Interview with Dead taken from Slayer Mag #10, Interview conducted by
Evil (Marduk, Abruptum etc)
How come you left MORBID and moved to Norway to join Mayhem?
As everyone know .. or should now is that MORBID never was a real band. However
after the "December Moon" demo the band kinda split up. I don't know
the reason why, but we were all very different and couldn't compromise on how
MORBID should be or sound like. What't most mysterious to me is how everybody
could change so much. When I and John formed the band the band was looking for
some members for the band and asked them about the thought of having a Black
Metal band as Black Metal should be, but it never turned out that way. They all
seemed to be totally into the idea at first, but ... well .. I must say that I
don't think the 2nd MORBID demo is in the same vein as the first. But why the
hell do I talk about MORBID in an interview when the band never should have
been featured???? I talked to EURONYMOUS on the phone and he explained how his
view of how the most brutal stage show would be and we discussed the problem
that everybody wants everything to be so normal, boring and wimpy. And we
totally agreed on that, I should come over and try out some rehearsals, to find
out how I would fit in the band. And I guess I do fit 'cos I've been singing
here ever since. But the problems was that short after I joined the band we
were out of rehearsal places...
You have said that the "Deathcrush" mLP will be released
again, what about it?
We want to release it again, but we just don‘t know how the hell we can
afford it. It was wrong to limit it and now the copies are being sold for far
too much money and that wasn't the idea at all. Those who want it can't get it
unless they are millionaires. We will never release anything limited with
MAYHEM again.
Tell me about your new LP "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas". When
will it be out? Any old MAYHEM songs on it?
Good question... I wish I knew when! It's planned to contain 8 tracks
and to be released on D.S.P. as anti Mosh 003. When the 2nd edition of the
MERCILESS LP has sold out and paid, the next band will go into studio
(IMPERATOR from POLAND). When their 1st edition has paid we'll go into a studio
and record our LP. After the tour we have planned, if it doesn't fuck up, we
will have a session of concentrated work on the material that is missing for
the LP. I can't say much more about the release.
How would you describe a gig with MAYHEM, with all your effects?
We haven‘t had a real gig yet, 3 shows in Norway, but only one with parts
of our stage show. We had some impaled pig heads, and I cut my arms with a
weird knife and a crushed coke bottle. We meant to have a chainsaw, but the guy
who owned it, had left when we came go get it. That wasn't brutal enough1 Most
of the people in there were wimps and I don‘t want them to watch our gigs! Before
we began to play there was a crowd of abut 300 in there, but in the second song
"Necro Lust" we began to throw around those pig heads. Only 50 were
left, I liked that! The non evil wimps shall listen to our music. We had a
great time throwing the heads on each other. I got angry at some idiots who had
their heads up in the air, so I wiped the blood on my arms all over again, We
wanna scare those shouldn't be at our concerts, and they will have to escape
through the emergency exit with parts of their body missing, so we can have
something to throw around. Some imagine for some weird reason that Death Metal
is something normal and available for everyone. Unfortunately they are right...
If you have seen pictures of bands like DEFECTION, BENEDICTION or RIGHTEOUS
PIGS etc. you know what I mean. If you go into an ordinary school, you will
surly see half of them wearing MORBID ANGEL, AUTOPSY and ENTOMBED shirts, and
once again i will vomit! Death Black Metal is something all ordinary mortals
should fear, not make into a trend! Some years ago ut dud not exist at all. When
MORBID had it's first gigs almost no one had heard had heard that kind of music
before. METALLICA or VNA... But hopefully those who jumped on to Death Metal
will leave it soon to the real people who have always listened to it. It took
some years or so till the trendy HC bands jumped over to Grind. It took shorter
time till Grind was out, and I hope it won't take long before they leave Death
Metal to us who do not choose music after fashion. That's one reason for having
a stage show. The wimps will not ever understand it, and I won't explain it to
them either. But they got pissed off at our shows and that is what we want. If
someone doesn't like blood and rotten flesh thrown in their face they can FUCK
OFF, and that's exactly what they do. We are trying to turn the scene back to
what it once was, when no Death Metallers were wearing Adidas shit and looked
totally normal. The hassle is of course to bring stuff from the slaughterhouse
to gigs abroad.
