Lords of Chaos

by Michael Moynihan

  “BURN YOUR OWN CHURCH” KIT FROM OSLO MAGAZINE, GATE AVISA

  Church arson has also been used as an element of intimidation in the centuries-old conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. The April, 1997 issue of An Phoblacht, a pro-Republican newspaper, features photos of the burnt-out remains of two Catholic churches hit with firebombs, and the accompanying article refers to at least eight different arson attacks on Catholic churches or religious buildings. A quote from Sinn Fein representative Gerry Adams indicates that the terrorist strategy of church burnings is utilized by both sides in the ongoing civil war: “Attacks on Catholic churches are just as wrong and sectarian as those carried out on Protestant churches.”34

  Most observers might find it an inapt comparison to speak of church burnings by Norwegian teenagers in the same breath with those committed by the Ulster Defense Association or Irish Republican Army in Ireland. No matter the country or context, however, the tangible effect of a destroyed church on its congregation and surrounding community is the same. And if Varg Vikernes is to be believed, the church burnings in his country serve a similar function to those in Northern Ireland—that of terrorism aimed toward the spiritual sanctuaries of one’s enemy. According to Vikernes, the Norwegian arsons are symptoms of a religious struggle even more deep-seated and long-standing than the Catholic/Protestant sectarian conflict in Ireland. They are symbolic acts of terror against Christianity itself, and Vikernes sees no reason to apologize for that. To him, the torching of a House of God is simply one more weapon to be utilized in the arsenal of an unholy war.

  BURNED CATHOLIC CHURCH FROM AN IRA NEWSPAPER

  ...THE WOUNDS

  WERE RUSHING RED WITH BLOOD

  WHILST THE MEN FELL LIFELESS...

  —SNORRE STURLASON, HEIMSKRINGLA1

  7

  DEATHLIKE SILENCES

  DESPITE AN INCREASING GLARE OF MEDIA ATTENTION—AND PARTIALLY DUE to it—Norwegian Black Metal had distinguished itself as its own genre. Defined at the time by an extreme form of Devil worship that demanded escalating levels of “evil” from its adherents, the scene had engineered a grim destiny for itself which would be fulfilled with installments of fire and blood.

  Along with Aarseth and Vikernes, others would also violently make their imprint on the scene. One of the most important among these is Bård Eithun, know among comrades as “Faust.” His initiation into Black Metal was similar to many others who sought increasingly intense rewards from the music they listened to. An experienced and talented drummer, Bård was enthusiastic when he discovered the extremity of Mayhem, and was in turn quickly welcomed into the core of the scene.

  BÅRD EITHUN

  HOW DID YOU ORIGINALLY GET INVOLVED IN BLACK METAL?

  I grew up in Kvikne, a little village in the middle of Norway in the Øterdalen valley, and I lived there until I was 15 or 16 years old. Then I moved to Lillehammer and lived there two years, and then my last year outside I lived in Oslo. I worked in the shop with Aarseth, and the last half of this year I even had an apartment in the building where the shop was and lived there. I remember that the first bands I was writing to were Mayhem, Aggressor from France, and a Norwegian band, Imposter. When I wrote to Mayhem I came in touch with Aarseth and started to correspond with him. That was in ’87, and was when my contact with the Black Metal underground scene started. Up until that time I had been listening to bands like Voivod, Venom, Metallica, and such, but it was when I wrote to Aarseth that I first got involved in the underground scene. From that point I became very much a part of the scene, because I started to know different people—I wrote lots of letters, got magazines, and all that shit.

  BÅRD EITHUN

  WERE THERE A LOT OF PEOPLE INVOLVED DIRECTLY IN THE SCENE?

  There were always people who wanted to hang out and be inside the shop around Mayhem and the bands. It was these people that Østein didn’t like and after he was killed they started to talk about how they were the great people who knew Euronymous back then, saying things like, “Me and Aarseth were doing things together back then, he liked me and he liked my band,” and all this. That’s what I expected when he was killed—all the people who weren’t liked by Aarseth would start talking like this. Now you have a hundred people in Oslo saying how great it was being friends with Aarseth when maybe eight of them were people he liked.

  HOMOSEXUAL MURDER

  Besides playing in the bands Stigma Diabolicum, Thorns, and Emperor, Eithun was involved in the scene in other ways. He published his fanzine Orcustus, corresponding with and interviewing anyone of importance in Norwegian Black Metal. The combination of his well-established obsession with murder and violence, and the increasing atmosphere of pushing behavior to the limits in the Black Metal scene, accelerated by the first church burnings in May and June, all seem to have contributed to Eithun’s state of mind which led him to commit cold-blooded murder. Ihsahn, vocalist and guitarist in Emperor, comments about his former bandmate, “[Bård] had been very fascinated by serial killers for a long time, and I guess he wanted to know what it’s like to kill a person, another human being. I think that was basically the reason for him doing it.”2

