89: Mayhem & Early Norwegian Black Metal
Kathryn (00:10)
I was gonna be like, my god, should I just go? The answer is yes. Yes, Kathryn just do it.
Gina (00:13)
Yeah.
Kathryn (00:16)
Hello. Hi everyone. Welcome to i Scream You Scream. We are your weekly scoop of the most chilling histories, mysteries, and paranormal perplexities. My name is Kathryn
Gina (00:25)
I'm Gina.
Kathryn (00:26)
And a new month. It's the first week of August. Welcome. for the next few weeks, we are going to be telling stories that are absolutely outrageous. will be eating outrageous ice cream as well.
We will go into detail about what our flavors are here in just a second. But before that, hello. If you already know us, welcome back. If you want more from us each month, go on over and join us on Patreon. Also, this episode is sponsored by Clobear Money Coach. If you're ready to start investing but unsure how exactly to get started, visit getlazynow.com. Until then, grab a spoon and let's dig in.
Gina (01:02)
Two outrageous month. I'm so excited to hear what you're having.
Kathryn (01:06)
I'm scared. I don't want to talk about what I'm having because it's bad, but I did my best. I don't know what outrageous means. I know we talked about it last week, but I just I overthought it. So I was like, I don't know. I feel I feel like I'm overthinking this. So I was like, what if I just stopped overthinking this and instead just mixed some flavors together? So
Gina (01:30)
Yeah.
Kathryn (01:31)
what I did was I
Mixed together two flavors that contain all of my favorite things in ice cream.
Gina (01:40)
Okay.
Kathryn (01:41)
So I have a scoop of cherry garcia because I love cherries and cherry ice cream, and then I also have a scoop of salted caramel ice cream with Oreos in it. So
Gina (01:55)
Ooh.
Kathryn (01:56)
I have a salted caramel Oreo cherry ice cream.
Gina (02:01)
That's
absolutely outrageous. Cause in my mind, outrageous is just like
Kathryn (02:04)
Okay, is it?
Gina (02:05)
it's yeah, it's just like outside the norm. Like it's just something you wouldn't
Kathryn (02:08)
Okay.
Gina (02:08)
normally put together. That's a hundred percent outrageous.
Kathryn (02:12)
Okay, good.
Gina (02:13)
That sounds good. Have you taken a bite yet? Okay.
Kathryn (02:15)
Not yet. Cinnamon is
laying on me, so I can't she I caught her eating it earlier, so I think she's just trying to take it from me.
Gina (02:21)
Yeah.
Kathryn (02:23)
What are you eating? What's your outrageous flavor?
Gina (02:27)
for a long time I've wanted to make basil ice cream, but I didn't wanna just
Kathryn (02:31)
my god.
Gina (02:32)
I didn't wanna just make basil ice cream. I wanted to pair it with stuff. So I have strawberry, basil, and balsamic vinegar ice cream.
Kathryn (02:41)
Okay, see, that's outrageous. What in the hell? Did you try it? that's true.
Gina (02:47)
salted caramel cherries. No, I haven't tried it yet. Let's
let's take a bite. Let's take a bite of each of our ice creams.
Kathryn (02:54)
Yeah, that's salted caramel cherry Oreo ice cream.
Gina (02:58)
This is mainly just strawberry.
Kathryn (03:03)
All right, well there you go.
Gina (03:05)
It is good. It tastes a little bit like basil at the end. It feels like this would be
Kathryn (03:08)
Okay.
Gina (03:09)
a great ice cream to have at a picnic.
Kathryn (03:11)
I was gonna say basil is a little scary because a little bit goes so far. So I feel
Gina (03:19)
Mm.
Kathryn (03:20)
like strawberry with a little bit of basil is good.
Is it like refreshing? Yeah.
Gina (03:26)
Very refreshing. This would be an excellent milkshake.
Kathryn (03:28)
Mmm.
Gina (03:29)
Not getting the balsamic vinegar at all though. I might try putting. Hmm. I've heard that
Kathryn (03:32)
Okay, that I was trying to think of what else you had in there. Yeah. Okay.
Gina (03:36)
people do olive oil as a topper on ice cream sometimes if they want like a little savory note. I don't know if people do like a
Kathryn (03:42)
Yeah.
Gina (03:42)
balsamic vinegar glaze on top somet. I've never tried it, but maybe I'll do that next
Kathryn (03:45)
I've never heard of that, but I don't know. Yeah.
Gina (03:49)
time to see. See how it tastes. I don't know. This is the month to experiment, I guess.
Kathryn (03:53)
true. I never thought of olive oil on ice cream. I love an olive oil cake. my god.
Gina (03:58)
me too.
Kathryn (03:58)
my brother's coworker made an olive oil orange cake last year for Christmas and I just
Gina (04:04)
Mm
Kathryn (04:06)
took that loaf right home with me. I was like,
Gina (04:08)
my god, that sounds so good.
Kathryn (04:10)
Yeah, he was sharing it with me. He like offered me a slice And I just like
Gina (04:14)
Hmm.
Kathryn (04:14)
slowly kept eating it. He was like, Do you just want that? I was like, Yeah, I'm just gonna take this home. He was like, Okay. It's like thanks for just sharing your cake with me. Yeah, it was so good.
Gina (04:23)
that sounds delicious. Cause it stays
so moist and then what I love about olive oil cakes is that like the crust of the cake gets ki it's like the top of a cupcake. You know how they're kind of sticky? I love that texture. ten out of ten. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kathryn (04:37)
So good. But then it's nice and fluffy on the inside, but still
very d yeah.
Gina (04:42)
I love episodes we talked about baked goods.
Kathryn (04:45)
I know it's only a matter
of time before we have to change the title of this podcast to I Scream Baked Goods. Wait.
Gina (04:51)
Ice cream baked ca
I bake, you bake. That just sounds like a stoner podcast.
Kathryn (04:54)
I make him I was gonna say that's a different podcast all to
all together.
Gina (05:00)
Although they mu they would probably talk about very similar things to be honest. You know Bigfoot's
Kathryn (05:03)
True.
Gina (05:04)
in the woods, dude?
Kathryn (05:07)
True. right, well my ice cream's gone. That was delectable.
Gina (05:10)
Yeah, that was good.
Kathryn (05:11)
well listen everyone, we have a doozy of an episode for you, so we're gonna skip past all the chit chat and get right into it. Gina, hit me with it. Yeah, I know, I already do.
Gina (05:19)
Yeah. Okay, you're gonna regret saying that. I will say,
if you can hear my fan in the background, I do apologize. We are still in the middle of a heat wave and if I don't have it
Kathryn (05:30)
Yeah.
Gina (05:31)
on, I will probably melt. So apologies.
Kathryn (05:34)
Yeah, we I
we're in our second heat wave of the summer, so I'm gonna mute myself. I also feel like I'm gonna have so much to say on this episode. I'm gonna try not to because I'm just so scared.
Gina (05:45)
Feel free to chime. This
you know what? This what I'm about to tell you is a story that we need to talk each other through because it's rough. Normally I like to tease what the episode is about before I give a content warning, but today's topic is so messed up that I need to give one right at the top. Heads up, this episode is going to be so, so incredibly dark. The story I'm about to tell involves severe mental illness, suicide, self-harm.
Desecration of corpses, both human and animal, and general literal evilness. So, trigger warning from this point on. If you have been struggling with your mental health recently, I do not recommend listening to this episode. And there are resources for you in the show notes. Should you need them, please use them. So today, Kathryn, who is stuck with me and forced to listen, I am going to be telling
Kathryn (06:38)
Ha ha ha.
Gina (06:39)
you.
I'm gonna be telling you about the Norwegian black metal scene in the 80s and 90s. And specifically how a group of teenagers started a domino effect that led to several violent deaths, multiple imprisonments, and a series of now infamous church burnings. And I'm also gonna say right at the top that a lot of what I'm about to tell you is very debatable because we got a lot of this information after the fact from people who either wanted to look cool.
Or look innocent. it is impossible to fully and correctly understand what happened here. I'm gonna tell you the version of the story that seems to be the most widely accepted, but have your grains of salt at the ready. And now with all of that hedging out of the way, it starts
Kathryn (07:28)
Truly.
Gina (07:29)
right it starts with a band called Mayhem. Are you familiar with Mayhem, Kathryn?
Kathryn (07:34)
yes.
Gina (07:35)
Okay.
Hi I had a feeling that you might be. They're yeah.
Kathryn (07:38)
Yes.
Gina (07:38)
They're very well known in the black metal community, but not all of us are in the black metal community, so I just wanted to check. Knowing who you're married to though, I would be surprised if you hadn't heard of them before.
Kathryn (07:49)
yes. I've seen all the documentaries.
