2007’s V - Halmstad, which takes its name from the band’s home city.
While the 2012 covers EP Lots of Girls Gonna Get Hurt saw the band at their most commercial-sounding yet, with Niklas doing his best pop singer impression over the course of the four songs, Shining still maintain numerous black metal sections in their own songs, despite an apparent wish to leave the genre behind to an extent. Perhaps more of a barrier to any commercial success, however, is the explicitly negative direction of the band. While Niklas has steered away from his Satanic beliefs with Shining, instead painting from more earthly and often biographical truths regarding depression, hatred, relationships, and self-destruction, the explicitly pro-suicide message of the band seems something of a barrier to commercial audiences.
“That has been what is dazzling my mind the whole time,” Niklas admits, “but whatever I do I can’t change my opinion or my goal. But I can tone it down, and when it comes to normal media I will try and tone down the whole propaganda bit. But it is by far the most important thing in the band. It’s really hard to explain why, but I am a misanthrope. I don’t oppose god for example, god is not my enemy, but I oppose life, everything that lives and breathes. For me it’s a personal pleasure to see people suffer. It gives me more than coming out of the studio knowing I have made an excellent album, if I find out, yeah this guy he killed himself and he had this big Shining altar at home, that really motivates me… so Shining is an anti-humanitarian band or has anti-humanitarian motives. The other guys in the band except for the guitarist, they don’t support these kind of things, they are quite normal people and it would be horrible [for them] if something like that happened … but I feel that our music has the capacity to manipulate, if you will, the youth.”
Despite the overwhelmingly malevolent motive apparently at work, Niklas is far from a one-dimensional character, and seems to have a capacity not only for extreme hostility, but also huge hospitality and affection. It is these wildly differing impulses that seem to leave him torn much of the time. “It’s been really, really hard the last years to try to cope with this and get it to work with this life,” he says. “Now I have a fiancée, we have a cat, and it’s changed my perspective on how I experience love for example. At the same time I wouldn’t hesitate one second to end their lives if that was the need, so to say, if that was my agenda. You need a positive thing in your life. It makes me wonder you know, it shows me I would have had the possibility to create something much better than what I have now. It shows me what I lost over the years, and that hurts a lot I can tell you. It gives me some hope that maybe I can still do this and lead a life where I can see a positivity, a life that could be considered as ‘normal’ or whatever. I battle with the question everyday because I know I can never lead a completely normal life because of the life I chose some years ago. So there’s a duality. I’m fully aware of that.”
VII: Född förlorare, 2011, which is—as you might have guessed—the band’s seventh album.
Indeed, Niklas appears to view Shining as something of a curse in his life, a creative impulse that he must follow to its (and possibly his own) end. While some artists create during extreme highs or lows, he explains that he only writes during the times in his life and mental rollercoaster when he is completely emotionally numb. Thus, it seems that while being a reflection of his depression, Shining is also born out of a need to feel something, perhaps explaining the often painfully raw feelings of lament, sadness, and hate within the songs.
“Here we have another cliché—all great art is built upon suffering—but I think that’s true,” he concludes. “If the question is whether I would have chosen to live a normal life or suffered to create, I think I would have chosen a normal life actually. If I didn’t know the pleasures of darkness and wasn’t initiated in this as much as I am then, yeah, definitely I would rather have my eyes closed. It’s the same with my mental condition, now that I’m aware I can’t get well in my head I instead understand that I have to cope with it and that’s the same with Shining. I understand I have to do it even if I don’t want to, and believe me I really don’t want to do it ninety-nine percent of the time.”
36
POLITICS, POLAND, AND THE RISE OF NSBM
DESPITE ITS largely apolitical status during the eighties—and the fact that seminal acts such as Brazil’s Mystifier and Canada’s Blasphemy had featured non-Caucasian members—since the early nineties black metal has often been associated with racism, nationalism, and right-wing extremism. Such connotations undoubtedly stem from the genre’s re-emergence via the early Norwegian scene and, perhaps more specifically, Jason Arnopp’s 1993 Kerrang! cover feature, which explicitly described the protagonists as “Neo-Fascist Devil Worshippers.”
