—MICHAEL MOYNIHAN
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
LORDS OF CHAOS WAS RESEARCHED AND WRITTEN IN THE YEARS 1994–97 and published in 1998. It became a subcultural sensation almost immediately. Somewhat to our surprise, it caught the interest of an astonishingly wide range of readers. The book has been hailed as a revelation by both underground fan and ivory tower academic alike. Many people who would otherwise have zero interest in a topic like Black Metal have been fascinated to gaze into this otherwise hidden underworld. Well-dressed businessmen were spotted reading it on the London Underground.
The attention did not stop there. At the American national publishing convention, it won the coveted independent press Firecracker Award for “Best Music Book” of the year. We were widely interviewed by the mainstream media both in Europe and across America, appearing in magazine articles, television documentaries, and radio programs which ran the gamut from Howard Stern to Christian talk shows. It was not long before we became de facto experts on the modern phenomenon of “unexplained youth violence.” The day of the infamous Columbine school shootings, a major radio news program had us on to provide live, real-time commentary as part of their effort to help listeners understand the real motivations behind such a seemingly senseless, brutal event.
Earlier this year, a long-awaited German edition of Lords of Chaos appeared, accompanied by a double-CD compilation of music which provided the soundtrack to the book’s contents. In a major press blitz, both releases were widely reviewed across Europe; full-page pieces on the history of Black Metal appeared in the strangest of places, from daily papers to the Financial Times, the German equivalent of the Wall Street Journal. When the anniversary of Germany’s own bloody school shooting at Erfurt came around, our comments wound up in newspaper editorials on the subject.
In essence, this is a radical book. Radical in the true sense of the word (deriving from the Latin radix, “root”), it explores the roots of the matter at hand in an unflinching fashion. It is not our job to pass judgment on our subjects; we expect the readers to have the intelligence to do that for themselves. This reluctance to overtly criticize those whom we interview and document has occasionally been a source of consternation for reviewers who harbor their own moralistic agendas, who claim that by neglecting to “properly”—read: politically correctly—interpret this material for the reader, we are allowing potentially dangerous ideas a free voice. In a sense, they may be right. Our world, increasingly homogenized and with the entire spectrum of its cultural creations adulterated for palatable mass-consumption, needs dangerous ideas more than ever. It may not need the often ill-formed and destructive ideas expressed by some of the protagonists in Lords of Chaos, but we felt all along that this is an issue for the individual reader to decide.
However, at times we simply couldn’t resist commenting on our subjects’ views. Case in point: the claim (made by Varg Vikernes and some of his fellow travelers) that Norway is run by a Jewish conspiracy. The notion of a “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”-style Jewish cabal running the world is absurd to begin with, but all the more so in a country with practically no Jewish population, and we felt the need to point this out. In many instances, the reader will also find that the outrageous points being made by one person are soon commented upon and put into a different light by other interview subjects.
We do not claim to offer any cut-and-dried rationale for why these events all happened, or continue to happen. There is no simple or single answer. While a certain amount of what is found in these pages can be ascribed to age-old impulses of teenage rebellion, undoubtedly there was and is something deeper going on, a certain energy twisting and erupting from below the ground—something from the roots.
A few critics have accused us of overemphasizing the extreme political rhetoric that marks some quarters of the Black Metal scene. The implication is that we did so for sinister reasons. An example is Hendrik Möbus of the German band Absurd (whose exploits are detailed in chapter 11). Möbus was an obvious focal point for us since, in many respects, this volume became a true crime book. But the effects of Lords of Chaos can also clearly be seen here. In the interview he granted to us for the first edition, Möbus made numerous extreme statements and the accusation was leveled at us on more than one occasion that we had unwisely given a obscure and insignificant figure a platform to express extremist political views. As things turned out, many of Möbus’s remarks were ultimately used against him as evidence during subsequent legal proceedings that resulted in an additional sentence he received for publicly deriding the victim of his crime. This was not the end of the matter. In order to avoid being sent back to prison, Möbus fled the country. He flew to the U.S., eventually finding safehousing with Dr. William Pierce, author of the notorious Turner Diaries and the director of the National Alliance, which is widely considered the most serious and “potentially dangerous” racialist organization in the country. It was not long before Möbus was apprehended by U.S. authorities and ultimately extradited to Germany. The obscure, insignificant figure had now reached the status of a notorious international fugitive, commanding headlines in major papers. These events demonstrate that our attention was warranted.
