The Cringe of Euronymous (Black Metal)

A lot of the problems of modern black metal come from the "image over sound" and theatrics associated with the genre... how guilty was Euronymous?

Mayhem’s Euronymous (the cringe lord of BM).

Much like modern black metal bands, Euronymous loved to indulge in the cringe. He famously dressed up as a “vampire” at least a full decade before the shitshow that was the Twilight movie trilogy.

Unlike modern black metal bands, however, he actually knew how to play good music. And “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” is a masterpiece.

Still, we can respect the art and make fun of the artist. Here are some of Euronymous’ greatest hits.

Necrobutcher sums it up:

Øystein was always sending death threats to people. It was his reaction to everything. But he didn't put so much into it. And then when he met you, he was like, "OK. You're cool!". Then you were best friends. So when eventually he got to be unfriendly with Varg, he threatened him like he did everyone else. Øystein told him, "I'm going to send some people to torture you. Until you die". But Varg Vikernes saw this as a real threat. He probably thought, "better him than me. I'll just go down and do him".

— Necrobutcher (Mayhem bassist)

Anders Odden - fellow guitarist and a friend of Euronymous at the time - said of the death of his friend:

It wasn't odd that he ended up getting killed. He thought he could threaten to kill people without it having any consequences. I think many people felt relief once he was gone.

— Anders Odden (Cadaver guitarist)

Faust said that with Euronymous, "there was a lot of smoke but not so much fire".

In a private letter written in the early 1990s, Euronymous claimed that Norwegian black metal bands at the time were "all more or less Nazis", including Mayhem. He did not, however, use the music of Mayhem to promote any kind of politics.

Euronymous:

We hate does 'PEACE, LOVE and DEMOCRACY'-ideas. WAR, SODOMY and DICTATION! We support all extreme and oppressed states like the old ALBANIA, IRAN , KAMPUCHEA under the RED KHMERS and so on. People who are dying and suffering! THE BERLIN WALL SHALL RISE AGAIN!!

— Euronymous (Mayhem guitarist)

Also Euronymous:

I like secret police, cold war and worshiping of dictators. I like bugging and spying on people, torture chambers in police stations and that people suddenly “disappear”.

— Euronymous (Mayhem guitarist)

There is little doubt that if Euronymous had created, in a Communist society, the music he made with Mayhem, he would have ended his life in a psychiatric ward, prison, Gulag, torture center, death camp.

He would, in other words, have been the first to “disappear.” So was his desire for “extreme totalitarism” just poorly expressed sexual masochism?

From what we have heard there are extreme, fundamentalist Christians planning actions against us, which we think is great. We want to see Christians become militant. We hate to see the born again Christians going around being nice to the whole world. That's extremely annoying. We want so see Christians with weapons coming here to kill us. That's what we want.

— Euronymous (March 1993 interview)

Ironically, it was not “Christians” that “came here to kill.” It was Kristian.

Okay that was pretty mid as a joke. Then again...