Gina (07:54)
Mayhem are often considered to be a second wave black metal band. And as for what makes black metal distinct from other subgenres, I have a quote here from a well-known book on this story called Lords of Chaos that says, quote, Black metal adopts the basic framework of the hardest strain of heavy metal, ripping it down to a poisoned, jagged splinter of aural hate.
So it's really, really intense stuff. And in this specific story, black metal was just as much an outlook on the world as it was a subgenre of music. Black metal was treated like a religion. There wasn't like an official rule book or anything like that, but according to people in the scene, at this time, if you were truly a Norwegian black metal fan, you would be committed to being actually evil and to spreading things like hate and fear as much as you could. This
Type of music is what they warned us about during the satanic panic.
Kathryn (08:53)
for sure.
Gina (08:55)
And Mayhem's leader would later say that they started the band because they hated humanity, life, and happiness. They were also 16 years old.
Kathryn (09:07)
Listen, I just have to say one thing real quick. this is a very dark story, but like this whole intro is actually cracking me up because when I first started listening to black metal and becoming evil and hating the world, I was about fourteen. So like it's like you think you're so big and hard and then you're like actually kinda not. But I'm gonna shut up because I know
Gina (09:33)
That keep that in mind through this entire story because the knowledge that these
Kathryn (09:34)
There's a lot more comin'. It's exactly yes. Yes.
Gina (09:38)
were, I'm not gonna use the word kids because I don't want to infantilize what winds up happening. But the fact that these were young tryhards is so important to understanding
Kathryn (09:44)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Gina (09:47)
what happens and why. So, yes, great point. Keep let's keep
Kathryn (09:50)
Yeah.
Gina (09:50)
that in mind. anyway, I'm gonna tell you about the founding members of Mayhem. I'm gonna give you both their given names and then also their black metal names.
Nicknames. I will be referring to them through their nicknames for the rest of the episode. But first we have the guitarist Øystein Aarseth aka Euronymous. He was like the founder, the leader, the guy, incredibly influential figure in the Norwegian black metal scene. he's who we're gonna spend most of our time talking about or around today.
Then there is the bassist and vocalist, Jørn Stubberud aka Necrobutcher fantastic nickname.
I did want to ask you, like, if you had a black metal nickname, what would it be? But I didn't want to put you on the spot because these are like so
Kathryn (10:40)
y of
Gina (10:41)
creative.
Kathryn (10:42)
yeah, of course you're putting me on the stop. But also of course I've thought of this many times. This will be one that I I come back to because I do have one somewhere in my brain, but I also have like any time I hear something, I'm like, ooh, that'd be that would be a good name. I've definitely thought of this before. Yeah.
Gina (10:58)
We'll circle back to it. In a future
episode, w because I I haven't thought of mine. Yeah. For the amount that I've immersed myself in Norwegian black metal, sadly, over the last few days, I haven't.
Kathryn (11:07)
I gonna say that
that kinda surprises me. I feel like you would come up with something well. You'll you'll come up with something now. You're you'll you'll hear it at like a bakery or something. It'll be the name of some weird latte and you're like, that's it.
Gina (11:25)
Latte, famed frontman of the I
Kathryn (11:27)
Exactly. Exactly.
Gina (11:29)
like that. Yeah, we'll we'll we'll come back to it. We'll come back to it in a future episode.
Kathryn (11:32)
Ha ha.
Gina (11:33)
and then finally there is the drummer Kjetil Manheim who winds up not staying in the band very long, so he doesn't get a fun little nickname. And actually, Mayhem went through a lot of different versions of their lineup in the early days, especially. For a little while they had a new member called Messiah. He left
Like within a year, and they brought on another guy called Maniac. And there's a pattern there that you see a lot in this story and with this band. The members kind of come and go. Anyway, Mayhem released their first EP called Death Crush in 1987, and that's when they started to kind of build their name a little bit more. They had already gotten some attention from their demo tape, which was called Pure Fucking Armageddon.
Kathryn (12:19)
I can't.
Gina (12:20)
But Death Crush is where they started to get like some serious fans. Not a ton of them. You know, they weren't a worldwide sensation or anything, but they did have fans and their fans were committed. Again, the lineup got kind of shuffled around a little bit, and by 1988, four years after the band's founding, there were only two members left, Euronymous and Necro Butcher. They knew they needed to recruit some new members, so they started to look for a lead vocalist, and they found their match.
in a guy named Per Yngve Ohlin, also known as Dead. Apparently they first got into touch with Dead when the band received a package from him that contained a demo tape, a letter, and a dead crucified mouse.
Yeah. Does sound absolutely horrifying, but like for Mayhem, he aced the interview. You know what I mean? Like he Yep, yeah. And they hired
Kathryn (13:11)
Yeah. One hundred percent. Yeah. Yep.
Gina (13:15)
him shortly afterwards to join the band. Dead was a really, really interesting guy, so I do need to tell you a little bit about his life before he joined the band. He was Swedish. He was born close to Stockholm in 1969, and he was around the same age as everyone else in the band.
at the time he was like eighteen, nineteen, kind of thereabouts. And he was obsessed with death, as his name might suggest. It is said that this started when he was 10 years old and he had to be hospitalized for internal bleeding. Dead claimed that this was due to an ice skating accident, but his brother would later say that actually Dead was bullied really badly at school and that the injury was inflicted by another kid.
Either way, Dead was hospitalized for this, and the injury was so bad that he was clinically dead for a short period of time. And this is said to have kicked off an all-consuming fascination with and obsession over death.
And by the time he joined Mayhem, this was a massive part of his personality, along with absolutely crippling depression. People who knew him at this time almost unanimously describe him as a really shy person who was pretty hard to get to know, but who was very obviously dealing with extremely intense mental health issues. These days, people speculate that he actually had Cotard syndrome.
Which is a condition where an individual believes they are actually already dead or that they don't exist, or that parts of their body, like their organs, don't exist. Have you heard of Cotard syndrome before? It's rid it's it's a wild one. 'Cause you can also there's
Kathryn (14:53)
No. Yeah.
Gina (14:56)
parts of it where you or versions of it where you believe you're immortal and can't die.
Kathryn (15:02)
makes sense for I I didn't know about that theory. That I feel like totally checks out for
Gina (15:09)
Right.
Kathryn (15:10)
this guy. Yeah, one hundred percent. That's wild. I've
never heard of that before.
Gina (15:15)
he was never diagnosed with it in life. It's like much more of a recent
Kathryn (15:17)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (15:18)
thing that people have started drawing a line between him and Cotard syndrome, but he did display
Kathryn (15:21)
Okay.
Gina (15:22)
behaviors that strongly suggest that he was struggling with a version of this. For example,
Kathryn (15:27)
Hm. Yeah, that makes sense.
Gina (15:30)
in 1990, Euronymous Dead and another member who was a drummer named Hellhammer, they all moved into a house in the woods together. And Dead started doing things like
Burying his clothes outside for weeks at a time, then digging them up and wearing these like decomposed rotting clothes while they were playing shows. Also, once while he was on tour, Dead found the corpse of a dead crow, and he started carrying it around in a plastic bag and smelling it before going on stage so that he could sing, quote, with the stench of death in his nostrils.
He also once asked his bandmates to literally bury him alive so that he could look as pale as a corpse. His bandmates were not super into doing that, so instead Dead started using corpse paint, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's where you paint your face to look like a corpse. It was and is still very popular within black metal, and Dead is often credited as being the one to popularize it. Like it was already kind of a thing to a certain extent.
before he started doing it, but according to his bandmates, what set Dead apart from other people doing corpse paint is that he wasn't just doing it for like funsies or to look tough. He legitimately wanted to look as close to a corpse as he possibly could. And things were just as messed up on stage as they were offstage. The band started having pig heads on stage during shows and other stuff that was designed specifically to be disgusting.
And the idea here was that like if you're a true black metal fan, you'll stick around. Like you won't mind decaying pig brains being thrown at you during a show. So it was a t an attempt at like filtering out the wannabes, getting rid of the posers, while at the same time making the people who stayed feel like they were part of this really special, exclusive, chosen community that not everyone was tough enough to be in. And Euronymous in particular was really, really good at
getting people to feel special. Very like, I got a lot of cult leader vibes when I was researching Euronymous. He was like very gatekeepy, really pretentious, and he was also described as like very stern and picky about who he gave his approval to. And that lack of approval made people crave it. If you could get on his good side, you were accepted into the scene, but if you were on his
bad side, he would go out of his way to make you feel other or like a piece of shit. And we see this a lot in his relationship with dead. After a while they really started butting heads, and living together in an isolated house in the middle of the woods didn't really make it any easier.
There's a story about how one time Euronymus was playing the synth music really loudly. Because funnily enough, Euronymus was really into like German electronic music. Something not that doesn't get mentioned a whole lot.
