be honest, his name is the worst one we've heard yet,

and we don't want to give him the satisfaction of calling him that, so we'll keep calling him Viginous. He moved into the Halverta basement and slept on a couch, and the conversations happening in that dark, filthy room resonated with his rebellious teenage mind. And, of course, the conversations we are talking about are the decimation of the old pagan ways for Christianity. Because up until the 9th century, Norwegians had had their own religion, Norse paganism. Their lore included belief in multiple gods, including Thor and Odin,

as well as dwarfs, elves and giants. But like almost all of Europe, they converted to Christianity. Vikings brought the new religion back with them from their travels, and bit by bit, the old pagan ways were overtaken. Starting in the 800s, they started building what were known as stave churches. They're enormous structures built mostly out of wood and clearly influenced by old Viking design. One of those, Phantoft Stave Church, was built in 1150 AD. And it was set on a former pagan site, on top of a hill where worshippers would pray to the sun.

And Varg Vikernes took that as a personal affront to his Nordic ancestors. He felt that Christianity had erased most of Europe's culture and heritage and destroyed its recorded history. He wanted to make a sign of protest against what he called the Middle Eastern religions and their replacement of his forefathers' pagan gods. And so on the 6th of June 1992, Fag Vikernes set the huge wooden church on fire and burnt it to the ground.

He's personally said that the church was burned to mark the 1200th anniversary of the Viking raid on Lindisfarne in 793. Have you been to Lindisfarne? No, I haven't. It is boring. It is. Like, it's literally one of those places you get dragged on a family fucking holiday. It's a little island, right, which is one of the first places the Vikings invaded

and they raided all the monasteries and whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they killed all the monks and took all the gold and they were just like, oh my God, look at these idiots. What are they doing? Hanging out on this bit of land with all this gold. Yeah, yeah.

Why are these not trained warriors very exposed yeah lindisfarne jesus christ it's fucking boring there are puffins though um but where there are puffins there is puffin shit yeah so yeah lindisfarne um avoid would be my advice so soon after the fire varg vikinus just coming back to how fucking guilty he is, he even put a picture of the charred remains on the cover of Ask, his next solo EP. And Ask, I might not be pronouncing that right, I'm definitely not pronouncing that right, means ashes.

Oscar, maybe? Maybe, that sounds more right. And in a very unsubtle hint for people to follow suit, every copy of Oscar came with a free cigarette lighter. And then after this, Varg Vikernes started to spread the word that Euronymous, the lead singer of Mayhem, would only talk about what the movement represented, but that he, Varg Vikernes, was the only one with the guts to carry out what it meant.

Two months later, another member of the Black Circle who called himself Faust, literally kill me, was walking in the woods close to Lillehammer. The area was a popular cruising spot, and when 39-year-old Magda Andresen approached him and solicited him for sex, Faust said yes. Any drama students listening, nobody wants to see another production sex, Faust said yes. Any drama students listening, nobody wants to see another production of Dr Faustus, even if you call it Faust, so just don't do it. Do something else.

Except Abigail's party. Faust and Magna Anderson went deeper together into the woods a la Andrea Ciccadillo. And when Faust felt that they were alone, he turned on Anderson. He stabbed him 47 times and kicked him in the head over and over again as he bled out and died. One of Faust's bandmates later said that he had, quote, been very fascinated by serial killers for a long time.

And I guess he wanted to know what it would be like to kill a person. Faust fled and the police had no suspects. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media.

To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face-to-face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness.

And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada murder as catalysts, the Black Circles members were entering into a battle of who was the most authentically metal. The scene was spinning out of control and the tabloids were lapping it up. Black metal bands across Europe were becoming a lot more interested

in Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan and expanding the satanic links throughout the industry. Norwegian black metalers, Gore Goroth, for example, kept the image of satanic evil central to their look. But many back in Oslo actually resented that satanic connection. They thought it was a corruption of their black circle and its totalitarian outlook. Farg Vikernes grew frustrated at the movement being formed

of what he called brain-dead metalheads. So he contacted journalists at the Bergen's Tiddenden newspaper, telling them who was responsible for the arson and the killing of Magna Andreasen. The Bergen's Tiddenden ran a front-page article with the headline, We Lit the Fires, and word spread far and wide about the most extreme music in the world. One Norwegian TV channel interviewed a woman who claimed that Satanists had sacrificed her child and killed her dog, and stories about the church-burning, dead-crow-sniffing Satanist scourge

were front-page news in Norway, and the legends soon spread further afield. Features about the dangers of these dark, mysterious metalheads also hit headlines across Europe. Christian households were terrified. In March 1993, the UK's Kerrang! magazine even did a six-page cover story on Norwegian black metal and put Thickerness on the front page.

