The early history of black metal pioneers Mayhem was one of turmoil and tragedy. Twenty-five years after the release of their first proper studio album, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, classic member Necrobutcher has a lot to get off his chest.
Mayhem sat down to speak with Heavy Consequence about the new album, Daemon, and at one point we asked bassist Necrobutcher to discuss the 25th anniversary of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. What we ended up getting was an emotional and powerful reflection on the morbid deaths of two of his bandmates.
Without getting into too much detail, Mayhem singer Per “Dead” Ohlin committed suicide in 1991, and the gruesome death scene was photographed by guitarist Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth. Two years later, in 1993, Euronymous was murdered by then Mayhem bandmate Varg Vikernes (aka Count Grishnackh). The story was captured in the recent movie Lords of Chaos.
In the video above, Necrobutcher first talked about the death of Dead, and the anger he felt toward Euronymous for taking photos of Ohlin’s corpse, as well as the sorrow he still feels to this day. He also discussed his bitterness toward Euronymous after being replaced in the band with Varg Vikernes before the recording of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. Then he turned to the murder of Euronymous, offering an eye-opening revelation:
“OK, I can tell it right now, because I’ve been holding it in for many years, but actually I was on my way down to kill him myself. And when it happened, I saw the morning paper, thinking ‘F**k, I gotta get home to my place and get out all the weapons and drugs and shit I had in my house, because they’re coming to my house because I’m probably going to be the No. 1 suspect for this.’
But little did I know that the Norwegian police already knew that Count Grishnackh [Varg] was going down also to kill him. Because they bugged his phone, and he actually talked about this killing before he went to Bergen so the cops already knew that he was coming, so they probably were thinking to themselves, ‘We didn’t nail this guy for the church burnings, so let’s nail him for murder, and get rid of this f–king guy in Oslo the same time.’ So that’s basically what happened.”
Necrobutcher went on to talk about how playing De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas in concert years later when singer Atilla returned to the band in 2006 was a therapeutic experience.
(Read: Director Jonas Åkerlund and Stars Rory Culkin and Emory Cohen Discuss Lords of Chaos)
Watch the video of Necrobutcher’s entire recollection above. Mayhem’s new album, Daemon, arrives October 25th, and is available for pre-order. The band kicks off a European tour on October 31st. Tickets are available at their website and here.