Kathryn (18:25)
Feel like that's one of those things with all these like hardcore guys, it's like a meme. It's like behind the scenes they're really like listening to like Disney soundtracks or some shit. You know what I mean?
Gina (18:39)
A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. There was actually my one of my favorite fun facts about when I was researching this is that like Euronymous loved black metal and German electro to the point where a bunch of other black metal people like started to claim they also loved German electro as just a way of getting closer
to Euronymus in the black metal scene. Like it's just such a weird it's like
Kathryn (18:58)
I could see that. Yeah.
Gina (18:59)
a a poser thing, but insisting you're not a poser thing. I
Kathryn (19:04)
Mm.
Gina (19:05)
don't know. It's like this obsession that they had.
and Dead
Kathryn (19:07)
Yeah.
Gina (19:07)
hated this like synth-y electronic music and he couldn't sleep in the house because Euronymus was playing it so loudly. So Dead took his pillow into the woods and was like, Whatever, I'm just gonna sleep out here, it'll be fine. And in response, Euronymus took a shotgun, went outside and started firing it into the air in like a I'm not gonna let you sleep out here either kind of way.
Kathryn (19:31)
Jesus Christ.
Gina (19:32)
Yeah, that's not good roommate behavior. But even on a
Kathryn (19:34)
No, it's not
Gina (19:39)
broader level, like there's a lot of speculation that Euronymus kind of wanted Dead to feel like shit because he thought it was good for the image of the band. Like they weren't supposed to be a group of happy people. The whole point was to go against that. And in Euronymus's mind, who better to represent Mayhem than someone who
talks about dying all the time and like literally cuts himself on stage and things like that. And from Dead's perspective, he was outside his home country, he was away from family and friends, and he was completely submerged in this black metal ethos and Euronymous. So not a great situation.
Kathryn (20:20)
I was gonna say, we're like rolling through.
Gina (20:23)
Well, okay, actually I do wanna speak to that for a second. There's a lot of physical events that happen in this story, and we're not gonna have time to dig into the reason why all of them are messed up. All of them are, but if we unpacked all of the pain that's about to happen, this would be an eight hour long episode. So I'm not trying to like minimize or ignore anything as we go through this. It's just like there's a lot of beats that we have to get through, you know?
Anyway.
Kathryn (20:50)
sorry, I said mm-hmm, but I was muted. Sorry. So sorry. Yes.
Gina (20:53)
I was like, she probably agrees, I'll just keep going. Anyway,
on April eighth, nineteen ninety-one, Dead wound up taking his own life at the age of twenty-two. Euronymous came into Dead's room to see that he had slit his wrists and shot himself in the head. And when Euronymus saw this, he left the house, bought a disposable camera, and then
came back and took pictures of dead's body. He also took it upon himself to rearrange certain items in the room to make a better picture.
He then went on to send these pictures to certain people, and one of them wound up becoming an album cover for a nineteen ninety five bootleg Mayhem album.
And when he was done taking pictures, Euronymus decided that it was time to let people know about what had happened. One of the people that he called was Necro Butcher, who was still in the band, he just like wasn't living at the house. And in that call, Euronymus referred to dead suicide as quote, really cool. If that tells you anything about Euronymus's attitude towards that situation.
Kathryn (22:03)
Yeah, that's so awful.
Gina (22:05)
It's not good. because a lot of people think that to Euronymus, Dead's suicide was less of a tragedy and more of an opportunity to promote the band. Euronymus
Kathryn (22:16)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (22:16)
started making claims that Dead had killed himself because of the posers and what he called trend music. And I don't have the full quote in front of me, but when you look at it, the way that Euronymus says it, it's it's he says something like
Black metal used to be all about the color black and leather and spikes, and now all these teenagers are wearing jogging suits, and that's why Dead killed himself. Like he says it with more complexity than that, but that's the essential argument
Kathryn (22:40)
Yeah.
Gina (22:41)
that he's making. It's a very shallow argument, and it's really incredibly horrifically sad. Euronymus also let rumors fly, left, right, and center, about what had happened with Dead's body. And the most well-known rumor, which does appear to be true, is that Euronymus took pieces of Dead's skull.
And made them into necklaces that he gave to those he deemed worthy. Which I will not be doing to you when you die, sorry.
Kathryn (23:07)
man.
Gina (23:08)
I know, I know. I'm so sorry. Among other things, he
Kathryn (23:11)
Yeah. Thank you.
Gina (23:12)
also encouraged a rumor that he almost cut Dead's arm off to put it in a display case, and the only reason he didn't is because he thought the police might wonder where the arm was.
Mm.
Kathryn (23:26)
It's like I have responses to all these things. I'm just not because I like literally fucking can't with all this sh like I just can't.
Gina (23:35)
That's yeah.
It's this is one of those stories where you have to sit and stare at a wall for a few hours afterwards. It's so bad.
Kathryn (23:40)
It's so bonkers, yeah.
Gina (23:42)
And especially the one with the whole the arm thing, I feel like that's so representative of their logic as well. Because on the one hand there are these
Kathryn (23:48)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (23:49)
like hard, bloodthirsty, tough guys, but then they're also really afraid of authority and I don't want the police asking where the arm went. And it's like, you know what I mean?
Kathryn (23:56)
100%.
But if you like if you said that to them, there would be bloodshed because how dare
Gina (24:02)
Yes.
Kathryn (24:03)
you say that they're, you know, afraid of anything, let alone authority. Yeah.
Gina (24:05)
Hundred percent. Yeah.
There is in the book Lords of Chaos, a lot of it is comprised of interviews with either members of Mayhem, ex members, or people that were just in the black metal scene. And the way a lot of them speak, specifically a guy named Varg, who we will talk about a lot later, it's very similar to
Kathryn (24:22)
Yeah, I bet we will.
Gina (24:24)
my god, I'm so sorry in advance. a lot of the quotes are very like almost it sounds like what a like how a politician would respond to things like that. Like they
Kathryn (24:32)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (24:33)
are
I don't want to use the word talented at skirting around giving actual answers, but the mental gymnastics these
Kathryn (24:40)
yeah.
Gina (24:41)
boys were doing Olympic level.
Kathryn (24:45)
It is like the epitome of gonna say this word and then explain it. It was all just like a performance or an act, but one that had actual real consequences. And
Gina (24:59)
Mm.
Kathryn (24:59)
like I don't know if they knew it was all just a performance or an act. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know how to describe that any differently, but it was just like the bravado.
Gina (25:11)
Yeah. And they
Kathryn (25:12)
of everything
was like, hello, that's just not the way the world works. Like what are you doing? I don't know.
Gina (25:18)
Yeah, and I
think deep in their minds they must have known that we are putting on an but it's because they refuse
Kathryn (25:21)
They must have Yeah
Gina (25:23)
to admit that to each other. It was like a a boyish machismo thing where they refuse to back down
Kathryn (25:28)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (25:28)
or admit that, okay, no, actually I'm just like 19 and I wanna go, like, you know,
Kathryn (25:33)
Yeah.
Gina (25:34)
not smell a dead crow for fun. You know, like
Kathryn (25:37)
Mm.
Gina (25:37)
it was just they were egging each other on with it almost, and it just escalates and escalates and escalates.
Kathryn (25:43)
Yeah.
Gina (25:44)
And all of this.
obviously is completely messed up and horrendous and it wound up causing Necro Butcher to leave the band because he was so disgusted with the way that Euronymus specifically handled Dead's passing. And this left Euronymus and Hellhammer as the only two remaining members of Mayhem.
A month or two after this, which was like May slash June nineteen ninety one, Euronymus opened a record shop called Helvete which is the Norwegian word for hell.
And at first he wanted it to be kind of like a specialist record shop that only sold metal music. And the original idea was to have it be so dark inside the shop that you had to carry around torches to see the records.
Kathryn (27:30)
Okay, wait, just because you're in the UK, do you mean torch like flashlight or torch like torch? Okay. Okay. I
Gina (27:37)
Flame Flame Torch. Great question though.
Kathryn (27:41)
was cause I yes, my brain went torch torch, but I was like, wait, I don't know what
you call it nowadays.
Gina (27:46)
You what? I don't think I actually
verified that. I just assumed it meant flaming torch torch and knowing these guys not that I know them, but having researched them extensively, pretty sure it was a flame torch.
Kathryn (27:52)
Based I was just gonna say that. Yeah.
I absolutely agree with that, yes.
Gina (28:01)
They realized that was a bad idea pretty quickly though. so they decided to just make it pretty dark inside the shop. And they also realized that if they wanted to make money and the band desperately did need money, they would probably have to sell some more mainstream adjacent music as well. And again, this is an example where their actions are very much going against their whole anti poser, anti-mainstream dogma. But Euronymus explained this away by saying, quote
This will help us in earning money so we can order more evil records for the evil people. I gets pretty cringe.