  ORCUSTUS

  Visiting his family in Lille-hammer in August, ’92, Bård went out walking late at night to a pub and had a pint of beer. The atmosphere at the bar didn’t suit him, and decided to head home. He wandered through the nearby park that had been set up for the Winter Olympics. He carried a knife with him because, as he once explained in an interview, “I lived in Oslo at the time, so it was natural for me to carry a knife. I don’t consider that a weapon, more like an insurance in case something unexpected happens. It’s better to have a knife you don’t need than to not have one when you need it. The strange thing about [the night of the murder] is that I didn’t need it, but someone got killed anyway. Quite incredible.”3 Eithun was neither inebriated nor under the influence of any drugs. At a certain point during his late night stroll he encountered another man who approached him. After a few moments of interaction, it became clear both of them were seeking quite different stimulation, and each would soon find radically divergent destinies as a result.

  BÅRD EITHUN

  WHEN DID YOUR CRIME HAPPEN?

  This man I killed, that was on the 21st of August, 1992. I moved to Oslo in July, ’92, and one month later I killed this man when I went back to visit my mother for a weekend.

  WHAT HAPPENED?

  I was outside, I went to go out to drink but I didn’t want to because there were too many people, so I was walking back home again. This man approached me—he was obviously drunk and obviously a faggot. He wanted to talk to me. “Okay, I’m talking to you,” I responded. I understood that he was a homosexual very quickly. He was asking if I had a light, but he was already smoking. It was obvious that he wanted to have some contact. Then he asked me if we could leave this place and go up to the woods. So I agreed, because already then I had decided that I wanted to kill him, which was very weird because I’m not like this—I don’t go around and kill people. So he was walking; it was quite a long way. This long walk was used against me in court, since the prosecutor wanted me to be charged with first degree murder—because it was a long way and I didn’t take him up to the woods to beat him up, but rather to take his life. That’s what the prosecutor said, and that’s what I wanted of course, but I didn’t mention that in court. I was saying that I wanted to beat him up and take his money, but of course it’s not reasonable to go such a long way into the woods just to beat up a guy. So we walked into the woods, in a big park where the opening of the Olympic Winter Games was.

  YOU HAD A KNIFE?

  I always used to have a knife in my back pocket. It was a black knife with a handgrip, a folding kind that locked.

  DID YOU FEEL THIS WAS ENOUGH OF A WEAPON TO KILL SOMEONE WITH?

  MURDER VICTIM MAGNE ANDREASSEN

  I don’t remember really what I was thinking, but at least I knew that if I didn’t do it now, I would
not get another opportunity. Then I took out the knife and turned around and stabbed him. He was walking behind me and I turned and stabbed him in the stomach. After that I don’t remember much, only that it was like looking at this whole incident through eyes outside of my body. It was as if I was looking at two people who were having a fight—and one had a knife, so it was easy to kill the other person. If something happens that is obscure, it’s easier for the mind to react if it acts like it is watching it from outside of yourself.

  YOUR SENSE OF TIME CHANGES TOO, AND EVERYTHING SLOWS DOWN...

  Yes. If it happened in a minute or a much longer time, I can’t recall. I was stabbing him in the stomach and he went down on his knees. I started stabbing him in the neck and face. Then he lay down and I was standing over him, stabbing. My intention was to take his life completely. I didn’t want him to manage to live through this and go to the hospital and report me. It was easier to take his life and then go and hope that everything would be okay.

  DID HE FIGHT BACK?

  Not much. He tried to take me down to the ground but it’s not easy when the other person has a knife. He was laying down and I wanted to take his life. I stabbed him very hard in the back so it went through the shoulder blades. I had to brace my foot against him to get it out again, because the knife was stuck between the bones. That’s most likely when he died. After this I wanted to walk, and I did a little bit, but then he made some sounds. I thought, “He’s not really dead,” and walked back and kicked him in the back of the head with my boots, many times. I wanted to know that he was dead. After that I walked away.

  BÅRD EITHUN (RIGHT) AND UNIDENTIFIED BRITISH FAN

  WERE YOU NERVOUS?

  I don’t remember. I had to walk back through the woods very fast, in case some people might have heard him. I suppose I was quite nervous, but it’s not that easy to remember. I went down to a river and washed my hands—they were of course red with blood—and then walked on again. It didn’t help to only wash my hands, because I had blood all on my face and my hair was sticky with blood.

  NO ONE SAW YOU?

  Luckily! I was walking through an area where there were lots of people outside, coming back from town, but I didn’t meet anyone. When I got home my mother was not awake, so I got in and washed off all the blood and washed my clothes. The day after I was talking to Aarseth on the phone and let him know what had happened.

  DID YOU HAVE ANY REMORSE ABOUT THE MURDER?

  No, I didn’t have any remorse. I have to stand up for what I’ve done and do my time. There’s no remorse. I took his life and I paid for it. It’s not a big deal, at least not in my opinion.