Though somewhat misleading, the headline was not completely out of context—it was informed by quotes from both Varg Vikernes and Darkthrone, whom the article explained “describe themselves as fascist in outlook.” In the years since, many acts have attempted to distance themselves from such associations, while on the other side of the coin, many acts have arisen who are explicitly neo-fascist and have pushed such an ideology into the music itself. With so many conflicting attitudes, it’s little surprise that there’s frequent discussion over the role of far-right politics in the black metal scene.
While it was no more mandatory to be a neo-fascist within the early Norwegian scene than it was to be a devil worshipper, it’s true that the extremism that defined Norway’s underground scene at the time frequently crossed into explicitly political ground. While Euronymous was a highly vocal supporter of communism, his peers were generally heading toward the opposite end of the political spectrum. On reflection, this isn’t entirely surprising. Immigration within Norway and Scandinavia has traditionally been a fairly touchy subject; add to this the growing sense of Nordic/Viking pride that was being explored by bands at the time, along with the fact that the elitist concepts within Satanism can easily be interpreted/misinterpreted within a racist context, and it’s little surprise that a scene actively exploring misanthropy latched onto more specific forms of intolerance. Today Burzum remains the most influential act in this sense, since its mainman Varg Vikernes has always been happy to give race-related quotes in interviews, whether to sympathetic parties or mainstream magazines. Yet while Varg’s openly racist statements famously caused distribution problems for the entire Misanthropy Records label, and Darkthrone’s “Norwegian Aryan Black Metal” episode was undoubtedly the most spectacularly public fallout of the era, these were certainly not isolated incidents.
Indeed, a general flirtation with the extreme right was evident throughout the scene in the early to mid-nineties. Both Euronymous and Ihsahn were quoted questioning the value of the lives of starving African children, Hellhammer famously asserted that “black metal was for white people,” and artists from such high-profile acts as Mayhem, Trelldom, and Dimmu Borgir utilized swastikas and/or racist language in interviews and correspondence. Elsewhere, the potent but short-lived project Zyklon B (featuring members of Emperor, Satyricon, and Dødheimsgard) raised eyebrows due both to its name—taken from the chemical used in the gas chambers in Nazi Germany—and the overtones of social Darwinism within the music itself.
In neighboring Sweden, many bands offered similarly controversial political positions, notably Marduk, who found themselves boycotted in magazines Rock Hard and Metal Hammer after an interview in which founder Morgan stated a wish to prevent immigration into Sweden and pride in the fact that his grandfather was an officer in World War II, a situation he didn’t exactly ease when he told Norway’s Nordic Vision zine that same year: “The main city is mainly occupied by immigrants—who poison our environment. Sometimes you wonder if you are in Sweden or in Somalia!” Even the usually introspective Katatonia were found giving some choice remarks on the subject of immigrants in the third issue of the Petrified zine.
To what extent all this reflected heartfelt political conviction as opposed to attempts at provocation is stil
l a matter of debate. It’s worth bearing in mind, after all, that in their early interviews many bands were advocating acts that were about as extreme as one could imagine (“Of course I’d enjoy to torture some fuckin’ innocent children,” explained the usually thoughtful Vorph, for example, in issue nine of Slayer Magazine), so whether one should read such provocative racist language literally is perhaps another matter for debate.
“It was part and parcel of the whole attitude,” explains ex-Emperor frontman Mortiis, who used swastikas and racist language in his early days. “We were searching for the most extreme attitudes and ideologies we could find, and needless to say, once you get onto that path, right-wing ideas aren’t that far away. To be honest I was part of that whole attitude at the beginning, we all felt pretty distrusting and non-caring toward normal society, always looking for the next extreme idea, record, piece of art, or whatever. I wasn’t a politically aware person although I made statements, but they were rash, illogical, and nowhere near researched. I certainly did [use this imagery] myself for some of the original art for the [Mortiis] demo. Naturally I don’t think any of us are very proud of those mementos today. But hey, if the New York Dolls can do it, why not a few silly teens from Norway?”