Kathryn (28:39)
Honestly, I I'm trying to think of something to compare it to, but I'm just imagining a little boy playing dinosaurs and walking around going,
Gina (28:49)
Ha ha ha
Kathryn (28:51)
But again, in the way that people get hurt, you know, so it's
Gina (28:54)
Yeah.
Kathryn (28:55)
like I don't know.
Gina (28:58)
Despite this, the record shop never really did make that much money, but it did become a gathering place for members of the black metal scene. By the time the record shop opened, Euronyus and Mayhem already had a pretty substantial and loyal following. So the record shop wound up becoming something close to like hallowed ground for that community.
People who were in the scene would hang out there a lot, and the people who wanted to be in the scene would just like rock up in corpse pain in the middle of the day and just hope that they would get acknowledged. This was a place where Euronymus would essentially hold court and exert his influence over up-and-coming members of the black metal community. one of the founders of Norwegian black metal band, Emperor, spoke about this time period, saying, quote,
You came there and if you were trusted, if they knew that you were serious in your views, you were accepted. People wanted to be accepted, and they were kind of humble before Euronymus and the older guys from the scene. For context, by older guys he means like early twenties.
Kathryn (30:05)
Yeah.
Gina (30:05)
And the most accepted people, the true believers, became part of the infamous Black Circle, which was really just like a fun little nickname for their black metal friend
Kathryn (30:17)
it's like little things like that that I'm like, man, I get why people f like fell into this, like that's
Gina (30:25)
Yeah.
Kathryn (30:25)
black circle, that sounds cool, what's that?
Gina (30:27)
Cool as hell. And according
to some people, it's debatable whether or not the Black Circle was ever like an official thing. People,
Kathryn (30:33)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (30:34)
specifically Varg, who we'll get into here in a second, claimed that it wasn't a real thing. It was just kind of a rumor that they let spread amongst the younger members or the outliers in the community to kind of scare them
Kathryn (30:43)
Mm.
Gina (30:44)
a little bit and make them feel more excluded than they actually were. So don't know if the black if they had like black circle cards or something. Who the fuck knows? But
Kathryn (30:53)
Yeah.
Gina (30:55)
There was an inner and an outer circle. We can think of the inner circle as the black circle. And their primary meeting place was this record shop, especially in the basement, which is where they had like parties, they would bring girls back there, they would let out of town members of the community stay there, It it's kind of like a big like people still go to this building to see this basement where all this stuff happened. It was still just a gross like mildewy basement though.
Kathryn (31:20)
for sure. Is this
where is this? Is this the one in Oslo?
Okay, yeah.
Gina (31:28)
Yep. And one of the people who would stay there when they were in from out of town was a guy named Varg Vikernes
Varg's relationship with the black metal scene actually goes a little bit further back than this. He got his start making music with bands like
Kalashnikov and Old Funeral in the late 80s, and that's how he originally met Euronymous and the other members of Mayhem. But in 1991, which is the year when Dead died and the record shop opened, Varg started a solo project called Burzum. And at first no one really gave him a second glance, but when he started putting out demos, he got a lot of attention. I myself
am not really a black metal fan, maybe you can speak more to this, Kathryn. But for people that are, I've heard that Burzum is considered to be like phenomenally good within the genre.
Kathryn (32:20)
Yeah, Burzum, to my knowledge, I am not super familiar with all the names. do have to say this. I am a fan of black metal. Because of this story, I have to say I'm not a fan of these guys.
Gina (32:33)
Yeah, yep, fair.
Kathryn (32:35)
I don't hopefully I don't need to say that about myself due to what's gonna happen. But like just have to say that. Burzum and I know Emperor, the one
Gina (32:44)
Hm.
Kathryn (32:45)
you mentioned previously, I feel like those are like
Two of the big ones that you are not a real fan if you haven't seen them or aren't a fan of them. Emperor is the one that it's like they never tour in the US or something. Honestly, might be due to crime. I don't know. I don't want to fall down that rabbit hole. But but there's like a whole, I don't know if you're gonna get into Emperor or anything, but like some of their
Gina (33:09)
No, not really.
Kathryn (33:10)
okay.
Some of their original members were involved in pieces of this story. and they are like either no longer alive or part of the band. But yeah, this one is I don't know much about them. I don't like this era of black metal. It just kinda messy and sounds like noise.
Gina (33:28)
You know, I I think it's very fair to not like this era of black metal. In fact
I think that's probably wise.
Kathryn (33:32)
Yeah, it's not for me. Yeah,
is that well and that's the thing. It's like even musically, I'm like, I'm I there is no conflict. You know how people are like, separate the art from the artist. I'm like, the art also wasn't that great in my personal opinion. Yeah. This is definitely a name I've heard like often.
Gina (33:48)
Yeah, yeah, it comes up a lot. Emperor, to your
Kathryn (33:51)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (33:51)
point, is also an absolutely massive one. My favorite fact
Kathryn (33:54)
Yeah.
Gina (33:54)
about Burzum, in fact, my only fact that I get any enjoyment from,
Kathryn (33:57)
Ha ha ha.
Gina (33:59)
is so Varg, who went by the stage name Count Grishnackh, he was a massive Lord of the Rings nerd. He was just like a fucking dweeb. And Bur
Kathryn (34:08)
Really?
Gina (34:10)
I have a series of facts for you now. So Burzum is Tolkien,
Kathryn (34:12)
Okay, I didn't know this.
Gina (34:13)
when he was writing Lord of the Rings, he invented a few new languages.
And bursom is black speech, which is like the evil language for I think it's darkness.
Kathryn (34:24)
I never knew that. I wonder if Phil knows
Gina (34:26)
I'm pr actually
Kathryn (34:27)
that.
Gina (34:27)
let me just check. I'm pretty sure it's darkness.
Kathryn (34:30)
I was gonna say, don't take my not knowing as it not being true. Cause I don't know about Venar. Yeah. Okay. That's fun.
Gina (34:39)
Grishnackh his stage name, Grishnackh was, the name of an orc in Lord of the Rings. And he also originally, before he called his band Burzum, it was called Uruk-Hai which is a species of orc in The Lord of the Rings. And also my last fact about Varg, which makes him look cringy as shit, is that the name Varg is not the name he was born with. He was born with the name Kristian Had to change that for obvious reasons.
And varg is the Norwegian word for grave spelled backwards. Lot of creativity with this guy.
Kathryn (35:09)
yeah, I guess that makes sense.
Gina (35:11)
Yep. Anyway, Burzum is ultimately the reason that Varg and Euronymous became close, and Burzum, and therefore Varg, got signed to Euronymous' record label, Death Like Silence, which originally was called Poser Corpse,
Kathryn (35:29)
I'm sorry. Th I just like this is just these guys are just ridiculous. I'm sorry.
Gina (35:35)
And
you you do kinda gotta like you gotta take the laughs where the story gives
Kathryn (35:37)
It's one of those that's a
thing. Yeah, I have to be very clear. All of my laughter is just like confusion and discomfort erupting from my mouth. Cause I'm
Gina (35:47)
Right.
Kathryn (35:48)
just like, what is this?
Gina (35:50)
It's incredibly uncomfortable. Varg was actually from Bergen, where we have been both together, you and I.
Kathryn (35:57)
Yes.
Gina (35:58)
Not to do anything Varg related. except you know what? I'm gonna take that back because we did go see that stave church.
Kathryn (36:02)
I was gonna say that was like
we literally had an entire Norwegian black metal day. I'm sorry. Yeah.
Gina (36:05)
Yep, yep, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nope, that's true. We have black metal thanksgiving. Forgot about that.
Kathryn (36:13)
That was like it
Gina (36:14)
But I'm gonna say it wasn't specifically Barg, it was black.
Kathryn (36:17)
I I was gonna say it really had nothing. Our personal experience had nothing to do with Varg. Fuck that guy. We had a
Gina (36:24)
Yeah. Agreed.
Kathryn (36:27)
I don't know. We were in Norway, we had to have a black metal day.
Gina (36:30)
Yeah. Well,
Kathryn (36:31)
Yeah.
Gina (36:31)
he was from Bergen, where we both have coincidentally, for unrelated reasons, been. And
Kathryn (36:33)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (36:38)
whereas Euronymous like we spoke about, his record shop was in Oslo. And that meant that whenever Varg wanted to visit this record shop, he would have to take like a six to seven hour drive. So when he did come, he would stay, at least for a little while, at the record shop. He would sleep in the basement.
And to give you an idea of the kind of person that Varg is, because I'm realizing I'm talking a lot of shit and I'm not really citing my sources, he would later brag that dead shot himself with ammunition that Varg has sent him, had sent him as a Christmas gift. He's also a fucking neo-Nazi, literally been brought up on charges of inciting racial racial hatred and glorifying war crimes. He is anti Semitic, he's homophobic, he is violent, and he has gone on record saying that he supports Hitler.
