The most perverted and sick norwegian black metal legend coming from the ancient times can only be considered as the pure work of the immortal tortured souls of Euronymous and Dead, who raised the dead and lusted for the grim shades wandering in the funeral fog under the fullmoon...The True Mayhem played minimalistic and ugly music with an obsession for the goat, worshipped the devil and dedicated themselves to the destruction of the feeble minds without any human emotion. Euronymous will forever remain a genius in the black metal history and his mind will keep on haunting our frightening nightmares for a long time. Here’s an old interview with him, made in anno MCMXC, that appeared in my second issue originally limited to 70 copies. I have decided here to pay a sincere homage to what used to be The True Mayhem. The blasphemy can begin...
01 - When was The True Mayhem precisely formed?
When started up in 1984,it was me,Necro butcher(bass) and Mainhem(drums) back then.
02 - What is the actual line-up?
The line-up now is actually only me on guitars/bass and Hellhammer on drums/percussion.We’ll have a session vocalist on the lp : Attila Csihar from the hungarian black metal band Tormentor,He’s fuckin’ great.
03 - So, What are your fave bands or your main influences?
Venom,old stuff of Sodom,Kreator,Possessed,Bathory,Hellhammer/Celtic Frost,Sepultura, Sarcofago,Vulcano,Morbid angel,and all stuff with bands like Necrovore,Mutilated, Abruptum,Monumentum,Merciless(swe),The gathering,Nocturnus,Dark Throne,Immortal, Slayer,Thorns,Sadistik execution,Burzum,Necromantia,Holocausto, Blasphemia,My Dying Bride,,the new stuff of Autopsy,everything with Rotting Christ,Samael,Arcturus,Varathron, Tormentor(hungary),Master’s hammer,Klaus Schulze ,Vader,Blasphemy,JM Jarre,Voivod the first Carcass stuuf,Bulldozer anb tons more.There is a lot of good music around if one just sort out the trend bands.
04 - Is your debut full lenght ready? When will it be out and can you tell me more about it please?
It should be recorded during april,at least the music.Then we’ll get Attila up from Hungary to work on the vocals for a couple of weeks,and then it will be mixed and sent to pressing.So it should be really be out this summer.It will be very different from earlier Mayhem stuff,more moody,dark and evil.And 3 times faster.The title is still ‘De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’.It’s been 5 years since ‘Deathcrush’,but it’s good that we’ve used so long time,because now we feel we have something which we are totally satisfied with,and that we probably cannot do it better,ar least not for a long time.We have more or less discovered a new way of playing riffs which as far as we are concerned never has been used before.We have 7 or 8 titles ready now,they are ‘Funeral Fog’,’The Freezing Moon’,’Pagan Fears’,’Life eternal’,’Dawn of the Black Hearts’,’Buried by Time and Dust’ and ‘De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’.
05 - What do your lyrics deal with nowadays?
Dead wrote 5 of these lyrics,and they were personal,about his dream of Transylvania,ancient burial sites,legends,cold nights with fullmoon and wind blowing,medieval times,vampirism and so on.They were mostly about his longing for death,as one sees if he know Dead and study the lyrics closely.’Dawn of the Black hearts’is a very satanic song,it’s written for us by Fenriz of Dark throne.We still need the lyrics for the DMDS song and the last one without title.DMDS will be about the book existing in very few copies.According to the legend,the book would start to bleed if the wrong person tried to read it,and then kill him in an unspeakable manner.
06 - It must have been very hard to continue the band after the terrible death of Dead?
Not really.I would have continued even if u was all alone.I’m doing all the music anyway.Dead and Necro Butcher were into playing like we did in “85,but i’m not able to make good songs in that way now?I and Hellhammer have totally the same views about the music so we have more artistic freedom now,actually.
07 - Actually, are you a lot into satanism?
Religion is a very personal matter for me and i prefer not to speak very much about it.I only would like to say that i don’t like the La Vey ‘Satanism’,they ‘re doing their stuff just to oppose christianity,they don’t even belive,which i think is essential.Real satanism is like it was in the middle ages.A lot of ‘Satanists’ claim that satan represents real life,fun and so on,but i don’t like this.For me,Satan is a living incarnation of EVIL,where the ultimate goal is to destroy all life and lay the insane Fod’s creation in ruins.Actually,i support the most fundamental christian sects,
Because they will make the world very dark,depressive,puritanic and intolerant,people will wear Black and never smile.They of course think that they have made what God wants,but actually they’re doing Satan’s work work by destroying laughter and fun.
08 -The True Mayhem is considered to be one of the most satanic band in the world. Sincerely what do you think about that?
It’s great,but also kind of weird,since we haven’t been preaching Satanism openly since ’86.It’s good to have RESPECT.Or to be hated,as lon,g as all the tredn people don’t like us,everything is good.
09 - How many times have you played live and with which bands?
We haven’t played much live.4 times in Norway,i think,3 in East-Germany and one in Turkey.We refuse to play live because the audience consist only of trendy children in jogging suits,HC pigs,skaters,moshers and divers.We don’t play for such lowlife,they can go to new kids on the black gigs where they belong.We want to see people dressed in black with spikes,nites and leather,not shirt haired jogging suit idiots with caps and basket shoes.I’m talking about following a way of life here,and all others can just fuck off.We played with Cadaver(norway) and Dark Throne once a Norway,and with Hazy Hill in Turkey and Wotan In East-Germany,ok – some others too,but they are not worth mentionning.If we play live in the future,it will only be with TRUE bands.
