Thulean Archives

Why on earth did I play the bass on the debut album of Mayhem? Let's find out. At the time, in 1992, he lived in Oslo. I lived about 500 km away in Bergen.^[1] The reason why I had anything to do with him whatsoever was because his label, Deathlike Silence Production, released my Burzum debut album. Whilst I was sitting there in Bergen, reading my role playing game books, enjoying it thoroughly. He was in Oslo.^[2] And as I have tried to explain earlier in other videos, he was kind of a mythomaniac, spreading myths to^[3] boost interest in his products. And that would be Mayhem mainly. And now he had released the Burzum debut album, so he was doing the same for Burzum. So whilst I was sitting there innocently reading role playing game books in Bergen, 500 kilometers away, he was spreading rumors about "Vrag, bro, the count". And he spread ideas like that because he wanted to gatekeep. As I've told in a couple of other videos. He wanted to make sure that nobody else started playing black metal, because he didn't want others to become more famous than Mayhem was. So Mayhem was supposed to be like the... "The black metal bands", and some others were accepted because of practical reasons. For example, Burzum, because it was on his label. And because it was on his label, using his logic, he had to create a myth around Burzum as well. And he did the problem was that he did this so effectively that in the end, Burzum was more true then Mayhem was. Burzum was the coolest, the most extreme band. And mind you, all the time I was sitting there reading RPG books and making music and wasn't really paying attention, didn't really know about all of this. And the things I got to know about, I didn't care about. I didn't take it seriously. I'm just like, okay. But as I explained in my other video here and where I talked about him gatekeeping, and he had a problem here because he so efficiently spread rumors about Burzum that in the end, Burzum was more extreme in the view of people than Mayhem was. Hmm. What can you do about that? Right? Well, of course he asked me if I could play the bass on their album, because that way, the most extreme guy in the scene would have been in Mayhem. So Mayhem would then, you know, become the most extreme band with the most extreme members. And mind you, I wasn't very extreme. It's just that he presented me to the black metal scene as extreme because he wanted to gatekeep. So I went over there and participated on a few rehearsals, and honestly, that was all I needed. And, yes, I did make a few bass riffs for that album, because he had made the album as a guitar album, and Hellhammer made the drum stuff^[4] for the tracks he had made. And I had to make the bass lines for them, because he hadn't done that already. And if you want to identify exactly the bass riffs that I made for that album, you can find all the tremolo picking on multiple strings. If there's something like that, it's made by me, *Singing*, etc, that kind of stuff. And when it was time to record the album, after a few rehearsals, they came over to Bergen, where I lived. So we recorded the album in a hurry. I just recorded the bass lines, first take on every single track, and I left. And of course, he interpreted that not as I intended, namely that this was their album, their project. I did my thing and I left. Because, you know, you record, you mix it, it's your album.^[5] Instead he took it as an insult. And "me lacking interest in his album". Wasn't my album, was his album. And mind you, at the time, I wasn't very negative towards Euronymous. I didn't really know him at all. I'd only met him a few times and talked to him on the phone a few times. And like I've said multiple times before, I didn't socialize with these guys. I lived in Bergen, 500 km away, and I only socialized, so to speak, with them for professional reasons. That is, to rehearse with them or to help him out. In the shop. As I explained before. As you know, I'm not credited for playing the bass on that album. I don't want any money for it, and that's fine. I don't want to. I don't care. And this is something Hellhammer had to do for practical reasons. As for my opinion about that album, I think it's... musically, it's okay, but I think the vocals is ruining it completely. I don't like the vocals. Attila was a cool guy and everything, but, no, I don't like the vocals. Sorry. I think it ruined the whole album, and especially on songs like Freezing Moon, you know, we were used to Dead's vocal, it was really cool, and then he did something completely different, and I didn't like it at all. I know he wanted to have his own artistic version of it, but no, don't like it. As a curiosity, I can add that the first time I heard that was in prison, I think in 2000-something. And I heard it because some guy had smuggled in CDs using the books. He put the CDs inside the cover of the books, and he managed to smuggle in some Cds, and he told me "Oh, I have that album." And I said "Oh, really? Cool." And I borrowed it, and I heard it for the first time.^[6] And, yes, I was disappointed with the vocals. I haven't really heard anything else by Mayhem. And I'm not really interested in that kind of music. But I do like Freezing Moon with Dead on the vocals.^[7] I think that's still a very cool track. And as you can tell from what I say here the way it's presented in Lords of Chaos, the film, is just completely made up. And in fact, the opposite of what happened. He never called me a poser. Why would he? He of all people, not me. He had created a myth around my name and turned me into some sort of stereotypical cool guy, extreme black metal dude. And he could, because I wasn't there. So he could create this image of me because the people who listen to him didn't meet me, didn't know me, had nothing to do with me. And then in the end, because he had gone too far, and I was now more extreme than his own band, he had to have me play the bass on his album. It was all about him and Mayhem to him all the time. Thanks for watching.

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1. Just like in 1991 and 1993 I may add.
2. *insert image of Smiley with sunglasses*
3. Alias: a liar...
4. Necrobutcher had only made the bass lines for some of the tracks.
5. Assuming he knew what HE wanted.
6. ... and played it on a PC intended for schooling.
7. Necrobutcher made the main slow riff for that track. btw.