Fuck this guy. There were a few others in the scene very similar to him. I'm not trying to paint him as like an outlier or like an anomaly here, but for what comes next, it's important to understand that Varg specifically is a garbage person. Because this guy at this point in the story that we're talking about became the darling of the black metal scene. And more and more people started getting influenced by him and his beliefs.
You looked like you wanted to say something, I wasn't sure.
Kathryn (37:52)
No, I do wanna say something. It's just I wanna just talk about how much we hate Varg So you've covered that. He's a piece of shit.
Gina (38:01)
He's a little bitch and I don't use that phrase lightly. Like when you read the interview,
Kathryn (38:01)
Like end of sentence yeah. Yeah, he sucked.
Gina (38:05)
he's the most infuriating interviewer in the bo like picture the most pompous full of themselves, a hundred percent certain they are right, but within a breadth of a sentence they will contradict what they're saying and say something
Kathryn (38:18)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (38:19)
so outrageously stupid that it's almost impossible to call them on it because their brain cannot comprehend basic information.
Kathryn (38:27)
And then if you do try to respond, they will just come back with something so much more outrageous that it's like, you cannot be even reasoned with. Like pretty much the type
Gina (38:40)
Exactly.
Kathryn (38:40)
of person who would be an anti Semitic neo-Nazi piece of shit. Like they all are like that. You have to be in order to think that way.
Gina (38:50)
Hmm. He fits the stereotype. And at this point, he was in his late
Kathryn (38:53)
for sure.
Gina (38:53)
teens, which just makes everything worse. Yeah.
Kathryn (38:56)
Great. Yeah, great.
Gina (38:58)
So it seems to be kind of generally accepted that this kicked off a bit of a rivalry between Euronymus and Varg. Varg was gaining a lot of attention and a lot of respect very, very quickly. And Euronymus was used to being the guy. And now there was another guy, and Euronymus's power was being destabilized.
It's hard to say what Varg and Euronymous's relationship actually looked like at this point with 100% certainty, but it came across to me like they both recognized why the other one was respected within the community, and they were both green with envy over it. You know what I mean? Like they did the thing where,
Kathryn (39:36)
yeah. Mm-hmm.
Gina (39:38)
like, outwardly to anyone looking in, like they would seem to be buds and they would treat each other just fine, but every interaction they had was some like underhanded, clumsy attempt to like out.
Evil each other.
Kathryn (39:50)
That's such a good way of putting it. was like, how dare you be more hardcore than me? There's no way, yeah.
Gina (39:55)
Right, yeah. And they
were just egging each other on and on and on and on. And unsurprisingly, this coincides with a sharp uptick in crimes associated with the black metal scene. Euronymus started bragging that the record shop was actually furnished with things they had stolen from churches. Nearby graves started getting vandalized, and some people in the scene started receiving threatening messages which both Euronymus and Varg claimed to have sent.
And the obsession with being truly evil thing started to become more pervasive at this time as well. Some people blame Varg alone for this, some people blame Euronymous. In all likelihood, they both had a hand in this, because what it came down to was the pressure to put words into action. Like they would be sitting in this gross basement all day talking about all the evil things they wanted to do, and eventually the vibe was just like.
Okay, who's gonna do it? Like do the evil things that you're talking about. And none of them wanted to risk backing down like we've been talking about and seeming like they were weak or opposer. So interest in violent crime specifically against long-standing institutions like religion genuinely started to become their reality. It was like all they thought about and all they talked about doing. One of the guys in the Black Circle, a guy named Bard Ethan, aka Faust.
Worked at the record shop during this time. He was in like really, really deep with these guys. He'll come back a little bit more later. And he described this time period by saying, quote, The feeling around the shop was that we worked against all these organized religions that were in Norway. We had a guy who lived near the shop who could get us all sorts of weapons. He could also get amphetamines and heroin, but that wasn't interesting to us.
Kathryn (41:50)
I mean, that's good I guess. That's like the one good thing
Gina (41:53)
Yeah
Kathryn (41:54)
that they did.
Gina (41:57)
And this quote it was one of those where like I read it and then it was just like, that's messed up and it stuck out to me and I kept thinking about it and I couldn't figure out why and then literally
Kathryn (42:07)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (42:08)
yesterday as I was sitting down to like finishing touches on my script, I like, it's because they're talking about the idea of causing pain and drugs in the same sentence, in the same breath. Like causing pain to them is
A drug. And I feel like that really paints a picture of the sentiment
Kathryn (42:22)
Yeah
Gina (42:24)
within the black metal scene at the time. Like I remember being a teenager where the coolest thing you could do was smoke pot under the bleachers. To them, the coolest thing you can do is like well, I'm about to tell you what they think the coolest thing they could do.
Kathryn (42:36)
Yeah.
Gina (42:38)
this began a a spree of violent activity, including the now famous arson of Fantoft Stave Church, which, spoiler alert, has been rebuilt and we have been there.
Together. It's very beautiful.
Kathryn (42:51)
It is.
Gina (42:52)
I still I think about those pictures of you there whenever I think about. Like in your colorful sweater that you were wearing. It was a beautiful day.
Kathryn (42:57)
Yeah, I was wearing my rainbow
skull c my rainbow skull sweater that I love so much. It's so cozy. I got it on that trip. I got that in London, yeah.
Gina (43:01)
Yeah. It was so it was nice. Mm-hmm. Yes, you did, yeah. And
yeah, you did that was Ragged Priest, wasn't it? yeah. I remember
Kathryn (43:11)
Yeah. Yeah.
Gina (43:13)
that. Yeah, good times. and it is so this church is we can both attest to this. It's like in a very kind of out of the way place that if somebody wants to burn it down, there's a very low likelihood of them getting caught at this point.
I don't suggest you try burning it down now. That would be very silly of you. But at this point in time, it was j it's kind of easy to be
Kathryn (43:31)
Yeah. God, please don't. Mm-hmm.
Gina (43:35)
there on your own and isolated where no one's gonna see you do it. and for context, stave churches are a very old type of wooden church. The one that we're talking about dates back to the year 1170. And at one time there were as many as 1200 stave churches. By this point in the story, there were fewer than 50.
So they were they were already seen as massively important from a historical preservation perspective specifically, especially in Norwegian culture. Stave churches do pop up in other areas of the world, but it's primarily seen as like a Norwegian thing. And around 6 a.m. on June 6th, 1992, Fantoft Stave Church caught fire. And because it was made almost entirely out of wood, it went up.
Very, very fast. When all was said and done, the only things left were parts of the framework, a stone from one of the walls and the cross at the altar. The rest was completely burned to ashes. It is very, very strongly suspected that Varg was behind this. At one point he was charged with this, but there wasn't enough evidence to find him guilty, so he's never truly been held accountable for it, even though it's like pretty accepted that he's the one who did it.
Also, this was not the first church that Varg attempted to burn down. He made one other attempt about a week before this one, but the church that he picked was primarily made of stone, so didn't really work out for him.
Kathryn (45:05)
Yeah, that's different. That's a different material entirely.
Gina (45:09)
Yeah, but see he's learning. He learns over time. Here you go.
Kathryn (45:11)
Yeah, well there you go. There's something.
Gina (45:15)
and just as a quick side note, because I did think this was really interesting, they, like I said, rebuilt Fantoft Stave Church. You can still visit it, but when they decided to rebuild it, it was really, really difficult to do because Norway hadn't built a stave church in centuries at that point. And
Kathryn (45:32)
Mm.
Gina (45:32)
so they kind of had to relearn culturally like how to build a stave church, which
I think is really really cool.
Kathryn (45:39)
I never thought of that.
I didn't know that there were so few. I knew that it had dwindled significantly, but I didn't know that it was less than would you say fifty at the time? Yeah. That's wild. Yeah.
Gina (45:49)
Yeah, it was yeah, less than fifty at this point. I didn't know that either. I thought there were way more of them.
Kathryn (45:54)
Yeah. Well it's become such a symbol, you know,
Gina (45:56)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (45:57)
because there's so few, I guess, presumably. Yeah.
Gina (46:01)
Yeah. Yeah. So I thought that was pretty cool that they had to like relearn how to do all of it and stuff.
Kathryn (46:07)
Yeah.
Gina (46:08)
but we can get back to the not cool stuff now. So for Varg there's a lot of discourse about like why the churches were burned. Some people say it was like a Satanism thing, some people say it was like a pro-paganism thing. There's every other argument in between. For Varg it seems to have been at least in part revenge.
For the Christian erasure of Norse paganism. That's like why he claimed he did it. And there was also the significance of burning the church down so that its ashes go into the earth, which is kind of where a lot of like paganism comes back to is the earth and the soil and things like that. So it was also kind of a symbolic thing. But he also wasn't the only one to set a church on fire around this time. In fact, once Varg started this kind of trend, a lot of other people ran with it.