I used to get Kerrang! because I thought it would make boys like me. Newsflash, it did not. And then I just had fucking hundreds of copies of Kerrang! that I had never read just piling up in my room like a hoarder. I was too busy reading Girl Talk. It's one I was really interested in.

I love the idea that you just had a Kerrang! magazine with Girl Talk inside it and you just sit on the playground and read that with loads of eyeliner on. Yep, yep, yep. Nailed it. And this editorial in Kerrang! lent quite heavily on the Satan stuff.

One pull-out quote at the top of the page even read, We are but slaves to the one with horns. And of course, this sent the movement worldwide. Inspired by Vickener's copycat church burning started happening across Norway. An estimated 50 churches went up in flames in the following years, and many who heard about it in the media

would spray paint pentagrams and other satanic symbols at the sites. Maybe he tried Clophill. Maybe. I'm not into burning down old relics, though. I'm like, leave it alone. Yeah, no, I'm not suggesting that we burn it down. I'm saying that

maybe they're the ones that pentagrammed up Klopp Hill. On Red Handed, we do not endorse the burning of religious figures. But as these churches were blazing around Norway, there was trouble in paradise. Even within the Black Circle

there was increasing disagreement about what it really was that they actually did stand for. Animosity grew between Euronymous and Vickerness, both of whom saw themselves as the real figurehead of the scene. I don't like either of these guys, but if I was Euronymous, I would be fucked off. I'd be like, who the fuck are you? You've just been here for five minutes. Yeah, I know. I've got a fucking band. You've just got your corpse sound. Well, exactly. But Euronymous had invented the sound of Norwegian black metal. He owned a label and he produced a lot of the music himself. So he saw Vickiness as the one who was spreading the false commercialized media image of black metal. And he even shut down the Halvata shop after the Bergen's Tidende article, believing that it was attracting the wrong kind of attention.

On the other side, Vickinus saw himself as the only one with the guts to follow through on the dune-laden promise of the music, the only authentic black meddler. So he's like, I can't make the music, but I really get what it's about and I can do it. Yeah, he's like, I'm the world's best groupie, get out of my way. Don't look at me not playing this guitar. Both parties started telling their mates

that the other one had to die. Vickanus was convinced that Euronymous had a detailed and brutal plan to kill him. He told his friends that Euronymous was planning to tase him and kidnap him, tie him up in the woods and make a snuff film plan to kill him. He told his friends that Euronymous was planning to tase him and kidnap him, tie him up in the woods and make a snuff film while torturing him to death. I have to say, if you're thinking things like that, it's probably because you're thinking about doing something like that.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like he's inside my brain and he's stealing my ideas. He's even stealing my homicide plan. So in among this growing rivalry, Vikanus received a letter from Euronymous asking him to come down to Oslo to sign a new contract for his next Bursam releases.

Vickanus was wary. But on the 10th of August 1993 he did drive to Oslo. But he took Mayhem's guitarist Snore Blackthorn Roosh to act as a mediator. I love that he's like so concerned that this guy is going to torture him to death. But he's like, but a contract?

Okay, I'll come, but I'm bringing a friend. So they arrived in the middle of the night and woke Euronymous up. Blackthorn, according to official records, then went off for a smoke and Vickanus went into the house. According to Vickanus, Euronymous suddenly panicked and and Vicanus went into the house. According to Vicanus, Euronymous suddenly panicked and attacked him, kicking him in the chest. Vicanus then threw him away. Euronymous crashed into a lamp, which shattered on the ground. He got up covered in shards of glass and blood. Euronymous then turned to go to the kitchen, and Vicanus, assuming that

he was off to get a knife, drew his own pocket knife and stopped him. Euronymous headed to his bedroom. Viconus was under the impression that the bedroom was where Dead's shotgun was kept, the one that he had used to shoot himself two years before. So Viconus jumped in the way. Euronymous darted out of the door and ran down the stairs. But Viconus caught up with him and stabbed him in the head. Yeah, we've always got to get there on Red Handed,

a head stabbing. Viscanus then proceeded to stab Euronymous 22 more times. Once more in the head, five times in the neck, and 16 times in the back. That's no longer, if it ever was, because of course this is all

