Mayhem - part 1

Mayhem (often called 'The True Mayhem') is a black metal band, formed in 1984[1] in Oslo, Norway. The band name is taken from the Venom song, Mayhem with Mercy.[2] Much controversy has followed the various murders, suicides and other forms of violence that surrounded the band in the early years. Mayhem is considered one of the most controversial bands in modern musical history, especially due to the vast number of urban legends and myths surrounding their early years, and the controversies have often overshadowed the music, especially in recent years due in part to the Internet and magazine articles.

Over time Mayhem has evolved through a variety of black metal styles, delving at times into areas of dark avant-garde industrial and electronica. Highly influential, the group is widely considered to be one of the cornerstones of the black metal movement.

Early years (1984-1990)

Mayhem was founded in 1984 by guitarist/vocalist Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth - then 'Destructor'), bassist Necrobutcher (Jørn Stubberud) and drummer Manheim (Kjetil Manheim). Euronymous concentrated solely on guitar following the hiring of vocalist Messiah (Eirik Nordheim) in 1985, with Maniac (Sven Erik Kristiansen) replacing Messiah. The band went on to record their third release, following two demos, Deathcrush, with Euronymous's newly formed label 'Posercorpse Music'.

By this time Mayhem's sound had developed from their initial thrash / death metal influences to arrive at a sound more distinctive, dark and unique. Though maintaining the usual death metal obsessions in gore and violence, more sinister preoccupations with occultism and satanism emerged (though Euronymous opposed the Crowleyan and LaVeyan brands of Satanism, in favour of a Christian perspective[citation needed]).

An initial release of 1,000 copies of Deathcrush quickly sold out, and was later repressed in 1993, by the Posercorpse Music label, since having been renamed Deathlike Silence Productions as a joint venture with Øystein's Oslo specialist record shop Helvete. Øystein's plans for this new outlet included that it was to be "...like a black church in the future. We've thought about having total darkness inside, so that people would have to carry torches to be able to see the records."[citation needed]


By the summer of 1988 both Manheim and Maniac had left the band; Manheim, tired of 'the life', tried to get a 'real' job, Maniac, following a failed suicide attempt was confined to a mental institution. After two brief replacements, their positions were filled by Swede Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin, previously of Morbid), and scene drummer Hellhammer (Jan Axel Blomberg). Dead, as suggested by his stage name, was melancholic by nature and fascinated by death, decay, and darkness. He left even Euronymous expressing concern for his mental stability. Despite this he was well liked on the scene, though regarded as a little naïve.

According to Bard Eithun "He (Dead) wasn't a guy you could know very well. I think even the other guys in Mayhem didn't know him very well. He was hard to get close to. I met him two weeks before he died. I'd met him maybe six to eight times, all in all. He had lots of weird ideas. I remember Aarseth was talking about him and said he did not have any humour. He did, but it was very obscure. Honestly, I don't think he was enjoying living in this world." [2]

Dead had, over time, carefully cultivated a notoriety for strange behaviour; once burying a set of clothes underground for weeks so that he could later wear the decaying rags on stage[citation needed]. He had kept a rotting raven in a plastic bag so better to "inhale the scent of death" before going on stage[citation needed]. Such morbid fascinations and antics further developed Mayhem's progressing musical atmosphere, and by this point the band's lyrics had moved increasingly toward Satanism, darkness, depression and evil. A focal point of gigs at this time was the planting of pigs' heads on stakes, center stage, and Dead cutting himself with a knife.

The new lineup with Dead and Euronymous was quickly to become the band's most notorious. After some live gigs in Norway and Germany (where Live in Leipzig was recorded), Mayhem started working on their first full length album: De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (Lord Satan's Secret Rites), though by the time of its eventual release the two cornerstone members would be dead.

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Classic line-up (1991-1993)

By April 1991, Dead was found dead at the age of 22, having suffered a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head and several lacerations to the wrists, inflicted by a knife he had bought that day. Dead committed suicide in a house he was sharing in Kråkstad with the other members of the band, and left a note saying "Excuse all the blood"[3] Other members of the band claimed it was more extensive, also saying "The knife was too dull to finish the job so I had to use the shotgun." Euronymous was first to discover the body, and took a series of photographs of the corpse, one of which was later stolen and used as cover art for the bootleg album Dawn of the Black Hearts.

According to Occultus, who briefly took position as vocalist after Dead's suicide: "He (Dead) didn't see himself as human; he saw himself as a creature from another world. He said he had many visions that his blood has frozen in his veins, that he was dead. That is the reason he took that name. He knew he would die.."[4]

The shells used had been sent to him by Bergen, Norway musician Kristian Vikernes (aka Varg Vikernes, Count Grishnackh; ex Old Funeral, sole member of black metal band Burzum, later convicted murderer of Euronymous). Euronymous was particularly cold and opportunistic about Dead's suicide; in interviews he claimed, speciously, that Dead had killed himself due to the rising popularity of death metal, the American movement Black Metal had risen against. Hellhammer claimed that Euronymous had taken pieces of Dead's brain and made a stew, in which he had put ham, frozen vegetables, and pepper: "He'd always said he wanted to eat flesh, so he figured this was an easy way." However, Euronymous later admitted that he had not actually eaten any part of Dead's body, though he had intended to. Euronymous also claimed to have collected and forged fragments of Dead's skull into necklaces, sending pieces to those he felt 'worthy' (amongst those rumoured to be in possession of such pieces are the members of Swedish black metal band Marduk & Abruptum). Hellhammer has said he made a necklace from Dead's skull fragments as well.

In 1993, Live in Leipzig was released as the band's tribute to Dead. Dead's suicide affected Necrobutcher so much that he left Mayhem, thinning the band's ranks down to two.