Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult

by Dayal Patterson

  “We discussed it a lot, because we did think, ‘Okay, he is the founder of the band,’” explains King of the split. “But even though it was a difficult choice, because of everything we knew behind the scenes, we thought this band will either fall apart and die, or go into two factions and see what happens. Actually me and Infernus are probably more on the same path, but when it came to running a band it didn’t work with Infernus, at that point we simply didn’t function as a band. To be honest it was Gaahl who thought of it. After some years he couldn’t cope with being in a band with Infernus. For me it was then a simple choice, ’cos the only guy I had actually worked with in Gorgoroth was Gaahl, I never worked musically with Infernus. At that time, and in the end, he didn’t pay much interest in the band, he was sort of in the background, so it was a natural choice to say, ‘If this is going to break into two factions then I am going to continue working with Gaahl.’

  “We don’t work well together at all either,” he admits of the singer, “but the result at the end turns out good. He’s not taking part in the songwriting process, he never presents anything of his ideas, he just sits in the studio for hours and hours and hours staring at the wall. Then he goes home because he did not feel inspired that day. It’s a very, very slow process to work with him [but] as long as you know the final result will be good, it’s worth it.”

  Moving quickly following the split, Gaahl and King recruited various session musicians—including ex-Cradle of Filth/Dimmu Borgir drummer Nick Barker and Enslaved guitarist Ice Dale—and began touring using the Gorgoroth name and logo, playing some rather poorly received European club shows as well as a truly first-class performance at Germany’s Wacken festival in 2008. Legally, however, there remained much debate about the status of the Gorgoroth name. Though Infernus continued to claim sole ownership, for all intents and purposes it appeared that the name was now the property of the Gaahl/King camp, not least since they had now been signed by a new label.

  For that reason it was all the more surprising when Infernus was declared, over one year later, to have won the legal battle. As it transpired, King had in fact only filed an application for the trademark prior to the split with Infernus, as opposed to having been granted it through a court victory, as was generally understood (either through misrepresentation or misinterpretation) by the press and public. In fact the sole court case would not occur until 2008, with Infernus filing a lawsuit for misuse of the Gorgoroth name, a case that ended some six months later in his favor.

  “This is just lies and misconception, being spread as part of a propaganda stunt,” Infernus explained to me for an interview for Metal Hammer. “There was only one court case. One. It is always the case in Norway that you will get a trademark registered in your name when you apply for it, whether another party disagrees or not, it’s just a formality. So they tried to present this as a court decision, which it was not. So we had to appeal the registration and, in theory, wait up to five years. As I didn’t have five years I took them to court instead and that was the only court case which was held. The court then decided that King and Gaahl’s trademark registration had to be deleted because it was invalid. They tried to register someone else’s property as their own.”

  Gorgoroth in Bergen, late 2009, after their comeback performance at Hole In The Sky festival: Pest, Infernus and Bøddel. Photo: Ester Segarra.

  More surprising than the verdict is Gaahl’s reaction to the events. Far from being aggrieved, he appeared philosophical when we discussed the situation shortly after the ruling, even making some surprising revelations when asked if he had any regrets about the dispute.

  “No I don’t,” came the quick reply. “It has gone the way I wanted it to. Well, I wanted to win the name, but I would have given it back to him. Yes, by all means, that was the plan all along. Why should I have the name? I would have given it back and I think Infernus knew this. In the trial he told me, ‘I knew that I would get the true story from you, but I didn’t expect you to speak so much for me.’

  “We could have appealed and would probably have won then,” he continued, “but it had already moved away to the extent that I wanted it to. It [the band] went in a way it shouldn’t go, so that’s why it had to be killed. It doesn’t seem very logical but I don’t necessarily work with logic. I [claimed the name] solely as an egocentric bit and even though I mean that everything is done right, Infernus needed a slap in the back of the head, and that goes for the other parties involved—one has to be harmful sometimes and it was time to burn Gorgoroth to the ground. I actually wanted to release an album in [the Gorgoroth] name—because there were only two albums under the name Gorgoroth that dealt with the topic I brought into it, and I like to work in threes—but my heart didn’t come to do so—maybe the meaning was that this wasn’t supposed to be released under this name.”