Two issues of the Filosofem journal. Featuring Varg Vikernes and named after the fourth Burzum album, it focused largely on racial and political subject matter.
While acts such as Mayhem would continue to provoke with right-wing imagery, pretty much without exception Scandinavian black metal bands began to drop their political preoccupations as the nineties progressed. Two factors are likely to have played a role: firstly the increase in the average age of the protagonists, but also the fact that black metal records were now selling in far more substantial amounts, meaning bands had more to lose by offending outsiders and the press.
Thus, while the activities of Scandinavian bands were undoubtedly a major catalyst, they were not, on their own, enough to give the genre a significantly political direction. But just as bands with a more hard-line Satanic agenda would appear in the years that followed—initially inspired by the fragmented exploration of Satanism taking part in early-nineties Norway—so too would Norway’s flirtations with the extreme right be taken in a more organized direction over time by other individuals, this time within Eastern Europe, and primarily Poland, which took its leads straight from the Scandinavian pioneers.
“The Norwegian scene had a huge impact on the metal scene in Poland,” recalls Graveland’s Rob “Darken” Fudali, a key player in the Eastern European scene and perhaps the most outspoken black metal musician regarding race and politics after Vikernes. “Watching their actions and statements, we felt free to talk and act. But I think we owe it more to Euronymous than to Varg; Euronymous talked about politics and Varg learnt from him. At that time Euronymous was like a father to the whole black metal generation, he created the Black Circle and released wolves… for me Euronymous was an authority, the most important person in the black metal underground. I did not mind his left-wing convictions. [My bandmates] Karcharoth and Capricornus were fascinated by Burzum. We read interviews with people connected with the Black Circle and we took it very seriously. Burning churches made a huge impression on us. We hated Christianity and such a sign of resistance against it was a revelation for us. We were as happy as kids, and we supported not only [the] Norwegian scene, but also the true Swedish black metal scene with bands such as Azahub Hani, The Black, and Pagan Rites.”
Founded on the Scandinavian black metal scene’s Satanic and anti-Christian building blocks, and bearing a similarly antisocial streak that frequently crossed into criminality, Poland’s scene mirrored Norway’s and Sweden’s, but was colored by racial motives in a far more pronounced manner. Where Scandinavian bands—Burzum included—had predominantly left matters of politics to interviews, Polish bands were far more overt in their use of racial topics. This is evident in songs such as “A Dark Dream” by Veles (“Dream about power of the white race”), “Don’t Let Your Folk Forget” by Thor’s Hammer (“You are the only heir of this land / Your duty is eternal fight / In self-defense of Aryankind”), and “White Hand’s Power” by Graveland (self-explanatory). Likewise, record sleeves were often explicitly nationalist or Nazi-oriented, as evident in the liner notes for albums such as Infernum’s… Taur-Nu-Fuin… and Veles’ Night on the Bare Mountain as well as the design for releases such as Fullmoon’s United Aryan Evil demo or Thor’s Hammer’s The Fate Worse Than Death, whose various covers featured either a black/white handshake, or one of two photos of interracial romance, one placed subtly in front of a large explosion.
“The Norwegian black metal scene originated some customs that were not popular at that time,” explains Darken, who has played with Veles, Thor’s Hammer, Fullmoon, and Infernum, as well as his main band Graveland, “e.g. expressing ideological and political right-wing and racial convictions. In Poland people were prepared for this situation, because such values were in accordance with the warrior’s instincts that were inside us. Norwegian black metal customs harmonized with our legacy, the pride of [the] white man.”
