Black metal group Mayhem turns 40 – Dagsavisen

Next weekend, the genre-defining black metal band Mayhem will play two concerts at Sentrum Scene in Oslo, on the occasion of their 40th anniversary this year. With this, the band with bassist and founder Jørn “Necrobutcher” Stubberud kicks off a world tour. Dagsavisen has started a conversation about the band’s very earliest history, and their new everyday life as important figures in cultural life

What exactly is black metal? Basically, black metal is a music genre. For some it is a culture and a way of life. For others, it is a series of gloomy media reports in the early 90s. For Jørn Stubberud, bassist in the black metal band Mayhem, black metal began as a youth dream.

– All musicians know this: When you’re young and starting a band, you don’t dream of playing for 50 people in the local pub. Everyone dreams of becoming big. You have to have a little faith in yourself, or you eventually give up, he says.

Learned from the Stones

Stubberud tells how his interest in music was great from a young age. He learned English from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

– The interest in music is so great that you feel you have to play yourself. It’s not enough to just listen. Then it became natural to find someone to play with, and I did that when I was around 14. Some friends of mine had bought some guitars and such, so we got a room at a school where the father of our first drummer, Kjetil Manheim, was a lecturer, says Stubberud.

This group was called Musta. Musta is Finnish for “black”, which perhaps gave an insight into the musical direction it was all going to take.

– Why did we become so extreme right away? It was, for us, the most natural thing in the world. Everyone has different taste in music. I liked loud music. For example Venom, Celtic Frost, Motörhead, Slayer – they all appeared for us in 1981-1982. I listen to a lot of different music, not just hard music. But when I’m going to make something myself, that’s what comes out, and what comes naturally to me to make, says Stubberud.

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Many actors, many stories

In all, with live musicians included, there have been 19 musicians involved in Mayhem. It’s a network of musicians that’s easy to get lost in if you don’t know their history. It wasn’t easy for the band either, if we are to believe Stubberud.

– The bands we listened to in the 80s, Slayer and so on, they had a consistent lineup, which they could build on. We almost had to replace the whole gang on the road. It set us back quite a bit along the way. Even though we had these problems, we still managed, despite everyone who dropped out, to get up and forward, he says.

For their first record, “Deathcrush”, the band consisted of vocalist Sven Erik “Maniac” Kristiansen, guitarist Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth, Jørn “Necrobutcher” Stubberud on bass and Kjetil Manheim on drums. Eirik “Messiah” Norheim also had vocals on some of the tracks. The record had a first edition of 1,000 copies.

– When the record was out, we were busy planning concerts. It became clear that this was going to take time, and Kjetil Manheim also quit around this time. After all, we got other people into the band, one of whom was suicidal, and others who had their own challenges, says Stubberud.

He refers to the period between the end of the 80s until 1993, when the band finally fell apart. Vocalist Kristiansen and drummer Manheim had left the band, and been replaced by Swedish Per Yngve “Dead” Ohlin and drummer Jan Axel “Hellhammer” Blomberg.

The early nineties were characterized by major controversies for the metal scene in Norway. A series of church fires, suicides and murders made the metal scene a favorite media topic and a morbid interest for Norwegians who followed along excitedly. Vocalist Ohlin committed suicide, and Stubberud left the band. The band got a new vocalist from Hungary, Attila Csihar. With a new vocalist and new bassist, Varg Vikernes, the band recorded the legendary record “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”. Later that year, Vikernes took the life of guitarist Øystein Aarseth.

The band fell apart after the murder. Stubberud has previously told Dagsavisen that at Aarseth’s funeral he agreed with drummer Hellhammer that they should not bury the band as well. They were supposed to honor their two dead comrades, Øystein and Pelle.

– We were in the rehearsal room until 1996. Then we were ready again, says Stubberud.

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Both new and old

Stubberud was back in the band. There was also the vocalist from the 80s, Kristiansen, and the new guitarist Rune “Blasphemer” Eriksen. The band worked hard, played live and recorded several discs until the mid-2000s. Discs such as “A Grand Declaration of War” and “Chimera” set a completely new and more technical mark on the band.

At the end of the nineties, the band was to meet an old acquaintance at a small venue in Italy.