  Following the court case, Gaahl and King would adopt the name God Seed (taken from a song the two had penned on Ad Majorem), the plan being to release the material King had written for the next Gorgoroth album under this moniker. Ultimately, however, Gaahl would not record any vocals for the album and the material would be released on The Underworld Regime in 2010 under the band name Ov Hell, with a lineup consisting of Dimmu Borgir vocalist Shagrath, Frost, Ice Dale, and ex-Gorgoroth live guitarist Teloch. Gaahl, meanwhile, would take a temporary hiatus to escape the circus that had built up around him following the court case and his announcement that he was gay, a rather unique event in the black metal sphere.

  The God Seed name would resurface following this hiatus when Gaahl and King decided to collaborate once more in 2012, returning with a new lineup and a debut release—confusingly, a CD/DVD package of the 2008 “Gorgoroth” Wacken show, minus the Infernus-penned material. The band would then release an impressive album, I Begin, later the same year, featuring a new lineup that included the talented Stian “Sir” Kårstad of Trelldom and whose tracks (quite logically) alternate stylistically between King/Gaahl-era Gorgoroth and Trelldom.

  Meanwhile, attention turned back to Infernus. Just as Gaahl and King had been busy following the split, so had the band’s founder, who began working with Swedish drummer and producer Tomas Asklund, already well-known for his work in Dark Funeral and latter-day Dissection, as well as for being a committed Satanist. Together the two crafted the 2009 album Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt (which Infernus explains translates as “To Convert as Many as Possible Into Satanism”) with the aid of returning guitarist Tormentor, returning vocalist Pest—now living in Tennessee—and, curiously, Frank Watkins of renowned death metal act Obituary, also a U.S. resident.

  “There are practical problems obviously,” Infernus told me in an interview for Metal Hammer UK, “but I chose people not according to practical reasons, but by what I deemed to be necessary. Above all it’s nice to know that I have people around me which I can trust.”

  Though Pest would depart again in 2012, the album was a hard-hitting return to early Gorgoroth, combining aggressive, unfussy, and confident thrashy black metal with slower numbers that drew on the same epic melancholy and discordant territories as found on records such as Antichrist. Reviews generally proved favorable, and once again the lyrics (written by two friends of Infernus whom he describes as “not musicians, but devoted Satanists”) were withheld.

  “The one who has the sharpest ears and the dedication will be able to find their way into the material without any guiding from anyone of us,” explains Infernus with a brief smile. “As a bonus, by not releasing the lyrics we make it more difficult for cover bands in the future. We recently had one cover band, and that was enough. They even called themselves Gorgoroth, I think…”

  26

  TRELLDOM

  “Trelldom is a really strange band because not all the musicians are really into the [kind of] black metal music we did in the early nineties. Some of the guitar is really strange for that sort of music, very spacey, going places I never heard in black metal before. If you listen to the playing, es
pecially the guitar and bass, it’s not traditional black metal, but it’s kept in a black metal tradition.”

  —Eirik “Pytten” Hundvin, renowned black metal producer

  WHILE THEIR relatively high profile may be due in part to the notoriety of the group’s central protagonist, Kristian “Gaahl” Espedal, Trelldom remain one of the more impressive and artistically driven acts from Norway. Formed in 1992 and named after the Norwegian word for slavery, the band initially saw guitarist Bjørn I, later known as Tyrant, writing the majority of the music, with Gaahl providing lyrics and vocals as well as overseeing the composition process, a role he had apparently adopted even before Trelldom’s existence.

