Mayhem

A very dark history.

Mayhem is a word that evokes a sense of distress, disorder and destruction. Whether it be the horrors of war or a mosh pit, Mayhem is frenzied chaos. The term ‘mayhem’ has its roots in the old French term mahaignier, meaning ‘to wound’ or ‘to mutilate.’ Historically, it was used in legal contexts to describe serious physical harm.

Warning the contents of this article maybe disturbing to some readers!

The band Mayhem has one of the most bizarre stories you will ever hear, I wasn’t sure whether I should even write this article. If you haven’t heard this story of Mayhem, you are in for a bumpy ride.

I don’t actually listen to Mayhem, so I don’t have a favourite song. That being said here is a song by Mayhem.

Mayhem the Norwegian black metal band are one of the most notorious bands that have ever lived. Founded in 1984 in Oslo, Mayhem helped define the black metal genre. The music is brutal and unrefined, and the lyrics are tales of death, destruction, violence, arson and death.

The band was formed by the guitarist Euronymous with bassist Necrobutcher and drummer Kjetil Manheim. Their sound early on in their career was heavily influenced by death metal but quickly evolved or devolved into something more sinister raw and atmospheric.

Their first release was an EP in 1987 named ‘Deathcrush’ it was a raw and chaotic collection of songs that fascinated the underground metal scene. The production was primitive, but it definitely had an impact on the metal scene. The album captured a cold aggressive spirit that would influence many in the genre for years to come.

I could talk about their other albums but Mayhems antics off the stage and out of the studio are what make then so notorious. In 1988 Mayhem recruited a vocalist from Sweden named Pelle Yngve Ohlin, better known by his stage name ‘Dead.’ Dead’s stage presence was intense and disturbing, he set the stage for the band’s early performances.

Warning this article is about to get Morbid and maybe disturbing to some readers!

Dead was known for a morbid obsession with death, he would wear corpse paint and bury his clothes to give them the smell of decay, he would also sleep with dead birds under his bed because he wanted to smell the decay, he would also cut himself onstage reportedly to blur the lines between life and death. In 1991 Dead took his own life at the age of 22.

Euronymous was at this point an icon in the Black metal scene and had a rather disturbing reaction to the suicide of Dead, Dead had used a shotgun to the head to perform his suicide and when Euronymous found him he was pleasantly surprised as he had been encouraging Dead to take his own life. Instead of calling the authorities, Euronymous went to the shop to buy a disposable camera that he used to take pictures of Dead’s body. He also apparently took pieces of his skull to make necklaces out of them, this has been confirmed as true by the other band members.

After taking the pictures, Euronymous called Necrobutcher and told him what had happened and mentioning how ‘cool it was’ that he had taken pictures of the scene, Necrobutcher couldn’t believe what he was hearing and told him to destroy the pictures. Euronymous didn’t destroy the pictures and Necrobutcher ended up leaving Mayhem.

With the death of Dead and the departure of Necrobutcher this meant half of the band was gone. Euronymous took advantage of the death of Dead claiming that he took his own life because black metal had become too trendy and too commercial. He also released a bunch of letters Dead had written to him. It worked, in 1991 Euronymous opened a record store and used the premises for his record label, ‘ Death like Silence Productions’. This store became a place for like-minded musicians to meet and Euronymous found two more band members to replace Dead and Necrobutcher.

Varg Vikernes had been making his own music and was a very talented musician, he joined Mayhem in 1992. Euronymous at this stage was an elitist who had a massive following in the black metal community, he would make lists of rules that black metal bands had to follow and became a sort of cult leader type figure, essentially he became an ego maniac, some people ate this up with a spoon while others started to criticize what Euronymous was trying to do and one of those people that criticized was Varg.

It’s widely believed that Varg wanted the power Euronymous had but with Euronymous owning the Band, the store and the label, a power struggle developed which led to an insane turn of events.

Black metal was blamed at the time for a lot of the church burnings in Europe and rightly so, some bands were encouraging this activity. Varg admitted in an interview years later that he tried to stir controversy by burning churches himself and that he had killed a man in a small town in Europe. Over a dozen churches were burnt down in Norway. Varg was arrested in relation to a church burning and was released in 1993.

Euronymous closed down his shop, and Varg had lost all respect for him. A lot of black metal fans also started to see Euonymous for the moron he was, and this was contributed to Varg not being shy of giving his opinion about him.

At this point Euronymous had hatched a plan to kill Varg. Euronymous had a contract that Varg needed to sign so Euronymous set up a meeting. When they met all hell broke loose, Euronymous attacked Varg and the details are sketchy, but Varg ended up stabbing Euronymous who had ran like a weasel. Varg was arrested for murder. As it turned out Varg had gone to the meeting planning to kill Euronymous so had no claim of self-defence. Euronymous was dead and some would say good riddance!

There isn’t a lot of music to talk about when it comes to Mayhem but the story behind the scenes is truly insane, there would be a lot I have missed and maybe some things I have gotten wrong but like I said, I’m not a fan of this band or anything they have ever represented.

Regards,

Patrick M