What is your opinion on Satanism and Occultism?
That's a great possession of mine! But to learn about Magic takes time. It‘s
necessary to know a lot about it before trying some curse on the neighbors or
something like that. It needs a lot of time. I don‘t have much time, especially
right now. But I'm more into legends of Eastern Europe. They are not known of
here, but people still believe in them. Each castle has got it's own history
with a bloody past... that‘s what obsesses me most. The Balkan countries is
where I want to live.
Do you relate to their bands?
Yes, some...
What are your main influences?
I think we now have captured an own style, but from the start it was
only VENOM that existed. That can be heard in the "Pure Fuckng
Armageddon" demo, the one I like the best. As for me I'm influenced by the
Carpathian castles and Pophyrians."
Tell me something about your lyrics... What does the contents explain?
So far, I've written the lyrics to all the songs after
"Deathcrush": "Funeral Fog", "Freezing Moon",
"Buried by Time and Dust" and "Pagan Fears". Mostly they
deal with how I feel when I wrote them. It's hard to explain, and they are very
different too. I can explain "Funeral Fog", it‘'s about a legendary
place in the middle of the Carpathian horse shoe. A swampland called Shurlock
Basin which is surrounded by fearful superstition and the weirdest beings are
thought to haunt the place. That I thought about when I write that song and
started to imagine a heavy fog lit up by the full moon. This fog oozed up from
that place. Drifting woefully in silence to extinguish the lives of the local
people. And bring their souls to Lord Satan. "Pagan Fears" is the
newest song made by us, and it‘s a bit strange. It reminds me of "Chainsaw
Gutsfuck" but it is not as brutal. Anyway, the lyrics talk of some people
living in an ancient and barbaric society, (Fucking Hell how I hate the word
society, when it is used as a topic in lyrics, but of course I don't mention
that word in "Pagan Fears"!) and the idea, that the past isn't dying,
but remains in some faded reality, and that they'll not die out, but remain in
the past which is actually not dying, to haunt people in the future, pup up in
their minds. The time itself exists and is eternal, so is it vanishing? They
realize they remain forever. That was a strange idea I've walked around with
till I had to write it down. We don't have any concept in particular in the
lyrics and not only I am writing them. Before it was mainly Necro Butcher who
wrote most of the stuff and he has explained to me what it was like. He was
almost asleep, then he suddenly thought of a song title. He had to write it
down quickly. And after some minutes it happened again and again. The day after
he tried to read what he had written down that night and he found out he
couldn't read the handwriting he had written in no light and the pen had been
fucked up. But some lines were readable and they became "Deathcrush".
the most difficult one so far is the one that will be the title track on
"De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas". The ›yric is about an extraordinary Evil
Coven that are the book. But I must change a lot of the lyric. That satisfied
with the music so we dropped all the music. Then I found out the lyrics weren't
evil enough and it didn't describe the enormous force enough. Anyway, we will
involve ourselves very much in this particular song.
How is the Norwegian Death Black Metal scene?
Scandinavia hasn't got any scene. Only wimps and trendies are here. Too
many ordinary people and fuckheads! Don't come to Scandinavia! I wanna move
from here!
What would you think of people talking shit about you and MAYHEM? Saying
that you are posers because you have such a great live show!
I'm not interested in what they used to listen to or what they are
trying to tell me. We do what we like and that is enough for us.
What are your plans for the near future
That once and for all nothing will screw up and rip offs shall shut up
so we can go away on our first abroad tour, which has been delayed for more
than two fucking years now. We were very close many times, but in the last
minute we found out that no gigs were planned. Now it's been a while since I
last cut myself (and others) so I need to a live show. We really need to play
live soon. We also hope our delayed LP can be recorded soon. I hope that the
scene will be better and that people will realize that rip offs, trends and
wimps are ruining it!
Last words...
What would that be?? - Wipe your ass folks!