Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult

by Dayal Patterson

  Dread of evil: Prime Evil of Mysticum live in London, 1996. Photo: Nihil Archives.

  UK post-black metal outfit Fen in late 2012: Derwydd, Grungyn and The Watcher. Photo: Tom Huskinson.

  Jonas “B” Bergqvist of Lifelover, who unfortunately passed away during the making of this book. Photo courtesy of Prophe cy Productions.

  Fàbban of Aborym at the Slimelight club, London, following the band’s show at the same venue.

  Photo: Dayal Patterson.

  Unused photo of AcidJess of Blacklodge in 2003 from the Login: Satan sessions. Photo: Matthieu Canaguier.

  Underground black metal indeed: Saint Vincent of Blacklodge in an unused photo from 1999.

  Photo courtesy of Saint Vincent.

  Bloodied but unbowed: Kim “( )” Carlsson of Lifelover. Photo courtesy of Prophecy Productions.

  “The underground will remain as long as there are individuals sharing common views, spreading music without making it a commercial widespread cancer, cultivating the art of death in the shadows of this genre.” —Shatraug of Finland’s Behexen.

  Wolves In The Throne Room in Highgate Wood, London 2009: Will Lindsay, Nathan Weaver, Aaron Weaver. Photo: Dayal Patterson.

  23

  EMPEROR

  “I remember being totally blown away by In the Nightside Eclipse, which is still my favorite black metal album of all time. It was like the gates of hell opening.”

  —Dani (Cradle of Filth)

  IF BLACK METAL should ever get a hall of fame, there’s a pretty good chance Emperor will be the first inducted. In their early days they carved a name for themselves as an act surrounded by an aura of danger, one that occasionally threatened to overshadow their musical achievements. Yet at the same time they were always an undeniable creative force, and quickly earned a place as one of the genre’s early success stories. Indeed, they were one of the first Norwegian black metal bands to be signed by a foreign label, achieve significant album sales, and tour abroad. They also managed to survive as a band when three of their members were in jail. Most impressively, they managed the near-impossible feat of becoming one of the biggest bands in the genre while also being one of the most respected, ultimately winning over much of the metal mainstream as well as the black metal underground.

  While the group’s sound and lineup shifted continuously, it would always revolve around two key personalities, Samoth (Tomas Thormodsæter Haugen) and Ihsahn (Vegard Sverre Tveitan). Although both would be involved in numerous other projects over the years, it was Samoth who initially had the most band experience, and it was his invitation to Ihsahn to join an earlier group that ultimately led to the formation of Emperor. Like the majority of Norwegian black metallers, Samoth had entered the world of heavy metal through a childhood fascination with Kiss and then WASP, later developing a more serious interest in the thrash and death metal movements of the eighties.

  “I was really into Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, Testament, SOD, and Megadeth,” he explains of his school days. “In ninth grade I had a practical placement once a week at a record store in the nearest town, Notodden [in the county of Telemark]. There was a metal guy working there and he lent me stuff like Sacrifice, Deathrow, Slaughter, Kreator, Possessed, DRI, Bathory, Cryptic Slaughter, etc., lots of really obscure stuff he had ordered by mail order from outside Norway. I became more hooked on extreme metal and started buying underground demos and fanzines, and writing to pen pals. I was really networking a lot and very active in the underground scene. I got in contact with Euronymous from Mayhem and that whole dark and extreme black metal feel attracted me.”

  Following in his family’s bass-playing footsteps (his father, Jens Haugen, plays in respected blues act Spoonful of Blues), Samoth initially joined a local band playing covers of AC/DC, ZZ Top, Deep Purple, and Metallica alongside original songs, before forming a thrash side project called Conspiracy with some of the group’s members. By this point he was exploring more extreme listening, and soon left both groups to form his own death metal band, initially called Dark Device, and then Xerasia. Working alongside two friends (Finn Arne Nielsen on vocals and bass and Ronny Johnsen on drums), Samoth moved from bass to guitar and set about writing original material, primarily inspired, he explains, by Brazilian thrash/death metal legends Sepultura.

  A rare flyer for Zyltelab, a band featuring Samoth and Ildjarn of Thou Shalt Suffer (top row), and Thorbjørn Akkerhaugen, who would play a part in the history of both Thou Shalt Suffer and Emperor.