10 - Can you tell me something about ‘Deathcrush’ mlp released on Posercorpse Music Inc?
It was released in only 1000 numbered copies in ’87 and it will now be re-released by DSP.There will be some differences on it,so that they who have the original will still have something very special.This mini lp was made to make people hate usnand we suceeded pretty much,althrough we got on number 5 on the kerrang magazine import chart...How that happened,is a mystery.Kerrang hated us so incredibilty,that’s the greatest review we’ve ever got.Well,this mini lp will be out in not very long time and it will cost FRF 80/DM;25/FL;25/BFR;500/GRD,2500 ect in Europe and outside Europe it will be USD 12 by surface mail and $19 by air mail.We have some cheaper prices doe poorer countries in Eastern Europe,Asia/Africa/South and Central America,so people from there can write for special prices on everthing we release.Later it will be out on cd as well,I Hate that but it’s necessary.
11 - What do you think of the norwegian scene in general?
Norway is GREATEST.Ok,we have the typical amout of trendy chidren,but when it comes to bands,there are so many great ones,it’s better than any other place.Bands such Dark Throne,Burzum,Immortal,Thorns, Arcturus,Malfeitor,Enslaved and Fester kills everthing,and there are even some more coming up which will be really great.We do you a few trend bands,but they have hardly released any demos!It’s really something else than in Sweden,just wait till when our band start releasing records!Quite a lot of these albums will be on DSP,in the future hopefully including Dark Throne,while Immortal will have 2 albums on Osmose(get them!).I also like Cadaver a lot,even though they have something totally different going on than these other bands.Watch out for Infinite Decay on the future too,if they get rid of their idiot drummer(Hasse).And Old Funeral is becoming very good now.
12 - My next question is totally stupid but I would like to know if you like getting drunk often?
Now and then.I mostly have so much work to do that I don’t have the time to drink,I hate partiesanyway.I hate to see people having fun and I don’t want to be together with normal people.If I drink,it’s mostly together with some close friendsnif we go out in the city we try to keep awau from fashionable please,of course,it’s good if we can find some dark corner in some places where we’re not disturbed by stupid humans.
13 - Well, what do you know about my area?
I’ve been once (in the South of the France,visiting Agressor) and it was ok,too much sun through.France hasn’t exactly been exploding with good bands,but Mutilated is FUCKING GREAT!!! I guess I know pretty much about the country as I like to learn about countries,languages and so on,but I don’t think it would be very interesting to give lots of details here.
14 - Finally, what are your future plans for later times?
We don’t have much concrete plans except for getting out the DC mini lp and the DMDS lp.We have been talking with some of the guys in Burzum,Thorns and Dark Throne about some musical project which might include them participing in composing te next Mayhem lp,but nothing is decided.We’l see.Right now we’re working very much with the label and our records shop.
15 - Sincerely, what is your opinion about the new musical direction of Quorthon with the last two Bathory full lenghts ‘Hammerheart’ and ‘Twilight of the god’?
At first,I was very disappointed.But after listening a few more times and not expecting to hear the same music as on theur first albums,I started to like it very much.Those records are genious if one takes them for what they are and not for what Bathory USED to be.It’s the same with Venom,really,I used to WORSHIP their 3 first albums and the maxi singles,but then it became and more shit.’When Calm Before The Storm’ came I refused to buy anything more Venom,But recently listenned carefylly to their ‘Prime Evil’ album,and I actually found it quite good(to my big surprise because I expected it to be really SHIT).If one doesn’t think about how old Venom sounds,but takes that as it sound now,it’s pretty great,sounds like a mix of Venom and Motorhead with some Kiss influences(I dig Kiss with face paint!),and I decided that I had to start bying some stuff again.
16 - I let you end this interview with your last evil words, fuckin’ Motherfucker From HELL!!!!
Well,get the Mayhem tee-shirt for FRF 100/DM,30/FL and so on,outside Europe it’s USD(surface)22 (air),the same as with the records concerning cheaper prices for poor countries goes here too.Write for info.The shirts are black with white logo,sizes are M/L/XL and they’re quite large.The first DSP record since Merciless is being pressed NOW,it’s BURZUM from Norway with a self-titled lp which is FUCKING GREAT,it’s dark,depressive, hysterical and melodic,it may remind a little about old Bathory,Celtic Frost and Mayhem.Get it!It cost the same as the tee-shirt in Europe,and USD 15(surface)/22(air) outside.An so on.It will also be out on cd (FRF 120 DM 40 ect),whrite for prices,it’s too much to write all currencies and so on here.Perhaps I should just mention that ut’s USD 20/24 out side Europe,except...you know what.We’ll have a lot of GRIM records coming up on DSP now,we’re thinking about making a mailing list where people can send a certain amount of cash and then get info about upcoming records automatically.The records we are planning is near future except those already mentioned,are lp’s with ABRUPTUM(Sweden) -
‘Obscurutatem Advoco Amplectere Me’ and TORMENTOR – ‘Anno Domini’.We’ll start releasing every thing on cd later,at first it will only be the Burzum comes on cd.Write.Fuck trends,be evil,not open-minded.Eat meat.Fuck peace and love!WAR AND SODOMY!!!
Interview : Kanz-Noz
