Article taken from the Expresso, a mainstream newspaper in Portugal, dated 28/11/98
This article - one of many in this vein - highlights the problems encountered whenever Burzum is considered by mainstream publications, something which happens very regularly these days. In this case the journalist has simply compiled together a number of (mostly inaccurate) quotes and facts from various "tabloid" sources, and allowed the sensationalism of his subject to cloud the genuine social-political implications of a revolutionary musical movement:
Article by: João Lisboa
Satanic and Nazi Black Metal bands"
In the Scandinavian paradise, since the 80's, grew and developed a chain of violent rock with fascistic inspiration that don't stay with just words
Marilyn Manson (see CARTAZ/Música) smokes human bones from corpses he digs out in graveyards, presents himself as the Antichrist and was ordered a member of the Church of Satan by Anton Szandor La 'Vey? One part can be true and the other, naturally, is mythology forged and fed by the 'marketing' machine interested in selling the maximum number of his records. But is not hard to understand that the character - although he's hated by Christian family organisations and creates riots wherever he goes in the USA - is little more that a cartoon figure, who terrorises more the parents then his teenage fans.
The ghost that convince kids to eat their soup, now haunts their parents dreams, giving them cold sweats when they see their son's idols. But that's just an imaginary 'boogie man' - inspired visibly in another of the same kind from the 70's, with a girl name also, Alice Cooper. That's surely a kid's game when compared to the infinitely more restless things that happened in the parallel universe of Black Metal.
Since Elvis Prestley danced at the sound of 'Blue Suede Shoes', the more conservative sectors of society - especially the north-American - decided to baptise rock'n'roll as "The Devil's music". For about 3 decades and a half the world laughed about the qualification, never taking it to seriously, rock was converted in music for all family. However, in the 90's that designation became literally true and in the least expected point of the planet.
Inspired by British 'heavy metal' bands like Venom and Black Sabbath, in 1985, Øystein Aarseth, alias Euronymous (the Prince of Death), founded in Oslo - Norway - the band Mayhem. At the same time directed a record store (Helvete), and a small independent record company, Deathlike Silence, whose objective was to publish records of bands "that incarnated evil in it's most pure state". Both acted as the meeting place of the Inner Circle, a clandestine group of Satanists, most of them elements from other Norwegian bands of the yet embryonic Black Metal. The ideology of Mayhem, Euronymous (member of Communist Party, outside Norway only played in the Eastern Block countries), and the clandestine cult was an unbelievable mixture of Scandinavian paganism, neo-nazism, Stalinism and Satanism, their objective was to eliminate from Scandinavia all signs of Christian civilisation (who, according to them, exterminated the ancient and proud Viking culture) and rehabilitate the image of 'heavy metal' in their own way. "Because of all the clichés associated to it" - says Aarseth - "heavy metal was always mocked. But, when someone assumes truly that image, it shocks people. Black Metal is real, it's a religion. We worship Evil!". Faust Eithun, Emperor's drummer (who, years later, was convicted to a sentence of 14 years in jail for the homicide of a young homosexual) would go a little further and leave things absolutely clear "Until here, bands only sang about violence. Today's bands exercise it!"
The first sign that they weren't really kidding happened in the 8th of April 1990, the premonitory called Dead, Mayhem's vocalist, committed suicide with a shot in the head, the conditions of the event were never clarified. The first act of Euronymous (considered for sometime a possible suspect for his friend's death) when he discovered the body bathed in a sea of blood, was to run to the next shop and buy a disposable camera to take the most possible number of photos of the corpse. After, the took some fragments of the shattered cranium, with which he would make a necklace, and only then he called the Police.
"Make war not love". Two years later, the Satanists collectively passed from words to actions. In the night of the 6th June 1992, the 1st church was burn in Fantoft, near Bergen, followed by another in Holmenkollen, adding since that time until 1997, a total of 40 churches were devoured by flames and several cemeteries desecrated.
One of the first to be stopped by the police force, specially formed to deal with the vandalism of the Black Metal
cult, would be Christian "Varg" (Wolf) Vikernes, alias Count Grishnackh, number two of Euronymous satanic circle
and the leader of a Bergen band called Burzum (Darkness). Speaking of evidence, at that time, he would be set free.
But he didn't restrain himself from propagating his thoughts based on half a dozen of ideas: "Human beings are
worthless and stupid. They're not supposed to think. They only exist to follow a god or a leader. I support all
dictatorships. Stalin, Hitler, Ceausescu... and I will become the dictator of Scandinavia myself. 'Make war not
love'. I hate peace and love. I'm a Viking, and the Vikings were born to fight and to kill for pleasure. We aren't
some Red Cross idiots. The only negative aspect of killing someone is that, from that moment on, he can no longer
suffer. I like to see people suffer. It's very good and positive".
Just an imbecile brag? Far from that. Not only the "Count" published a book with his "philosophy", Vargsmal (where, between others original things, he defended the pagan and arian hegemony and the re-establishment of the runes as the official Scandinavian alphabet) but was also arrested by a considerable more serious motive: as a result of rivalry in the Inner Circle, he murdered Euronymous with 24 stabs, taking the care of immediately after calling the British company that ensured Deathlike Silence distribution, announcing: "This is Count Grishnackh. Euronymous is dead and I piss in his grave!" Convicted to 21 years in jail (the total of Black Metal's fanatics, presently convicted to prison sentences in Norway, for murder, rape, aggression and arson is now 8), he continued to justify his action in a disturbing manner: "The man I killed was my enemy. What else could I do?"
Today, between his activities - designing nazis T-shirts, continue composing for Burzum and conceding interviews where he proudly talks about his contacts with the Ku Klux Klan and his family connections with Vidkun Quisling, the nazi collaborator who ruled Norway during WW II - he harshly complains about his incarceration conditions: "This prison is a joke, it's not at all the hell I was waiting. In this country, it's completely ridiculous, the prisoners have the right to a bed, private bathroom and shower. I demand the police to throw me into a dungeon and encourage them to use violence on me". The truth is that his nightmare almost ended earlier last year.
At the 12th April 1997, Oslo journalists revealed the discovery of a conspiracy to kill several left winged politicians and religious leaders, planed by the terrorist organisation Einsantzgruppe. In the possession of 5 arrested members was found military weaponry, explosives, bullet-proof vests and about 100 thousand Norwegian crowns allegedly delivered by Lene Bore, Varg's mother, whose liberation was part of the group plans.
If Count Grishnackh became the most famous 'pin-up' of satanic Black Metal and the neo-nazi right wing (the sites about him on the Net are abundant), meanwhile in and out of Norway his disciples are multiplying. It's the case of the American band Deicide (after burning a Baptist church, a supermarket van and a tropical birds aviary, they decided by the murder of a professor who interrupted another act of vandalism), the satanic German 'rocker' Hendrick Möbus (who strangled a partner with an electric wire), the Swedish Jon Nödtveidt, Dissection's vocalist (convicted along with the leader of the Misanthropic Luciferian Order for the homicide of an Algerian) or the various cases of burned churches and cemetery desecration also in France, Germany and England.
The Norwegian police claims that, after the wave of arrests and convictions, Black Metal's vandalism is under control, but his devotees (divided between factions of Dark Symphonic Vampyric Metal, Viking Metal, Evil Atmosphere and Dark Nationalistic Evil Metal) don't appear to have the same opinion. As Henry Leirvoll in Heksheim's site says "things became now more subterranean. As long as Norway is a Christian country, there will be always someone to fight it. Poetically, verbally, and rest assure very physically".