  BÅRD EITHUN IN PRISON, 1995

  WHY DID YOU HAVE THE IDEA YOU DESIRED TO KILL SOMEONE?

  It’s not easy to answer that. Lots of people have asked me. I was outside, just waiting to get out some aggression. It’s not easy to describe why it happened. It was meant to happen, and if it was this man or another man, that’s not really important.

  DID THE FACT THAT HE WAS A HOMOSEXUAL HAVE MUCH TO DO WITH IT?

  I don’t like it when they’re trying to get people who aren’t homosexual. It’s okay if they want to be homosexuals, but at least they must stay with their own people. They should not expect that every man they see around is homosexual.

  THERE WEREN’T SPECIFIC THINGS THAT YOU WERE READING THAT HAD AN INFLUENCE ON YOU?

  No, there wasn’t. I remember Østein asked me if I had been listening to some music before. I had been listening to Hellhammer, but it’s really not important what I’d been doing before. If I’d been reading books or watching videos or listening to music it’s not important because it had to happen anyway.

  BÅRD WITH MACHETE

  YOU DON’T THINK THE BLACK METAL CULTURE CREATED A CERTAIN CLIMATE?

  Of course it might have influenced me a bit and made it easier. But all this really could happen to anyone if you get approached by a homosexual. Whether you are like me into this underground scene, or if you were working in a bank—you might react the same way.

  THERE WAS A LONG PERIOD BEFORE YOU WERE CAUGHT.

  Yes, I was free for a year and a week.

  NOBODY HAD A CLUE?

  Not really. The cops were checking homosexual scenes. They didn’t have any traces toward us. It wasn’t until Vikernes was arrested the first time, and he was giving an interview to the newspaper in Bergen, talking about how he knew who had killed someone. Then they made a connection between us and this murder; though they weren’t investigating it anymore, they at least had it in their minds.

  BÅRD EITHUN IN PRISON, 1995

  VARG WAS JUST BRAGGING?

  He was bragging. The night after it happened he had already been bragging to a girl, who he didn’t know, about this murder. I was still up in Lillehammer but I had talked to Østein first and Vikernes afterward. That evening Vikernes was outside in Oslo bragging to a girl about this murder. It was not a very wise thing to do, but he liked to talk to people about what he and his friends had done.

  DID YOU TELL OTHER PEOPLE?

  Yes, a few.

  SO IT WAS KIND OF A LEGENDARY ACTION?

  Yes, I guess so, because I suppose it made other actions occur too. People were very enthusiastic about it. They thought we would not get caught, because I had done this murder and I was still outside.

  DID YOU THINK YOU WOULDN’T BE CAUGHT?

  Yes, because in the beginning I was expecting to get arrested, but after the months passed I was convinced that the cops didn’t have any interest and I was maybe going to get away with it.

  EXIT THE PRINCE OF DEATH

  It is rare for a serious crime to go unsolved in Norway, but the murder of homosexual Magne Andreassen was truly a dead end for the police. There was no rhyme or reason to why it happened and no significant evidence—just a lone body found lying in the woods, dead from loss of blood through thirty-seven puncture wounds.

  With the police investigation pursuing futile leads in the homosexual milieu, the “action” taken by Bård appeared to be one of impunity. His participation in the burning of the Holmenkollen Chapel the next day after the slaying, together with Vikernes and Aarseth, was again accomplished without any ill consequences. He is quoted in an interview talking about what occurred as soon as they had accomplished the arson. After the church was alight, “We rode up the mountain to watch it burn. It was very beautiful and exciting—when we got back to the record store we could hardly sleep.”4

  As the gravity of the Black Circle’s forays into crime and transgression was increasing unhindered over the course of late 1992 and early 1993, similar events began to take place in Sweden. On February 7, 1993, the Lundby New Church in Gothenburg was burnt down. Built in stone in 1886, it was renowned for its good acoustics. The same night another Christian building nearby was also desecrated.

  “IT” OF ABRUPTUM—TOO EVIL TO HAVE A HUMAN NAME

  Østein Aarseth had long been in contact with the personalities of the Swedish Black Metal scene, some of whom rivalled the Norwegians in their dedication to perversity. The bizarre duo Abruptum, who allegedly recorded their music during bouts of self-inflicted torture, was praised by Aarseth as “the audial essence of Pure Black Evil.”5 He released their debut album Obscuritatem Advoco Amplectère Me on Deathlike Silence in 1992. Østein had also managed, with financial assistance from Varg Vikernes, to release the first Burzum CD on DSP. The second Burzum effort, Aske, was released in early 1993, some months after the burning of the Fantoft Stave Church. It was around this time, in the first months of the year, that bad blood arose between Vikernes and Aarseth. Their disagreement appears to come at the same period when Øystein was also arguing with members of the Swedish scene, causing a general animosity to surface between Black Metalers in the two neighboring countries.