GERMAN HEADLINE AFTER MÖBUS VIOLATES PAROLE, PRIOR TO BECOMING AN INTERNATIONAL FUGITIVE: “SATAN MURDERER TO GET THREE YEARS BEHIND BARS”
NORWEGIAN HEADLINE: “IT’S THE ULTIMATE ACT, BECAUSE IT CAN’T GET MUCH WORSE”
There is no question that things have quieted down a bit in the Black Metal scene—at least insofar as its extra-musical activities go. The popularity of the music seems undiminished; indeed it has become a serious cash cow for the Norwegian music industry, and underground music in general. The major groups sell impressive quantities of records and draw multitudes of fans on their extensive worldwide tours. The Satyricon single “Fuel for Hatred” received heavy air-play on one of Norway’s three biggest radio stations, and just before this revised edition went to press we heard that Dimmu Borgir’s new album will be hawked to the public through TV advertising spots. Today most of the genre’s protagonists hold no interest in committing crimes. Fully aware they have a viable commercial and artistic product to sell, they take their musical careers seriously. For all the morbid cachet it might provide one’s reputation among the demi-monde, being locked up in a jail cell does not facilitate recording and playing music—in other words, making a living.
Nevertheless, recent events in Finland and Norway bear witness to the fact that Black Metal can still inspire fear and apprehension. Among the new sections in this revised edition is a chronicle of the particularly lurid crimes committed near Helsinki by Black Metal youths, news of which was heavily suppressed by the authorities for fear of copycat incidents.
And more recently in June 2003, Black Metal was back on the front pages in Norway. A 26-year-old man with a past as a member of a relatively unknown Black Metal band had been arrested in a case that was guaranteed to capture the nation’s imagination. Along with some younger compatriots, the former bass player had broken into a chapel where bodies were awaiting cremation. The group opened coffins and abused the deceased by cutting, beating, and stomping on the bodies; this was supplemented with a thorough vandalism of the chapel itself. The corpse of an older man was decapitated, and the severed head brought to a party for show-and-tell. The grotesque conversation piece was later retrieved from the basement of a young man who was totally unaware it had been deposited there.
The results were predictable: the case dominated the media for days, and even seemed to overshadow murders of living people and important world events. In a fit of hysteria the tabloids went into full gear, speculating upon whether the desecrations were part of Satanic rituals. Some urged that Black Metal music should be outlawed.
As might be expected, several key points were overlooked in the coverage of the case. In fact, the culprit wasn’t even really part of the Black Metal scene. He had long since been fired from his band for musical reasons, and was furthe
rmore such a misfit that he had been more or less ostracized from the scene in general. His extensive abuse of drugs like ecstasy and GHB probably hadn’t helped his sorry situation. It is more likely that the prime contributing factors behind his extreme behavior were psychological and pharmacological rather than anything to do with music or Satanism.
But one thing had changed in the decade since Black Metal first shocked Norway. Since those early outrages it has become a both critically acclaimed and commercially appealing genre of music—the upshot of this being that the subculture now has mainstream media people ready to defend it. “Nobody in this scene would gain in status from chopping the head off a corpse,” claimed a prominent radio DJ who plays a lot of Black Metal. While this might make a good interview soundbite, it is no more true than tabloid rantings that paint all metal fans as potential corpse violators.
A significant degree of Black Metal’s allure and stature does not derive from the accomplished musical achievements and originality of the artists playing the music. The grisly crimes have contributed as much, and maybe even more, to its appeal. And while most Black Metal people are law-abiding citizens, they can hardly claim that the criminal element merely represents a clique of confused hangers-on. Those responsible for the murders, church burnings, and so forth have often been the prime movers and shakers of the scene. Underscoring this is the fact that key Black Metal magazines publish articles that treat real killers as cozy celebrities, or proclaim them to be outright heroes.