– We played in Milan in ’98, and then Attila appeared at the concert. This was the first time I met him. He saw what happened in the band earlier that decade, so he actually lost the contacts he had here in Norway and thought maybe that was it, says Stubberud.

– We got on well, and found out that we had things in common both musically and in general, so we really became friends. I invited him up on stage to do one of the old songs he had been involved in previously, and it’s on the live album “Mediolanum Capta Est”. I had a little epiphany that night. “If Maniac (Kristiansen) quits, you’re the only one I’ll call,” I told him.

And in 2004, the vocalist from the legendary record “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”, Attila, joined the band again.

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Cultural heritage, Spellemann prize

In 2007, the group won the Spellemann prize for the album “Ordo Ad Chao”. The album is dark, icy, and Attila’s vocals stand out as one of the most distinctive and well-known vocals in the history of black metal, and at the same time give a cold gust from the band’s past.

In 2020, after guitarists Morten “Teloch” Bergeton Iversen and Charles “Ghul” Hedger joined in 2011 and 2012, the band again won the Spellemannprisen’s honorary prize, cementing once and for all its role as part of Norwegian cultural heritage.

The jury’s reasoning was as follows:

“Icon, legend, genre-defining and world-class music. Since the band’s inception in 1984, the Year’s Honorary Award winner has created music that has shocked, rocked and, not least, inspired. With their boundary-breaking and experimental musical expression, they can be considered the very founder of the subgenre’s origin. They have inspired countless artists of all ages and all over the world since the start of their careers. The band’s burdensome history has unfortunately often stood in the way of the talent and the music going out, especially for those who would not put on this music voluntarily.

But the band’s relevance today, and their position in the metal genre on a global level, shows that the music itself is rock solid with both timeless classics and ground-breaking releases in the catalogue. The band’s music, both on record and from the stage, has created music history worldwide. New documentaries, books and magazines are constantly being made about the Year’s Honorary Award winners and about the genre they have helped to shape and define. It is almost inevitable to discover Norwegian black metal without coming across the Year’s Honorary Award winner, even for new fans today. You can’t help but consider the band a legend and a greatness in Norwegian music.”

– How has it been to see black metal being something that has been relatively underground to become something so big?

– We just did what felt natural throughout. I see that we have been one of the bands that have participated in this. When people tell you enough times, that it has meant something to them, you start to believe it yourself, says Stubberud.

He is constantly impressed by the level, and the creativity, that springs from the metal.

– People jump on the music and find different angles. Opera, jazz, techno, folk music and lots more. I can quickly imagine that people will soon have to give up, because I myself don’t see what can be done next, but suddenly someone comes knocking. Like Shining with the Blackjazz record, for example! I was completely taken to bed, me. Is that even possible?

Shining is a Norwegian group that was nominated for the Spellemannprisen for their album Blackjazz.

Stubberud repeats that he can listen to a lot of different things, even Kylie Minogue, but is clear on what is the worst.

– The matter of musical style becomes personal preference. I don’t like to talk down what other people make. If I were to single out what is good metal for me, I would say, for example, Entombed, with “Hollowman” and “Wolverine Blues”. Everything is right on the two discs there, says Stubberud.

– They are Swedish, after all. It’s a bit stupid. We’ll give it to them then, he grins.

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Dedicated fans

Stubberud thinks they have a good tone with the fans.

– I have never experienced anything negative with the fans throughout all these years. It’s nice to be greeted like this. If I go to a metal concert at Rockefeller, you can’t get mad if someone wants to take a picture or something like that. I have become a public figure, so you just have to factor that into the calculation.

He still remembers the first time he was able to take advantage of the status.

– It probably started 15-20 years ago, that I went up to the heap to pick up some rubbish. I cranked down the window and asked how much this was going to cost. “Your money is worth nothing here,” he says. “What is this?”, I thought. “The guys in Mayhem don’t pay to throw their trash away,” he told me. It was nice!

– So it’s a bit disappointing that my fans don’t work in the insurance company or my bank, laughs Stubberud.

– Do you have a greeting for the fans, on this anniversary?

– You can rest assured that we will never let our fans down, we are here for them. Mayhem will always be Mayhem.

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