  “Before I dared to place myself before a microphone I had helped other bands,” he recalls. “There was a band called Helheim—not the same one that is in Bergen—one called Dies Irae … there were probably four bands I was helping out. I helped guide them as to what I saw was right and what I saw as wrong in their doings. I didn’t start anything myself until ’92. I met the one that later called himself Tyrant by accident and somehow we managed to work together and spoke the same language. He introduced me to some riffs, I had lyrics lying around, it was just an immediate connection. We basically formed that band having known each other for one week.”

  Trelldom would debut in 1994 with the Disappearing of the Burning Moon demo, also featuring bassist Børge “Taakeheim” Boge and drummer Rune “Goat Pervertor” Thorsnes, both also known for their work in Gorgoroth. A five-song, twenty-minute effort, the demo used rolling drums and long, relatively minimal riffs as weapons, although closing number “Til Evighet” deviated from the formula thanks to a crawling pace and bleaker vibe.

  “We had great difficulties getting people that we wanted to work with,” explains Gaahl. “Taakeheim was a friend of Tyrant who originally just played bass, but we used him as a drummer at rehearsal occasions, so we became a threesome in a way. Then I got in contact with Goat Pervertor and managed to hijack him and get him on drums and that’s when we recorded Disappearing of the Burning Moon. Of course this was the first time in a studio, and it was not a proper studio either—there was a hole in the snare drum, so the sound of it is a bit strange. I stood for eight hours singing before we recorded because the band did not know the songs without the vocals, so I was kind of tired of them when I finally recorded them. It was not the best circumstances, but I have been to worse studios later on … especially concerning Gorgoroth.”

  One-man operation? The photo for the cover of Til Evighet … sees Bjørn and Ole Nic positioned behind main man Gaahl.

  Whatever the technical hurdles, the resulting demo tape was enough to grab the attention of Slayer Magazine’s Metalion, who signed the band to his label Head Not Found and released their 1995 debut album Til Evighet … (“To Eternity …”), a nine-song effort that included rerecordings of four of the five demo songs. Though it was recorded by Eirik M. Husabø, the same producer as the demo, the opus was free from the murky sound of Burning Moon, and also lacked the deeper, growled vocals Gaahl employed during some parts of the tape. A notably crisper, icier-sounding effort overall, it also picked up the pace, and with the passionate and varied blasting of “Ole Nic” (a collaborator of Tyrant in the band Betrayer) it achieved a monochromatic take on black metal that resembled the sound of countrymen such as Gorgoroth, Burzum, and Darkthrone.

  “I knew Metalion from exchanging letters, demo tapes, and music in general,” says Gaahl of the record deal. “I didn’t want to release anything but he managed to convince me to do so. It is still just a rough tape, I still have the proper recording myself—I just gave him the loose tracks, the unmixed release. I didn’t want [the real version] to become public in a way, I wanted to keep it a bit closer. I don’t know why, it was just a decision I made … since everything was beginning to lose [the] grip of its honesty around that time. Also before I recorded I had fired all of the other members so I just got in contact with Tyrant and asked him if we should record it and keep it safe in a way. So he found a new drummer [Ole Nic] and we rehearsed it two or three times and went into the studio and recorded it. Then I finished it off without them knowing, which is [the version] I have myself. It was basically to hold the creation. I don’t know if it will be released, it probably should be, it’s way better… it deserves the light of day.”

  The album packaging certainly made clear the temporary status of the lineup, stating, “Trelldom is: Gaahl, vocals, poetry and concept,” and “This album is dedicated to Gaahl, and Gaahl only.—Await to behold the sinister words and divine poems of the philosopher Gaahl.”

  Not long after its release, however, the band did find a stable lineup, consisting of guitarist Ronny “Valgard” Stavestrand and bassist Stian “Sir Sick” Kårstad. Along with a drummer known as Mutt—who later played in two other projects with Gaahl, Gaahlskag and Sigfader—the group recorded at Grieghallen with producer Pytten in 1997 and 1998. A truly stellar effort, the resulting album Til Et Annet… (“To Another…”) expanded the band’s sound considerably, working from the same raw Norse black metal blueprint as its more generic predecessor, but adding numerous inventive songwriting touches along the way. These not only injected vital character but demonstrated a working band, despite Trelldom having earned a reputation as a solo project.