This new edition of Lords of Chaos has been revised in various places throughout, with corrections made, sections updated, and new material, interviews, and illustrations added. The format and the majority of the text from the original edition have been retained, for we feel they capture well the wild world of Black Metal—not to mention what is undoubtedly the strangest saga ever told in the history of popular music. Here blood, fire, and music were the volatile ingredients that fueled an alchemical explosion which still continues to loudly reverberate through the apocalypse culture of the modern world.
—MICHAEL MOYNIHAN AND DIDRIK SØDERLIND
LOS ANGELES AND OSLO, JULY 2003
FROM DEVASTATED EARTH
NEW FORMS WILL RISE
BUT WHAT AT FIRST OFFENDS OUR EYES
WILL AT LAST BE SEEN AS WELCOME BIRTH
HOW LONG DID WE CRY VAINLY
IN THE LONG AND ENDLESS NIGHTS?
NOT EVEN SECONDS.
IN THE DARK, NO ONE CRIES IN VAIN—
WE ONLY FAIL TO SEE.
WE BEWAIL THE RUINS IN OUR VIEW
AND STREW OURSELVES WITH ASHES
AND DO NOT SEE THE PHOENIX
IN THE FLAMES.
DO YOU STILL CRY?
DO YOU STILL CRY OUT?
—TARJEI VESAAS, “THE BIRD IN THE FLAME,” LAND OF HIDDEN FIRES1
PREAMBLE: INTO THAT DARKNESS
APRIL, 1997 (OSLO)—THE HEADLINES OF THE NATION’S NEWSPAPERS SCREAM with the revelation of a sinister plot to slaughter progressive politicians and religious leaders in Norway. The perpetrators, possessed of not only weapons but significant sums of money, allegedly planned further actions beyond the list of assassinations. On their agenda is the liberation of an imprisoned comrade, whom they hope to safely smuggle out of the country. Is this prisoner-of-war another extreme nationalist with a long history of underground political activism like themselves? No. He is 24-year-old Varg Vikernes, the most infamous Black Metal musician in the world.
It is a winding path which leads from the world of Pop music to political terrorism. This is not the first time Rock and Roll has assumed a revolutionary mode, but it is the most fanatical and uncompromising such outbreak yet. It is also just the tip of the iceberg. Upon closer scrutiny, the plot to free Varg Vikernes becomes only the latest development in one of the most bizarre and outrageous sagas in musical history. Until now, it has remained largely unwritten.
The annals of Black Metal are fraught with violence—exploding in both self-administered suicidal shotgun blasts and cold-blooded, knife-blade murders. The number of deaths incurred worldwide is hard to calculate, but the frenzied nature of the killings bestows them with an unmistakable essence. As merciless as the murders have been, the ongoing campaign of church arsons adds psychological terror and religious intimidation to the list of Black Metal’s arsenal. It is a legacy comprised of innumerable strands of virulent rhetoric, from Satanism to fascism—some of it mere pomp, some stated in deadly earnest. Pulling back the genre’s dark veil reveals a few certifiable loose cannons amidst numerous poseurs; the share of cartoon characters is counterbalanced by some genuine “demons” in human form. They all share a common desire to boldly step beyond the perimeters of acceptable society, be it in image or in deed, and plant their flags of defiance. All this is accomplished to the militant sound of Black Metal itself—a roaring cacophony of mind-bending dimensions. Black Metal adopts the basic framework of the hardest strain of Heavy Metal, ripping it down to a poisoned, jagged splinter of aural hate. As if to add further confusion for an unwary listener, some Black Metal bands have also taken to recording sounds which could rightly be described as “beautiful,” and have branched into the territories of Ambient Electronic, Traditional Folk, and even neo-Classical music.