  1990 would witness both the band’s first performance (at a “championship of rock” event) and a three-song rehearsal tape, but it was becoming clear that not only did the band’s death metal sound require a second guitarist, but with Finn fast becoming bored, Samoth and Ronny would also need to find a new vocalist. Samoth had met Ihsahn the previous year at a blues/rock seminar (the two bonded immediately thanks to Ihsahn’s Iron Maiden patch-covered jacket), and a short-lived metal project featuring the two had proved them musically compatible. Sensing a kindred spirit, Samoth invited him to join Xerasia, which promptly changed its name to Embryonic and soon released a twenty-minute demo entitled The Land of the Lost Souls.

  Though Samoth was heavily enamored with death metal, he kept his options open and remained busy during this period, playing in a hardcore/grindcore band called Zyltelab (a play on the Norwegian word “syltelabb,” meaning “pig’s knuckle”) and a drum machine-driven project called Spina Bifida, inspired by industrial bands such as Pitchshifter and Godflesh. Despite some live appearances in these groups, Embryonic was quickly becoming his focal point, and the group continued to evolve, changing their name to Thou Shalt Suffer in 1991 and moving into ever darker territories, adding eerie keyboards to the traditional death metal template.

  If ever a promo photo captured a band headed in different directions… Thou Shalt Suffer—guess which two members would go on to form Emperor?

  An EP (Open the Mysteries of Your Creation) and two demos (the four-track Rehearsal and Into the Woods of Belial) were issued that year, the trio assisted at various points by Thorbjørn Akkerhaugen (who would later record numerous black metal bands, including Emperor, at his studio Akkerhaugen Lydstudio) and Ildjarn (real name Vidar Våer). The latter was a musician Samoth had grown up with, and who had also played in Spina Bifida and Zyltelab. He would later become known for the unrivaled barbarism of his eponymous black metal project, which Samoth also briefly contributed vocals to.

  By now Samoth (or Samot as he initially became, his pseudonym simply a reversal of his birth name Tomas) was engrossed in the black metal explosion consuming his country, and resolved to form a black metal band himself, a venture that Vegard (soon to be Ihsahn, but now going under the name of Ygg) was more than happy to be a part of. Ronny was less keen, however, and unable to find any other interested drummers, Samoth was forced to get behind the kit himself. Initially Thou Shalt Suffer remained the duo’s main focus, but soon their energies were channeled exclusively into the new group Emperor and their former outfit was shelved, despite a rough recording of a half-hour-long track intended for the debut album.

  Now in need of a bassist, the duo enlisted a local musician named Håvard “Mortiis” Ellefsen, who—like Samoth and so many of his countrymen—had initially discovered heavy metal as a child thanks to Kiss and their popular series of trading cards. Exploring thrash and first-generation black metal bands such as Sodom, Celtic Frost, and Bathory, Mortiis had made contact with Norwegian bands such as Amputation, Darkthrone, Old Funeral, and, of course, Mayhem. He also soon created his own publication, sensitively titled Zombie Anal Sex Terror, featuring international bands such as Bolt Thrower and Beherit. He and Ihsahn would first cross paths at school in 1988 when both boys were thirteen, Ihsahn quickly introducing him to Samoth and another metal-loving friend called Steinar Wahl, with whom Mortiis made his musical debut.

  “Me and Steinar started our own death metal band in 1990 called Rupturence, that’s where it started,” explains Mortiis. “We w
ere heavily into the early death metal/grindcore scene so we were into ripping off bands like Carcass, Xysma, and Funebre. I was singing and was total shit at it. We did a few rehearsal tapes, but I don’t have copies and I lost contact with Steinar years ago. I know there’s even video footage of a ‘rock contest’ we did—it was absolutely horrendous though, so nobody missed out!”

  He laughs before continuing the story: “We did form another band right after, called Wilt of Belial, which was a bit more in the doom metal direction—we shared the drummer, Ronny Johnsen, with Embryonic—but we only lasted two months or so. I suggested we name the band Thou Shalt Suffer but that was rejected and Ihsahn later asked me if he could take it. After that I pretty much gave up music—I just wanted to keep doing my fanzine—but Ihsahn and Samoth asked me to join their new side project. At first I didn’t want to, because I was sick of being in bands that would just split up [but] I did join after hearing two instrumental songs they’d put together. I brought some lyrics in and those songs became ‘Moon over Kara-Shehr’ and ‘Forgotten Centuries’ if I’m not mistaken, that was summer or fall of ’91.”