According to the book Lords of Chaos, there were between forty-five to sixty church fires or like almost fires during this time period, and about a third of those could be connected to the Norwegian black metal scene. Some people argue it was like way, way more, some people say it was way, way less. No matter how you look at it though, there was a string of church ars arsons stemming from this.
Kathryn (47:20)
I feel like even if it was a little bit less, that's still a lot. You
Gina (47:24)
A lot, yeah.
Kathryn (47:25)
know, to happen all at once.
Gina (47:27)
And a lot of there were other stave churches as well, I should probably mention. It wasn't just the one stave church. Fantoft
Kathryn (47:31)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (47:32)
is the most famous 'cause it was the first, but there were a few attempted
Kathryn (47:34)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (47:35)
burnings of stave churches.
Kathryn (47:37)
Can you I don't sorry if you said this, but was what was this in Norway specifically or what region was the string happen or am I steamrolling? Okay.
Gina (47:47)
That's a really good question. No, you're not steamrolling at all.
It's a really good question. so it was primarily Norway, but there was all Scandinavia in general is the answer to your question. There was a massive
Kathryn (47:54)
Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay.
Gina (47:58)
rivalry between Norwegian black metal and Swedish death metal at the time. And so
Kathryn (48:04)
Sorry, this is like, girl, I feel like
I'm just listening to Phil right now. This is like he's
Gina (48:10)
I've never felt closer to him.
Kathryn (48:12)
But he's just gonna be like, You covered what? You know he's gonna listen to this one and he will send me f like fact checking. So I'll let you know how you did.
Gina (48:22)
my god. Phil, I'm so sorry in advance. I really tried
to get everything correct. But that's the thing about this, is that all of the we know
Kathryn (48:28)
Yeah.
Gina (48:28)
this retroactively as stories told by people who were in their teenage years and early twenties and they all contradict
Kathryn (48:33)
Yes.
Gina (48:34)
each other and like none of them can get their fucking story straight. It
Kathryn (48:37)
Yep.
Gina (48:38)
is impossible to know what happened here. Sorry in advance. Did my best.
Kathryn (48:40)
Yeah, 100%. Yeah.
No, that's the thing. He'll he he will be like,
Gina (48:45)
Ha ha
Kathryn (48:46)
why didn't you mention this? Why didn't you it's not gonna be anything you did wrong. It's gonna be like, there's so much more. It's like, yeah dog, we
Gina (48:51)
No, I know.
Kathryn (48:52)
have an hour la hour long time slot.
Gina (48:55)
my god, yeah, there's absolutely so much to this story. But anyway, yes, Swedish
Kathryn (48:59)
Yeah.
Gina (49:00)
death metal, Norwegian black metal. Some people claim that the Swedes also did some church burnings around this time to try and bl like get the black metal community in trouble for it, or that they just did
Kathryn (49:08)
Mm.
Gina (49:09)
the church burnings to show that they were tougher than the Norwegian black metal scene. There were also a lot of people who like wanted to be involved in Norwegian black metal who were kind of like the
not quite in the scene people yet. They were like kind of auditioning for it, I guess is a term you could use by setting churches on fire. So the entire Scandinavian region. but then also this it that's a hard question to answer because this really was a domino effect that once like papers started talking about this, you saw an uptick in church burnings pretty much across the world as well.
Kathryn (49:40)
yeah.
Okay. Wild.
Gina (49:44)
Yeah, and the aggression just kept escalating and escalating and escalating. And just two months after the Fantoft Save Church burning, on the twelfth of August nineteen ninety-two, a man named Manga Andreasen was murdered by a member of the Norwegian black metal scene who wanted to see what it felt like to kill someone. Just to see. The murderer was Faust.
We talked about him a little bit earlier.
Kathryn (50:11)
Mm.
Gina (50:12)
He worked in the record shop with Huronymus. He was visiting his mom for the weekend. And according to him, he was out taking a walk when Magna propositioned him for sex. Faust went into the woods with this guy and then stabbed him 37 times. And then just to make extra sure he was dead, because he started to walk away, and then he was like, mm, I don't want this guy waking up and like tattling on me. He came back and kicked him in the head.
bunch times.
Kathryn (50:41)
my god. Ugh.
Gina (50:43)
Yeah.
He would later say, quote, It's not easy to describe why it happened. It was meant to happen. And if it was this man or another man, that's not really important.
Magne's body was found two days later by someone who was out for a run, and by that point Fost had already left town. He had gone back to the record shop. Police were at a complete and total loss. They didn't have any suspects because there was absolutely no connection between the victim and the murderer, which we now know. And that pretty much made it impossible to draw a line.
To Foss, not to mention he didn't live around there. He was just visiting his mom. He had gone back to Oslo by this point. Meanwhile, while the police are starting to investigate this murder, Faust is safe and sound back in Oslo with his buddies, and he had already told Varg and Euronymus what he had done, much to their pride and approval. And it's crazy again to read.
like the interviews with people who knew about this before everything came out and there started to be consequences because the way they describe hearing this news, it's like Faust said, Hey, I killed someone, here's how I did it and the only thought in their brain was like, excellent. And then they move on with their day. There was no critical thinking about it, at least
Kathryn (52:02)
Yeah. Mm-mm.
Gina (52:05)
from the interviews.
And just two days later, Faust Euronymus, and Varg burned down yet another church. Faust would claim that that night the three of them, quote, rode up to the mountain to watch it burn. It was very beautiful and exciting. When we got back to the record store we could hardly sleep. Like they talk about this shit like their kids on Christmas morning, two days after one of them committed a murder. It's chilling.
Kathryn (52:32)
That's my thing. the idea of like going up to a mountain and seeing a glowing fire, like that is a romantic image. Set upon the backdrop that it is on is like just so chilling and gross that we're
Gina (52:48)
Yeah.
Kathryn (52:49)
painting this beautiful image of this incredibly aggressive and
violent thing? I don't know. It's
know what it is. It's too much for it's too much for me. Yeah, frustrating's a good way. Yeah.
Gina (53:00)
It's really I find it very frustrating. It is way too much for me. It's incredibly
frustrat because they keep getting away with it. Like they just do thing after thing after thing after thing. And
Kathryn (53:10)
yeah. Mm-hmm.
Gina (53:11)
they are learning that there are no consequences for their actions because they're not getting caught. They're not being told anything other than great job, we now like you even more, you know? They're there's just
Kathryn (53:21)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (53:21)
seeing nothing from it. And that made them or I imagine it made them feel pretty invincible. And so they kept getting bolder faster.
And I cannot stress enough how fast all of this escalated. I know I keep saying it, but just to paint a picture, by this point in the story, it's barely been a year since Ded's suicide. It had been like a year and four months. And this is where we've gotten to.
Kathryn (53:44)
Mm.
Gina (53:46)
So they kept burning churches. Varg himself was involved with at least one more church burning that year that we know of. And eventually.
Varg felt so untouchable that he decided to take things to the press. I don't want to say I have a favorite part of the story because it's all awful, but if I did, this would be my favorite part of the story because it makes him look like a fucking idiot.
Kathryn (54:07)
okay. Yeah.
Gina (54:10)
In January 1993, Varg submitted an anonymous interview with himself to Bergens Tidende which is this really big national newspaper.
And in that interview, Varg basically bragged that he knew who did the church burnings and who was behind the murder of Magna and all that stuff. And he submitted the interview anonymously, like he didn't say this is Varg Vickerness saying this stuff, but it still piqued some interest. And in response, a journalist named Finn Bjorn Turnder invited him to a proper interview. Cause I think originally Varg wanted the one he submitted to get published, but the newspaper was like, mm-
That's not how this works. We're gonna interview you properly
Kathryn (54:52)
Yeah.
Gina (54:53)
and then write an article if it's worth writing an article about. And so this journalist invites Varg to an interview, and Varg responds by basically saying, like, yeah, you can interview me. Let's meet at this apartment building late at night. And if you call the police, we'll shoot you. And the journalist was like, Okay. Because I think he could see through the like try-hardness of all of this. And
Kathryn (55:16)
Yeah.
Gina (55:17)
so journalist was just like, Yeah, all right.
He shows up, they do the interview, and Varg's intention in this was basically to get as much clout from all of these crimes as possible, albeit anonymously, without admitting his own guilt. He thought he was gonna be like all clever and outsmart this journalist and like scare the public without having to own up to anything he did. It reminds me of how they say that like serial killers will show up at the scene.
Kathryn (55:45)
Yeah.
Gina (55:46)
It's like that. Like they don't need people to know it was them, but they need to know that people know about it, you know?