Viscanus's version of events, self-defense. That is now a frenzied personal up-close attack. Exactly. Of a man you've just turned up at his house in the middle of the night and woken him up. So as Euronymous bled out, Vickanus chased down Blackthorn, who had run to the car, and he convinced him to help him deal with the body. Together, they then drove off into the night. Vickenis was arrested on the 19th of August 1993. The murder trial was one of the most talked about criminal cases in Norway that year. And before too long, he was charged in the Supreme Court for first-degree murder. And he was also found guilty of three of the church burnings,

the only ones they could prove, as well as the possession of 150 kilos of explosives. He claimed that he was stockpiling the explosives and his 3,000 rounds of ammunition so he could defend the motherland of Norway, should it be attacked. And he was given Norway's maximum sentence, which is, to this day, just 21 years, unless you are a terrorist. Like Anders Breivik. Anders Breivik

is in there for life. I would argue that somebody, if I found somebody with 3,000 rounds of ammunition and 150 kilos of explosives, might be like, maybe we should make a case for him being a terrorist. Yeah, but if you know anything about me as a human person, I'm big slut for the Norwegian prison system. It gets results. It just so happened that two churches were burned on the day of Vicky's sentencing. And all of this is the most unbelievable bit of the whole thing.

He did all of these things, made such a name for himself, made his fucking clip art albums, burned churches and murdered a man. All before he was 22. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing I've got to say about this whole this whole story, actually. Everyone very young, very influential, very industrious, but very murderous. Very scary. Blackthorne was given eight years for being an accessory to the murder. Members of the black metal scene testified against each other, and especially against Varg Vikernes.

He was not a popular man. During the trials, Faust was also named as the murderer of Magda Andreasen, and was sentenced to 14 years. Within a month of Vikickanus' trial, Mayhem finally released their debut album after a tempestuous three years. And they called it Der Mistries Dom Sathanas.

Sure. And it might very well be the only album ever made by a murderer and their victim. Wow, there you go. It was a fun pub quiz question there. That is, although Fleetwood Mac came pretty close to fucking killing each other when they were recording Rumours, maybe this is the only one.

That's how you intro the pub quiz question as the quiz master. You're like, although Fleetwood Mac came really close. Yeah. Which is the only album that has ever been created by a murderer and their victim? It is, of course, De Mysteries Dom Cephanas. It's got to mean The Mysteries of Satan, surely. Oh, yeah. Good translation. Well, you can thank my year eight Latin.

So as Hannah has alluded to on many episodes before, the Norwegian prison system is, of course course heavily focused on rehabilitation rather than punishment. And look through UK and US eyes, it probably looks pretty kushti. Inside, Vikanus had access to a laptop with Wi-Fi. He even had time and the necessary equipment to create a tabletop role-playing game that he called Myfarog, which is sort of similar to Dungeons & Dragons, but just super racist. And while he was inside, he even made two more albums of ambient neo-folk music,

which sounds like my absolute fucking hell. But he wasn't allowed any instruments in prison, though, so he made the whole thing with MIDI instruments on his laptop. I looked it up and it's like someone's trying to recreate a Gregorian chant on the musical equivalent of Microsoft Paint. Excellent. Thank you for that explanation. Let's listen to a bit, shall we? Yeah, sure. You're really adding to the ambience with your cat noises.

And this wasn't all he got up to in prison because in the first year of his sentence, Varg Vikonas even wrote a book and he called it Vargsmarl. Again, pronunciation apologies, but it does translate to mean Varg's speech. In this book, he set out his deluded belief system, which combined ideas from Norse mythology

with National Socialism. He was essentially a Viking Nazi. There's a lot of that kicking around. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think absolutely, you know, this idea of Christianity coming in, being the great replacer was essentially a viking nazi there's a lot of that kicking around oh yeah yeah yeah i think absolutely you know this idea of christianity coming in being the great replacer as the original kind of destruction or decimation of like original european culture i can understand where it has an appeal to that crowd yeah yeah and in his book Waag also talked about an international Jewish conspiracy to destroy the traditional European identity.