  Indeed, Mortiis would end up penning the lyrics for all the band’s early compositions, with Samoth and Ihsahn taking care of the songwriting. Together the trio would practice in the basement of a youth club in Akkerhaugen, the village where Samoth lived, rehearsing material and recording one-off rehearsal tapes unique to each fanzine/magazine lucky enough to be sent a copy.

  “I remember we’d totally hate the kids on the top floor fucking dancing to Snap or Technotronix or whatever, and we’d be blasting through our songs in the cellar,” recalls Mortiis of the rehearsals. “It was a culture shock for sure. The lyrics would deal with fairly dark and morbid issues… our interests were usually revolving around dark and occult themes [and] historic matters such as Elizabeth Báthory and Gilles de Rais. I remember I distinctly stayed away from Satanic themes because I found them redundant and I didn’t consider myself a Satanist anyway. In terms of inverted crosses, 666, pentagrams… while I was in the band that stuff wasn’t used, but I know pentagrams were used after I left.”

  In 1992 the band set about recording one of the most iconic demos of the era, a thirty-two-minute masterpiece of primal and malevolent-sounding noise entitled Wrath of the Tyrant. Unlike Thou Shalt Suffer—and partly due to the limitations of recording on a four-track recorder—the only appearance of keyboards was on the tape’s introduction track, and the eight tracks of raw and barbaric black metal instead focused on hateful yet catchy guitars and an aggressive battery, topped with a combination of piercing screams, growls, and disturbing chants. Cliché though it might be to label this ridiculously raw sound “evil,” it’s nonetheless an apt description; the recording sounds more like evidence of a case of demonic possession than a group of young musicians kicking out the jams.

  The inlay for the original sleeve of the Wrath of the Tyrant demo, 1992. Note the pentagrams and inverted crosses that Mortiis states were not used during his time in the band! Image courtesy of Samoth.

  “We were all listening to stuff like Venom, Bathory, Celtic Frost, and Sodom at the time—the darkest metal we could find,” recalls Mortiis. “Tormentor, Master’s Hammer, Immortal, Necrophagia… a lot of old-school stuff. And of course we were into Burzum, Mayhem, and Darkthrone, who were all coming out with music at the time too. I’d say that Burzum, Mayhem, and Darkthrone definitely inspired us in certain ways, I can’t put my finger on it, but I suspect certain very distinct Mayhem riffs inspired the guitar work of Ihsahn and Samoth somewhat.”

  “We were very inspired by Bathory, Celtic Frost, Mayhem, Darkthrone, Tormentor, etc.,” confirms Samoth. “At that time we weren’t looking to do something original, but to capture that black metal feel that we had felt through some of these bands. We recorded it in our rehearsal room on a four-tracker, which didn’t leave much room for editing and re-takes. It captured a very raw and primal attitude I think. There’s a lot of feeling and youthful energy in that recording.”

  “The demo was very well-received,” he adds, “and along with Enslaved’s Yggdrasil demo, which came out about the same time, it became a demo bestseller at Euronymous’ Helvete shop. We shipped tons of tapes out in the international underground network and later we also did a couple of official licenses of the demo, to Wild Rags in the U.S. and a Polish company.” [The Wild Rags edition of Wrath is probably the best known, although it boasts a different introduction instrumental and, curiously, a cover featuring future bassist Tchort, who does not appear on the recording.]

  To say that the demo impressed listeners in the underground would be an understatement. Having earned the respect of their peers, the band soon began to integrate more significantly into the Norwegian black metal scene, the members traveling about a hundred kilometers (sixty-two miles) from Notodden, Telemark, to spend time with Euronymous and the Oslo scene at Helvete, where Samoth even lived for a short time. It was around this period that another resident of the shop, Bård G. Eithun—or “Faust,” a pseudonym he took from the German legend of a man who sells his soul to the devil—entered the Emperor fold. Bård was already a relatively established drummer who had played in the thrash act Decomposed Cunt and the influential Stigma Diabolicum/Thorns. Indeed, he had moved to Oslo to concentrate on that very group, but by now the outfit had all but ground to a halt. His entrance into Emperor—alongside Mortiis, his longtime pen pal—allowed Samoth to return to his instrument of choice and thus set up the dual guitars that would characterize Emperor from that point forward.