Kathryn (55:51)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. And like when serial killers get away with the first few kills, that's when they start getting sloppy. Cause they're so
Gina (56:00)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (56:00)
it all comes back to that haughtiness and untouchable feeling that these this type of person gets where they're just like, fuck you, you're stupid, I'm smart, la la la. And it's like, well, you just admitted to everything though, because you were so desperate
Gina (56:15)
Yeeep.
Kathryn (56:16)
to brag about it.
Gina (56:18)
And this dude got to cocky, and he forgot what happens when you're dealing with actual grown-ups who are good at their job. And the journalist tripped Varg up really, really fast and basically got him to disclose information about the arsons that had not been made available to the public, therefore flagging him
as someone who was directly involved.
Which I just love picturing that happening. Eat shit, Varg.
Kathryn (56:40)
Yeah, that's wild.
Gina (56:42)
And by the time the article came out, Varg had already been arrested. Although ironically, he was actually not arrested because of this interview. He was arrested for unrelated reasons. Because basically this is so dumb. Huh yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Kathryn (56:54)
Man, that always happens. Sorry, that literally always happens. Why can't we just
arrest people for what they did?
Gina (57:02)
I think in this case it's because the time between when this interview happened and he got arrested for the other thing, there was physically not enough time for like the interview to
Kathryn (57:10)
Yeah.
Gina (57:10)
have like been an arrestable thing for the police yet. It was very, very shortly afterwards. Like by the time Varg was already in custody. But anyway, so he This is so fucking stupid. The police had seen some flyers for Burzum's next mini album.
And they noticed that there were pictures of the burned Phantoff stave church on the flyers. And they were like, huh, that's weird. We still don't know who set that fire. I wonder who took those pictures. And so they went to the address on the flyer and Varg was there. So they
Kathryn (57:46)
Classic.
Gina (57:47)
so they arrested him for questioning. And so he was in custody when that news article with that interview of him came out. And the police were like, hey
Was this you doing this anonymous interview, knowing things you shouldn't know about this arson case that we have arrested you to question you about? And Varg was like, No, that wasn't me in the interview we talking about. And so the police called the newspaper people, and the newspaper people were like, Yeah, we have four witnesses saying it was him.
Kathryn (58:16)
Right.
Gina (58:18)
Varg is absolutely pathetic. But this is sad. you would think that this is like the they've got him part of the story, or at least that they've got one of them and that you can get some semblance of justice. No. This is the one I mentioned earlier where there was not enough evidence, and so Varg was released. But the story of how he got caught, I do take some pleasure in.
Kathryn (58:39)
Yeah.
Gina (58:39)
Now, that newspaper article brought a lot of attention to the Norwegian black metal scene. And this is when the interconnectedness of the crimes and the general like we love evil attitude of the whole thing started hitting the mainstream gays. And this included a lot of attention from the police and other members of the press, which Euronymous was not thrilled about, to say the least. So around the time that Varg was released from custody, Euronymus actually closed the record shop.
And that really pissed Varg off. Because Varg thought that Euronymus should have capitalized on the attention of Varg's arrest, similar to how he capitalized on the attention of Death Suic of Dead suicide. And Varg thought that by closing the shop, Euronymus had made his incarceration pointless. Because it's all about him.
Kathryn (59:31)
I was just gonna say that. Yeah. sorry, I forgot about you for one second. Sorry.
Gina (59:34)
Right.
Seriously. But this was kind of like the cherry on top of what was already a very bad relationship between Euronymus and Varg. They had kind of reached a point where they were like outwardly hateful of each other. There are a lot of reasons why their relationship deteriorated. A big one that people cite a lot is that Euronymus owed Varg money from Burzum albums that he had never given him the money for. but you can also make the argument that they never had a good relationship to start with.
And a lot of members of the black metal scene at this time say retrospectively that, yeah, looking back at it, their relationship is one that could have only resulted in death. Like there's no way both of these boys were gonna walk out of that quote friendship alive. One was always gonna die.
The
fact remains that on August 10th, 1993, just a few months after his release from police custody, Varg murdered Euronymus. He had a guy named Blackthorne drive him from Bergen to Oslo, which is again a very, very far drive, so this was like considered to be a premeditated thing. And once Varg was there, he went to Euronymus's apartment. We will never ever know what happened there, but
Euronymous' body would later be found outside the apartment with twenty three stab wounds, including sixteen stabs to the back.
Kathryn (1:01:01)
god.
Gina (1:01:03)
Varg would later claim that he was acting in self defense, but he would also say quote the whole time he was trying to run away, so I had to stab him in the back.
Kathryn (1:01:15)
I'm sorry, what?
Gina (1:01:16)
Yeah, so you can choose whether or not you believe the self-defense argument. Personally, I don't believe a single word that comes out of this man's mouth.
But at this point the police didn't know it was Varg. And in the days that followed, the police launched a massive investigation into Euronymus's death, in and that involved interviewing his known associates, aka a lot of the black metal scene. And once the police started applying pressure, it didn't take long before they all started ratting each other out. It reminded me a lot of the Rod Farrell episode that you did. Like is that w yeah, is that what you were thinking? 'Cause it's like
Kathryn (1:01:50)
Me too. Yep. One hundred percent.
Yes.
Gina (1:01:53)
young people
who talk a big game and then as soon as they're confronted by an authority figure they just crumble.
Kathryn (1:01:59)
It's because in all of these stories, there are so many stories like that, especially with young adults and teenagers.
they literally their brains are not fully developed. It's like what are you doing? Just stop
Gina (1:02:12)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (1:02:13)
it. That's I this is the frustration I get when don't know. I just it's so frustrating. Like there's no way you're not gonna get caught.
Gina (1:02:19)
It is incredibly frustrating. Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (1:02:22)
Because you're not you don't have a full brain to even use. It's not even that you're not using their your brain, it's like you literally have no idea how stupid you actually are. Just stop it, you know?
Gina (1:02:33)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
And a lot of them wound up just straight up confessing. Like after a while of police
Kathryn (1:02:38)
Yeah.
Gina (1:02:38)
questioning them, they would just crumble and be like, look, you know what? Yeah, I did do this thing, including Faust. He confessed to the murder of Magna Andreason. And in May the following year, Varg was found guilty of the murder of Euronymus, along with the arson of four churches and the possession of a hundred and fifty kilograms of explosives.
Kathryn (1:03:02)
Okay, well, there you go.
Gina (1:03:03)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison, which was the maximum penalty in Norway. Blackthorne, the guy who drove him to Oslo, was also sentenced to eight years as an accomplice to murder. Faust was given 14 years, and then there were a few other arsonists that were given short sentences as well. The month that Varg was found guilty, the Mayhem album I'm gonna try my best to pronounce this. Sorry, Phil.
De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas I think it means the mysteries of Satan. I don't know. It was a Mayhem album. Thank you so much.
Kathryn (1:03:36)
I don't know what that is. I I think you did a great job, whatever it was.
Gina (1:03:43)
It's a Mayhem album that came out the month that Varg was found guilty, and it featured Euronymous on guitar and Varg on the bass. Euronymous' family requested that Hellhammer, who we haven't talked about in a while, but he was like he was still the drummer.
they requested that Hellhammer remove Varg's tracks from the record, but Hellhammer was like, no, I kinda like that the murderer and the victim are on the same album. So Hellhammer's a piece of shit too. Yeah. Anyway
Kathryn (1:04:07)
Yeah, well, okay. Yeah, what the fuck. It's an art
what is that called? Artistic license.
Gina (1:04:16)
To bring this horrendous story to a close, all these guys are out of prison now. And I will say, just to make things feel a little bit better, last year in 2025, Varg released an AI-generated album called Reconquest, which is the definition of poser behavior, so I had to share that with you. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kathryn (1:04:35)
Wait, really? I did not know that. Ew.
Gina (1:04:40)
Yeah.
Kathryn (1:04:42)
I'm gonna stop talking. I'm gonna
Gina (1:04:44)
I think his his explanation
was that it was meant to be background music for a tabletop game that he had, I think, invented or written or something like that.
Kathryn (1:04:51)
All I'm gonna say is I'm not surprised. That's all I'll say.
Gina (1:04:53)
No. No,
me neither. In 2018, there was a movie made about this whole thing called Lords of Chaos. it so it was a film adaptation of the book where I got a lot of the information for this episode. I have seen the movie. Don't honestly know if I would recommend it. I personally found it very, very difficult to watch. It's the only film I've ever seen that made me feel physically sick at some points.
Kathryn (1:05:19)
Mm.
Gina (1:05:19)
On the
upside though, it does seem like a lot of the movie was designed specifically to annoy Varg, which I deeply appreciate. like they cast a mm-hmm,
Kathryn (1:05:28)
that's interesting.
Gina (1:05:29)
they cast a Jewish actor to play him. And in the movie, Varg is characterized as like a complete and total wannabe loser. And in the scene where they show the interview that he had with the press, it's just incredibly gratifying. Like they do a great job portraying someone who's way too cocky.
being put in their place in a very satisfying way.