And based on the contents of Waagsmile, he started the Norwegian Heathen Front, which we've talked before on this show, anything with the word front in it can be slightly dangerous. And just in case it wasn't incredibly obvious, Norwegian Heathen Front was, of course, a pagan neo-Nazi group committed to white supremacy, eugenics and anti-Semitism.

The group actually never self-labelled as Nazis and instead called themselves Odalists, based on the Germanic rune Odal. But Vickernes by that time was walking around dressed as a skinhead with an SS belt buckle. And if it walks like a Nazi and quacks like a Nazi, it's probably a waddling Nazi. Yeah, props.

In 1997, members of the group were arrested and charged with attempting to break Vikanis out of jail to go on a rampage, taking out left-wing Norwegian politicians. His mother even gave them 100,000 kroner, which is about $10,000, but she said she didn't know what they were going to do. Sure, Mum. And despite that in 2003 Vikenis was transferred to a minimum security prison which in Norway means you can

occasionally leave for a day. By October he was granted a day pass and Varg immediately went on the run. He hijacked a car and held a family of three at gunpoint. By the time he was apprehended he'd picked up guns, knives, a gas mask, camouflaged clothing, a portable GPS, maps, a compass, a laptop and a mobile phone. Someone had clearly been ready for him. But he was caught. He was brought back in. And 13 months were added to his sentence and he was sent to the maximum security facility in Trondheim. During his prison sentence, he also managed to get married and have his first child. He just does not quit.

Nope. He was finally released in 2009 after serving 15 of his 21 years. Since then, Varg Vikernes has become really, really active on Twitter and on his YouTube channel, The Ulean Perspective. And that name comes from a nationalist occultist German group from the early 20th century, some of whose members went on to found the Nazi party. Fun fact. Full of the pub quiz shit this week. Absolutely. Have yourself a Norse Nazi themed pub quiz. And Varg Vikikness's posts on youtube and various other social media platforms are or were i should say a mixture of rambling theories about race and also videos of him doing

dodgy karate dressed in camo gear god i know and one particularly rambly video shows him going through how trump and putin relate to sauron and sauroman from the lord of the rings he since thank god stopped posting on both twitter and youtube but every few years he does pop back up with a new buzzer album that precisely no one asked for and he's even released a full length feature film called four bears Bears. Like, past, but bear? An animal bear? I just did like a little, I wanted to do the cat noise. Let's be honest.

The Bears is spelt with a capital B because there's bears in it? I don't know. And in this film, he actually plays himself on a journey back through time. One of the best Halloween costumes I have ever seen was a guy wearing essentially just like jeans and like a shirt, like a button down shirt. And then he had two beanie babies tied to his arms and he was wearing a cowboy hat. He was the right to bear arms. It's like you, sir, are a genius.

That's very funny. And if you're wondering where Varg Vikernes is today, well, as of recording this, he lives in eastern France with his wife and seven kids. Seven! Seven tiny little Nazis. Look at that. Dead suicide, Euronymous' murder,

and the dozens of church burnings, all fed into the mythology at the centre of black metal. Today, the scene lives on, as does the band in the middle of it all. Mayhem went on to release five more successful albums after their controversial debut, and they are still touring. But the vast

majority of the genre's music and fans distance themselves from the exploits of Varg Vikernes, Euronymous, and the actions of those associated with the Black Circle. So they've just sugar-baped the whole thing. Mm-hmm.

And I actually went to go see the film... Sugar-bapes. Sugar-bapes. I actually went to go see the film Lords of Chaos. I think that's what it's called. Yeah, it is...

I don't know if I can recommend it. It is good. I think it's very true to the story. Right. Now that we have gone through the whole true story,

it is very true to the story. I think it is... It's well acted. Sure, it's very true to the story right now that we have gone through the whole true story it is very true to the story i think it is uh it's well acted sure it's very graphic though obviously the suicide scene is very graphic and the murders are also but if you're going to make a film called lords of chaos that's about this story it's got to be it's got to be bloody and it is so i don't know go check it out i actually randomly go went to go watch it like in a really good cinema i went to go watch it in genesis good cinema. I went to go watch it in Genesis. Did you? I know, and I was like, it was the only place that was playing it, because of course.