  “I think the first time I actually met [Euronymous] was at a Darkthrone and Cadaver gig in Oslo,” recalls Samoth. “I also met Dead at that show, and actually this was also the first time I met Bård Faust. Later I met Euronymous through the Helvete shop where we went to look for records or to hang around. I was never a close friend of his, but he was very supportive of Emperor and wanted us to sign with his label Deathlike Silence. Bård Faust was more close to him as a friend. Bård joined Emperor in the fall of ’92. He took over on the drums, and I went back to playing guitar, which made a lot more sense now that Emperor had started to become a priority for us.”

  In December 1992 Emperor made their first professional recording, heading to a cheap community studio outside of Oslo called Studio S, where the group recorded four old songs and two new numbers, “I Am the Black Wizards” and “Cosmic Keys to My Creations and Times.” As epic as their titles suggest, both lyrically and musically the two songs marked the introduction of a more sophisticated and ambitious approach. This progression was echoed in the updated versions of the demo tracks: though still fiercely aggressive, mid-paced sections now featured among the up-tempo blasting, and keyboards underpinned much of the music, a combination of haunting strings and catchy organ work contrasting with the buzz saw guitars and Ihsahn’s possessed screams.

  Though relatively simple in execution, the presence of synths on these recordings added a new dimension of majesty and awe to the Norwegian black metal template, recalling the debut of Czech legends Master’s Hammer and preceding the work of similarly minded outfits such as Gehenna and Dimmu Borgir by a good year or so.

  “The writing process was quite quick, as the only new tracks for that session were ‘I Am the Black Wizards’ and ‘Cosmic Keys,’” explains Samoth. “We had a really good flow and energy in the rehearsal room with Bård Faust on drums. We ended up recording at Studio S as it was affordable and Mortem and Arcturus had recorded there before with okay results. We had already used synth in a more obscure way in Thou Shalt Suffer, so it wasn’t such a big step for us really; it added a lot of atmosphere, and we felt it suited our sound, especially the two new tracks. We also became more of a real band by this time, with some real possibilities in sight, so we got more focused on adding a bit more personality to our sound.”

  There’s no doubt that the band succeeded in that aim, and four of the seven tracks (namely the two new numbers plus “Wrath of the Tyrant” an
d “Night of the Graveless Souls”) found a home on the band’s self-titled EP, the remainder later appearing on the As the Shadows Rise EP, released on Samoth’s Nocturnal Art Productions. Appearing in mid-’93, the Emperor EP was initially released as a limited vinyl, then as a CD split with Enslaved, both released via Candlelight Records, a UK label founded by Lee Barrett, an employee of Plastic Head Distribution. It was the start of a working relationship that would last the band’s entire career and one that owed much to Euronymous, who had initially intended to sign the band to his own label.

  “Euronymous got contacted by Lee Barrett and he was curious about Norwegian black metal bands,” Samoth recalls. “Euronymous suggested Emperor and Enslaved, and soon the offer came to do a split CD. We thought it was a cool idea, as we were good friends with Enslaved and they were also supposed to do a full-length with Deathlike Silence. It worked out very well for us and we considered staying with Candlelight after that. We never actually signed any contract with Deathlike Silence, and then Euronymous got killed, so then that was no longer an option anyway. Luckily we hadn’t already signed, as then we would have been stuck with Voices of Wonder, who had Deathlike Silence as a sort of imprint label at that point.”

  “Raw black metal with the majestic keyboards in the background—I felt it was a really nice touch,” recalls Lee, who later sold Candlelight but continued to work for the company. “It reminded me of some of my favorite black metal albums, like Under The Sign of the Black Mark or Blood Fire Death by Bathory. A few bands had flirted with [keyboards], like Nocturnus, but I liked the way it was used tastefully and it gave it a bit of an otherworldly feel that set it apart.