Rock music has always held seeds of the forbidden. As decades passed and the business swelled, the multinational corporations who came to control it could not allow such seeds to develop into uncontrollable stalks and vines. Simultaneous with Rock’s descent into a commodity, sold through endless magazine advertisements and glitzy videos, a façade of pseudo-rebellion has been carefully cultivated, but Rock’s “garden of earthly delights” is very well manicured indeed. Yet there are those who attempt to kick down the boundaries and allow it to rejuvenate its limbs in the fertile, blood-soaked fields of real danger.
Heavy Metal exists on the periphery of Pop music, isolated in its exaggerated imagery and venting of masculine lusts. Often ignored, scorned, or castigated by critics and parents, Heavy Metal has been forced to create its own underworld. It plays by its own rules, follows its own aesthetic prerogatives. Born from the nihilism of the 1970s, the music has followed a singular course. Now in the latter half of the 1990s it is often considered passé and irrelevant, a costume parade of the worst traits in Rock. Metal is no longer a staple of FM radio, nor are record labels pushing it like they used to. Watching MTV and reading popular music magazines, one might not even realize Heavy Metal still existed at all.
Rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated, however, as the Metal underground boils and seethes worldwide. Essentially left to its own devices and relegated to independent labels run by the hardcore fans themselves, this has allowed Metal’s most antisocial and aggressive tendencies to develop unburdened by any system of moral checks and balances, which society provides—at least tenuously—for other significant forms of music.
In Europe, Heavy Metal has always kept up a certain level of popularity, despite its pariah-like status in the eyes of the public. In the Far North of that continent, the molten nature of extreme Metal met with the icy climes of Norway and Sweden, and the result was a creation of explosively volatile proportions: Black Metal. The North, rigidly controlled by the natural elements, its seasons dominated by darkness and cold, ironically provided the desolate environment which would spark Black Metal to marshal its forces and gather up weapons in a coming unholy war.
Rock and Roll has long been an adversary to many of the basic tenets of Christianity, but underground Heavy Metal took this to the ultimate extreme. Christianity was not to be slowly eroded through steady incursions of increasing immorality, rather it should be abruptly uprooted and incinerated to its very last breath. Black Metal would provide foot soldiers ready to plunge headlong into battle, firebrands in hand, to brazenly set alight the cathedrals and churches of Europe.
The justifications for this onslaught are many. Some declare allegiance to Satan, that ancient enemy of Christ, and honor his name in son
g and deed. Others draw fortitude from the pagan ways of old and claim to continue a battle left unfinished 1,000 years ago when Christianity invaded Europe. “A furore normannorum, libera nos, domine. ‘From the fury of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us’ was a litany without need of vellum. It was graven on the hearts of men wherever and for as long as that fury fell,” wrote Gwyn Jones in his A History of the Vikings.2 Such sentiments on the lips of the early church fathers are just as relevant now as then.
Saint Columcille, the founder of the Iona monastery in the British Isles in 563, foretold a dire prophecy concerning the establishment of the new religion of peace. According to Manus O’Donnell’s hagiography, certain morbid images had entered the Saint’s consciousness. “‘My mind and heart have been sore troubled’ saith Columcille, ‘by a vision that hath been given me... for at the end of time men will besiege my churches, and they will kill my monks and violate my sanctuary, and ravage and desecrate my burial grounds.’”3
His words would be fulfilled only a few centuries later, when Viking raiders from the Norwegian coasts descended upon the monasteries of Britain, “like stinging hornets, and overran the country in all directions, like fierce wolves, plundering, tearing, and killing not only sheep and oxen, but priests and Levits, and choirs of monks and nuns...”4 In the end, the newly established forces of God and Christ quelled and subdued their heathen resisters. Europe became a Christian continent to its furthest borders. But the wolves and hornets were only sleeping in their caves and nests, and they would be inflamed again.
Slightly over a millennium later, Columcille’s prophecy was due for a second coming, this time on a worldwide scale. The antagonists were no longer the warrior class of an untamed heathen society, but rather the well-bred youth of the most civilized Christian nations on earth.
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