Yeah, classic, classic Genesis. So, as intense as Mayhem's story is, it is not an aberration. We mentioned Gorgoroth, another metal band earlier, who represented the satanic side of Norwegian black metal. They were formed at the height of the scene's notoriety in 1993, and kept the look and ideology alive through the 90s and early 2000s. They see themselves as using fear to spread their satanic message to the world. As you might remember from our episode on Anton LaVey, we're no anti-Satanists, definitely not.

But Gorgoroth aren't exactly subtle. A concert of theirs in Krakow featured sheep's heads on spikes and a mock crucifixion featuring naked models doused in blood. And it actually caused a police investigation for a religious offence. Okay, like, fucking calm the fuck down. Yeah.

Police. Gorgoroth's lead singer, Gal, has even been described as the most hated man in Norway. More than Anders Breivik. Apparently so. They hate him more than Anders Breivik. Wow, okay.

And Terrorizer magazine, which I don't have a subscription to, has called him the most evil man alive. Wow. In 2002, he got into a fight at a house party and after beating the living shit out of the guy that he was fighting, Gull proceeded to torture him for six hours while collecting his blood and threatening to make him drink it.

He served nine months for torture-like violence. What's torture-like violence? It is definitely worth saying, though, that not all metal music is associated with violence or extreme beliefs. No. Far from it. Generally, metalheads are the nicest people in the world. Yeah, actually, like, I would say that the people that I do know

that are associated with the metal scene are really lovely. They're all very into that kind of Norse mythology stuff, which again, like saying, just because you're into Norse mythology, it's not all racist. It's just like, it's an interesting thing to be interested in.

But there is definitely those people kicking about. Yeah, someone's always going to ruin it. Metal festivals, though, on the whole, tend to be extremely accepting places. A lot of the time, they can give a great sense of community to people who don't feel like they fit in anywhere else. When Judas Priest frontman and metal legend Rob Halford came out as gay in the 1990s, the response was overwhelmingly positive.

But sadly, there are always outliers. And the fascist side of metal that Vickanus was pushing is currently thriving. Neo-Nazi rock festivals are big business and probably not as accepting as other ones. There are gatherings across Europe, sometimes even thousands of people, come from all over the continent to these Nazi rock festivals. I think there is a Louis Theroux Weird Weekends where he goes and meets neo-Nazis and there are these two little girls called Lam and Lynx and they're twins. Oh yes I've seen this. I think it's a weird weekend. And they go and sing at this rock festival and there are so many people there and that's in the States like they've grown up now and they've like completely

separated themselves from their mum. So at these neo-Nazi rock festivals, dozens of bands perform, and sometimes they are little girls, and they spread messages of anti-Semitic hate, and they sing about white supremacy, white supremacist ideals, and they also call for violence. They're key recruitment places and meeting points for extremist groups. Nazi salutes and shouts of Sieg Heil are commonplace in the crowd. And swastikas and Celtic crosses are everywhere. In Germany, music with a far-right ideology is known as Reichsstrock. And in Germany alone, far-right concerts made an estimated 1.3

million euros in 2018 alone. And all of that money goes right back into the system to fuel far-right structures. Bands like Mayhem and Gogoroth had a symbiotic relationship with the media, whether it was intentional or otherwise, but it did grow out of control. The more horrifying the bands became, the more they were reported on

and the more they were driven to prove their authenticity. And today, notoriety is a surefire way to get press, gather members and fuel the furious cultures of the future. So there you go. There you go. If you take away nothing from this episode, take away this. There has never been and there will never be again any Kung Po for racists. Never, never, never. That is it, guys. That is our episode on the Norwegian black metal scene and the deaths and the church burnings that came with it.

Hopefully you enjoyed it. Like we said at the start, if you want some more content, please head on over to patreon.com slash redhanded where you can select from our menu of tiers and all of the content that we offer there and get those contents delivered straight to your phone by using our handy video that explains how to use the RSS feed. Exactly. And go and buy yourself a KitKat. You deserve it. Why not? And remember that the S in RSS stands for stalk. And also listen to Shorthand. And we'll be back.

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