Euronymous IV (1991/1992)

Have you changed during all the years you have been into Death Metal, or has the music changed you?

Well, we’ve always tried to go further and further into darkness and evil and we get inspiration for this by listening to all the ancient Black Metal bands, and to a lot of the new ones. It’s important to get the right atmosphere from the music to become more evil and to power to do satanic actions. During the last year we have tried to become darker by oppressing human feelings, by trying not to laugh or smile, to have no feelings for girls except for exploitation, and to become more manipulating and egoistic. Death to “love, peace and fun”! Hate, War and Sodomy!

How was it to start up a band like MAYHEM? Have you had any problems? MAYHEM has had problems all the time since the beginning in ’84. The most difficult thing has been (the lack of) money. But in the beginning we didn’t have any really serious problems. Of course people didn’t take us very seriously, but who gives a fuck about people.

How are you distributing your releases?

So far we’ve been doing it very underground, but we’ll start getting bigger distribution through labels like SPV from now on and it will all be done more professionally. We need it in order to survive, so do the bands, and it’s just to bad to be sitting there and seeing shit bands like OBITUARY earning all the money and getting all the publicity. They don’t deserve it and we have started a war against bands like that. In the future we’ll start up a lot of actions. You’ll see.

I know you’re interested in communism. Have you been to any communist countries, if yes, what have been your emotions about it?

I’ve been very interested in communism for a while, especially the extreme countries like Albania, Kampuchea, North Korea and so on. I have to say that I have studied so much that I know that real communism would be the best possible system, BUT as I HATE people I don’t want them to have a good time, I’d like to see them rot under communist dictatorship. Ceausescu was great, we need more people like him, Stalin Pol Pot too. I’ve been to Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the (good) old days, and was about to go to Albania, although it didn’t turn out. Poland was quite all right, but it could have been even MORE grey and depressing. I like secret police, cold war and worshipping of dictators. I like bugging and spying on people, torture chambers in police stations and that people suddenly “disappear”.

Is the life you are living OK for you? If you could change something what would it be?

Yeah, it’s quite OK. I’d just like to have extremely much money. Then DSP would be a big company, we would all have the POWER in this part of the music business, and I would live in luxury with a harem and watch the children in Africa starve to death on video.

What is the ultimate goal for you with your band/label?

I don’t think we have any real definite goal, we started to play the music that was right for us, and we have done it for 8 years now. If we can spread terror, fright and hate in the world, and if we can manipulate lots of children into Satan's arms, and if we could become rich and have lots of power over others, it would be quite perfect, though as for the label, it was started because all other labels we shit and released mostly idiotic music. So we wanted to see to it that the greatest bands in the world got out on vinyl. And to create a Black Metal cult label with evil music by evil people for evil people released by evil people. I hate to see normal idiots thinking this is FUN and interfering in OUR world. Look at all the HC labels that are releasing “Death” Metal now, it sucks! It’s important that WE are in control, we who belong here, we should kick the punks back to where they came from so they can chew their carrots in the gutter where they belong.

How many records have you sold? What reaction has their been? Do people write back to you after they have bought an LP from you?

We have sold 2000 MERCILESS records and 1000 BURZUM records so far, but this is nothing compared to what we’ll sell now we make good distribution. We get very great reactions on our releases, simply because they ARE very great. We release only the best music that is possible to find.

If a guy listening to POISON, BON JOVI etc. Writes to you and wants to buy MERCILESS LP, will you sell it to him? I mean, can everybody buy records from you?

I won’t be able to know what music people listen to, and even if a guy writes that he’s very true and so on, he might turn out to be a complete idiot. So it’s impossible to discriminate even though we would like to do it. Also we need to sell records for economical reasons. We have been thinking about making a questionnaire for people to answer, and have them to send a photo before they were allowed to by records, but we can just forget about that. Until we become very rich everybody can buy records from us.

You’re totally anti-Earache right? Have you been like this since the first release of Earache? Could you elaborate on this?

No, I’m not anti-Earache at all! You’re obviously thinking of “anti-mosh” number on our records, but this dosen’t have anything to do with Earache. Of course it’s incredibly stupid with “mosh 4” but that’s their problem. Many years ago “mosh” was a very common word in the “underground” , you had to “mosh” to be cool, and these idiots, the “moshers”, with their Bermuda shorts, skateboards and shitty caps on their ugly heads were for us the lowest a human could possibly become. They were the symbol of everything that was trendy and which was destroying Black Metal, and we started a war against it . Now the moshers are more or less gone, but the spirit still lives on in the brains of the hardcore pigs and trendy Mtv audience who think that Death Metal should be a normal and funny thing for everybody. This is why our records this way. As for Earache, I have great respect for Dig, because when he started up he never signed bands BECAUSE they sold. Who had heard about NAPALM DEATH before he released their LP’s who had heard about CARCASS and ENTOMBED? MORBID ANGEL? Except for the “Underground” NONE, Earache isn’t a trendy label, it’s those who buy Earache records that are mostly trendy.

Your life has been pretty hard… How have you managed to survive, to have MAYHEM going and even run a label, though you haven’t got enough money to buy food?

That isn’t a problem anymore, we had a very hard time a couple of years ago, but I have managed to borrow some money which keeps the business going strong. Of course we don’t live in luxury and we don’t have much equipment, but it will be better in the future.

If MAYHEM would reach Norwegian Top 10, would you split up?

It’s a difficult question. I don’t think we would split up, but we would have to do something. If we were in top ten, it would mean that people were thinking we were funny and not dangerous, so we would have to make a couple of actions to make them hate us. On the other hand I would not mind earning idiots money. But this will never happen anyway, as MAYHEM is absolutely NOT a funny band and if someone tries to fuck with us he will discover that he’s messing with the wrong people. The entire concept behind MAYHEM is to dark for normal people to be into.

Have you got a certain place to rehearse with MAYHEM? Are the things with moving quicker now?

Things will go fast from now on, We’ll get a big rehearsal place together with THORNS/ARCTURUS/BURZUM, and it wont take long before the MAYHEM album is out.

What was the reason to sign BURZUM? Did you know the Count before signing BURZUM?

Yes, I’ve known the Count for some time, and I signed BURZUM after listening to the demo. It had a really bad sound and no vocals, but after being into this for ten years I know when a band has something really great to come up with, even if it’s a bad sounding demo or a rehearsal. And with a personality like the Count – it just has to turn out great.

What do you think of SARCOFAGO being shown on Mtv?

I think it sucks, but as they have wimped out totally, they don’t belong into the Black Metal world anyway, so even if they take part in destroying Death Metal, they’re at least not destroying Black Metal. On other hand, even VENOM was shown on Mtv, so I’m a little in doubt if we should be so much against it after all. If VENOM did certain things in the old days, who are we to criticize the originators?

If you could change something in the world, what would it be then?

I would get all things back to what they were during the cold war, then I would mix it with the barbarianism of the Viking ages and middle age. I would make people more religious and fanatic. And I would have taken over the Black/Death metal movement from the beginning and seen to it that only evil bands could have existed. And I would have lots of money while others were starving. I would NOT do anything with starving children in Africa, if you’re thinking about that. They can die.