For many, the fact that Poland was the source of such ideals was something of a surprise. Indeed, the use of Nazi German imagery and ideals by Polish bands is somewhat perplexing given Poland’s treatment during WWII and fact that prominent Nazis in Germany viewed Slavic people as racially inferior, most obviously Hitler, who proposed in Mein Kampf that lands east of Russia be conquered and that the Slavic peoples (whom he described as “subhuman”) be eliminated or enslaved. Perhaps with that in mind, bands such as Graveland made clear in interviews with zines such as Switzerland’s Skogen that they distanced themselves from the Slavonic tag altogether, viewing themselves rather as Celts or Aryan.
However, understanding why the more casual racism found in some quarters of the Scandinavian scene should become a defining factor in Poland may require little more than a brief examination of the racial attitudes within Polish society generally. Norway may not be the most welcoming country in the world with regard to immigrants, but Jews, blacks, and other minorities certainly do not face the same level of economic discrimination, police harassment, and severe violence by skinhead gangs as in much of Eastern Europe. Thus it was that in Poland, Satanism soon began to take a back seat to political and racial motivations.
The movement in Poland was also characterized by the same attempts to organize that occurred in the Helvete circle, and was followed by the scene-related hostilities that came with such a move. “There were many bands supporting [the] Norwegian black metal scene [that] identified themselves with the ‘true unholy black metal’ ideology,” recalls Darken. “These bands were young and inexperienced. At that time Behemoth was one of the strongest pillars of the movements, next to bands [such] as Xantotol, Veles, Fullmoon, Infernum, and Mysteries. In 1993 Nergal of Behemoth, Venom of Xantotol, and Blasphemous of Veles created The Temple of Infernal Fire. Other organizations such as the Black Circle were an example for The Temple of Infernal Fire; we wanted to have our own secret organization.”
While the Temple’s character was initially occult in nature (like the exclusively Satanic organization Fullmoon, a precursor formed by Venom of Xantotal) it quickly took on a more political edge, particularly after the departure of founding member Nergal.
“Originally it was a Satanist lodge opposing LaVey philosophy and many people from the Polish underground were members,” Darken explains. “Later Capricornus, Karcharoth, and I changed the character of The Temple, placing emphasis on political issues. New people joined us. New people with new plans. The Polish scene radicalized and isolated itself from others—the ‘not true’ ones. We created our own underground by rejecting everything that was not black metal. Everyone wanted to be ‘true,’ no one wanted to be called ‘poser’…. Lists of black metal enemies appeared and posers from these lists did not have easy life. When the situation was getting out of control and everything was more serious, Behemoth decided to back out
from the underground and Nergal became an object of many attacks.”
Indeed, many of these came via Darken himself—who had contributed keyboard compositions to Behemoth in the band’s early days—and a series of insulting flyers was soon issued by the “Anti-Behemoth Front.”
“I was very angry at Nergal at that time, he was one of the founders and I felt he betrayed our ideas,” continues Darken, who eventually made his peace with Nergal some fifteen years later. “When Nergal left the underground and The Temple of Infernal, we changed name for The Temple of Fullmoon. At its best times almost all people from [Polish] black metal underground were members of The Temple of Fullmoon. We organized some meetings and conventions and the holy black metal war, the time of fire and blood, started. There are many wooden churches in Poland and many of them were burnt, [though] many were [actually] burnt because of the left-wing anarchist movement that started to use this method in their fight against Christian church.”
Meanwhile, Nergal explains his departure from the Temple and the scene itself in the following terms. “The whole black metal thing in Poland … things were just getting uglier and uglier,” he recalls. “It was aggressive, it was violent, and you know there’s nothing wrong with being violent if it’s done in the right way, but these guys were [entering] racial and political territories and I was not into this at all. I just wanted to make music, I wasn’t into politics and the majority of black metal bands started going toward these political tendencies, which is how NSBM started, Poland was one of the originators, the country that started this ugly direction. I thought, ‘I’m out of it,’ it was nothing to keep me interested in this genre. When I quit people suddenly turned out to be enemies for obvious reasons, but I had no regrets. I didn’t give a fuck, I’m going to keep doing what I do to the best of my abilities and I just kept on developing focus in the music.”
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