  “I don’t know how they work before they are in the studio,” explains Pytten, “but when they’re there I think they’re each able to express themselves as musicians. They work as a team, with their own abilities, though I think [Gaahl] is the one who keeps it within the black metal frame.”

  While Pytten’s able production highlighted the work of all musicians involved, the focal point for Til Et Annet … was undoubtedly Gaahl’s impressive vocal performance.

  “I’m really pleased with it,” says Gaahl, “For my own sake I think there’s too much vocals on it—now I find it a bit too extreme on the vocal part. But it’s one of my favorite albums no matter what band. But still the singer could be a bit more…” he pauses, “well, he could shut up a bit more.”

  Gaahl’s approach on the album sits in contrast to his calmer, more measured work with Gorgoroth, and at times the singer appears to push himself to his limits. “Slave Til En Kommende Natt” proves a good example of the man’s range, complementing the pronounced bass lines with a combination of gravelly rasps and a distinctive, strangely slurred singing voice that drew comparisons to Public Image Ltd’s John Lydon in its Terrorizer review. The slower title track also makes use of Gaahl’s singing voice and features two of Gaahl’s vocal lines running consecutively, a technique also used on the unforgettable final number “Sonar Dreyri,” a testing and hypnotic eleven-minute epic centered around a single two-chord guitar riff.

  “The last track … Jesus man, that’s some guitar playing,” sighs Pytten. “A once-in-a-lifetime performance. Just doing two bloody chords, but keeping it going for over ten minutes—that’s amazing. It was done in one take—I tell you one thing, it was really, really hard work doing that one take for the guitarist, but what he delivered was all he was able to and was amazing. He was very exhausted,” he laughs, “and of course he hated the two chords when he came out of the recording room!”

  Over these two chords Gaahl’s vocals become increasingly tormented, culminating in some of the most extreme vocals yet contributed by a black metal band. “I did torment the rest of the band with having to play this song over and over again,” laughs Gaahl. “I didn’t reveal how I would do the vocals, I just did it mentally until I got in the studio. Due to the lyrics, it’s a double vocal thing there, though it’s in old Norse, so it wouldn’t make sense to anyone now anyway. One of the vocal lines is the original, the other is put in later to make the conversation between the two … well, not characters, it’s a dialogue between one’s self in a way. It’s easier to see this kind of dialogue in the title track, which is the young, impatient one toward the old, patient one. That is a part of my own character, but also what I come from
prior to birth. But then we are dealing with my hidden beliefs in a way, and I can’t go into this without confusing people. I’m not a teacher in this form.”

  Lyrically speaking, the Trelldom albums—like his later work with Gorgoroth—deal primarily with Gaahl’s spiritual beliefs, which primarily concern Norse shamanism and Odinism, along with beliefs concerning blood memory and ancestral knowledge, and the traveling back and forth within lives and time.

  “I would say I am part of Odin,” Gaahl explains today. “As I always try to explain, I use the word Satanist only because the world speaks with a Christian tongue and in their words I would be a Satanist—it is the opponent. I wouldn’t say [I was] solely Odinist, [but] if I am Odin, then I am an Odinist.”

  While many black metal bands interested in the ancient Nordic religions either see Odin and the Norse gods as metaphorical archetypes, or instead real metaphysical beings, Gaahl’s outlook is somewhat more complicated. “It’s probably a bit of both in a way, it’s difficult to explain because it deals with such a large sphere, but I think both of your suggestions would be correct in a way. Even though it might seem contradictory, neither excludes the other. I always try to put out information and I kind of feel that instead of seeing what I’m putting out there, that [people] narrow it down, they seem to put everything you say into a contradictive form, while I try to make people see that things have to be contradictory in a way, to tie everything together.”