Kathryn (1:05:51)
I'm looking it up because I feel like I don't remember if I've seen this or not.
I do like the idea that it was just one big project to get under his skin though.
Gina (1:06:00)
I love that. I do very much like that.
Kathryn (1:06:02)
Yeah.
Gina (1:06:03)
So if if you're feeling brave and you want to watch that movie, I do suggest maybe giving yourself a break of a few days after this episode before diving right back in. but also if you don't want to watch the film, I can recommend the book Lords of Chaos. It is it is very good. It it gets a lot of criticism, but I think if you want to read interviews from the people who were involved and if you want to understand the wider context within the music scene at the time, it's a it's a great resource for that.
And that's it. I'm done. I'm gonna sleep for eighteen hours.
Kathryn (1:06:33)
Which is so wild because even I'm sitting here like, wow, you really trimmed out so much. As aggressive as that was,
Gina (1:06:39)
So much.
Kathryn (1:06:40)
guys, it gets so much worse. I do recommend reading that book because I feel like that is something that would fill in like a lot of the details on the extent to which all of these guys suck to so bad. You know? I just
Gina (1:06:54)
Yeah.
Kathryn (1:06:57)
one thing that I'm thinking about a lot lately.
Specific to this episode. I'm reading a actually, I meant to talk to you about this. Okay, I'm reading a book right now called Depraved. And the subtitle is The Story of Dangerous Art or History of Dangerous Art. I don't know which
Gina (1:07:13)
Ooh.
Kathryn (1:07:14)
one. And it's written by a woman named Daisy Dixon.
She's a philosophy professor. She's a philosopher. And this book is I'm like really fascinated by shitty people and mean
things and bad art. Problematic art, I will say. Not like talent-wise.
Gina (1:07:34)
Mm.
Kathryn (1:07:35)
Problematic or you know, whatever you want to call it.
I'm fascinated by it because I'm also like heavily anti-censorship, and those two things don't always go hand in hand.
Gina (1:07:45)
Mm.
Kathryn (1:07:47)
And this book is a very objective look at all of that. It's not a should you, shouldn't you, but just here are the facts that we have, and it talks about everything. You know, it talks about ancient artifacts and just all this stuff. But one of the things there is a section on music.
this situation is mentioned, but just very briefly, which I think is kind of at least as far as I've gotten so far, it was mentioned very briefly. And I think it's so interesting because this was such a huge thing, and this created such a discussion about, you know, is metal music actually dangerous? Because here
Gina (1:08:23)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (1:08:24)
are a bunch of kids setting fires as a result of this music, and that is something that needs to be talked about. And one of the things that
She mentions in the book is the importance of intent. There's a difference between things being created, from a from an educational standpoint versus I am trying to get you to do this thing, you know. And
Gina (1:08:46)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (1:08:48)
as far as music is concerned,
One of my favorite comparisons that she said, it wasn't about these fires, but she was talking about the Woodstock 99 fire
Gina (1:08:57)
Mm, mm.
Kathryn (1:08:58)
and how that also went up. And there's something with flames and music that I'm just like, there's something there. They're
Gina (1:09:01)
The the two actually d they get brought up in conjunction quite a bit, yeah.
Kathryn (1:09:05)
very similar situations. And the and I don't remember who she quoted. It was from some article that, the question shouldn't necessarily be what, you know, what causes what are these
people who are more likely to do this thing are more likely to listen to this music and get carried away, et cetera, et cetera. Or is this music truly turning is innocent people bad? And there is studies that suggest it is the first one that, you know, angry people are attracted to angry music and they do angry things. But what I really like, the description I really like is the music is the kerosene and the person listening is the match.
Gina (1:09:44)
Mm.
Kathryn (1:09:45)
And you cannot
Gina (1:09:45)
Ooh.
Kathryn (1:09:46)
have an explosion without both of them together. It just it it ha it just so happens that all of a sudden here they are together, and that is what causes the issue. So it the
Gina (1:09:58)
Yeah.
Kathryn (1:09:59)
the discussion isn't about like who is at fault. It is like what combination of terrible things.
Happened to lead us to this point? Because you just talked about a lot of
Gina (1:10:10)
that's fascinating.
Kathryn (1:10:11)
things. You know, there were a lot of things, and there's a whole lot of like, you know, I'm always gonna bring up like mental health issues and society and expectations and all of these things combined with people making bad choices. But like I've made a lot of bad choices. I've never murdered anyone or set fire to you know what I mean? Like, and I was.
Gina (1:10:29)
Mm-hmm. It does come back to that.
Kathryn (1:10:32)
Yeah, and like I was listening to very similar music the whole time. I was not doing all of these things. So I just think that whole discussion on like what happened here is like I could get lost in that forever. Highly recommend that book. It's very heavily related to everything you were just talking about.
Gina (1:10:49)
need to add that to my storygraph. Because also when
Kathryn (1:10:51)
Yeah.
Gina (1:10:51)
you combine like the match and the kerosene and I d what I think is a pretty universal teenage experience of feeling like you don't belong and the desperation of wanting
Kathryn (1:11:00)
Yeah.
Gina (1:11:00)
to feel accepted somewhere. And if you find a community
Kathryn (1:11:03)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (1:11:04)
and if you're already an angry person that says, hey, we'll accept you if you do angry things and if you do bad, bad things
the likelihood of that ha and the whole like teenage invulnerability or feelings of invulnerability. And I know not all of these guys
Kathryn (1:11:17)
Mm.
Gina (1:11:17)
were teenagers by the end of it, but they sure acted like it, you know what I mean?
Kathryn (1:11:21)
But there was that same vibe of like, you can't be vulnerable. You have to be. Yeah, yeah. God, I'm just
Gina (1:11:27)
It was the the teen angst, yeah. And like anti establishment stuff.
Kathryn (1:11:32)
I just also again I laugh not because it's funny, but just because you have to. Like at all of these fucking nicknames, like,
Gina (1:11:39)
I know.
Kathryn (1:11:40)
I just w the black metal scene I was part of when I was in high school, we had a guy named Waffles that was at every show.
He was so nice. I loved waffles. Hope he's doing okay. Yeah. It's such a different story.
Gina (1:11:55)
That would be such a different story if we had a waffles imagine.
Kathryn (1:12:00)
Yeah.
don't know, this story's wild.
Gina (1:12:04)
It is wild. And it I it's so dark, but it's so fascinating. There are so many rabbit holes you
Kathryn (1:12:08)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (1:12:09)
can go down with this thing. So thanks for listening. Sorry.
Kathryn (1:12:14)
It's okay.
And you're welcome. And thank you.
Gina (1:12:17)
Do an outrageous month.
Kathryn (1:12:19)
Welcome to Outrageous N guys, I literally we have to record mine in just a few days here and I still can't decide what I want to do because unfortunately so many of the most outrageous stories are so dark and that's why they stick
Gina (1:12:31)
Yeah.
Kathryn (1:12:31)
with you and are so outrageous. So I'm I'm gonna I'm trying my best to think of one that's not but I think you did a good job. I think you did a very good job not
Gina (1:12:38)
Thank you.
Kathryn (1:12:39)
making it s as depressing as it actually is, just to like
Gina (1:12:43)
Thanks.
Kathryn (1:12:43)
paint a picture
for everyone, for how deep this goes. But yeah, you did a great job. And hopefully I decide what I wanna do to follow this one because it's gonna this is gonna be a hard one to follow and still get people to come back.
Gina (1:12:56)
I well I think no matter what no matter what I think the next
one will be a an emotional improvement I'll say no
Kathryn (1:13:07)
I was gonna do MKUltra.
Gina (1:13:09)
Jesus fucking.
Kathryn (1:13:10)
I know. I'm literally between MK Ultra and Chernobyl. Gina you you did this one. This is what I'm saying. Okay.
Gina (1:13:14)
Holy shit, Kathryn! Okay, you're right, you're right, you're right. I did I did this. I did do this. Okay. Jesus.
Kathryn (1:13:24)
Yeah, we'll we'll see how that goes. In the meantime, we are not gonna do a scary on top because we're just not
Gina (1:13:31)
Yeah. We're tired and my episode was long as
hell.
Kathryn (1:13:36)
Yeah, this was a long one and I just yeah, wanna transition into n next week with a clean slate. So we'll
Gina (1:13:43)
Mm.
Kathryn (1:13:44)
do that. but yeah, if you guys do have a story or any feedback or if you have thoughts on this episode, please let us know. iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com we would love to hear any stories or information that you all have. If you want more from us each month, join us on Patreon.
And please leave us a rating andor review wherever you listen. That really helps us out. And until next time, little spoons, keep it cool.
Gina (1:14:09)
Keep it creepy.
