Lords of Chaos

by Michael Moynihan

  LAVEY: Generally when one these “self-styled Satanists” actually finds out what the Church of Satan is all about, they change over and ally themselves with us. A lot of them are kids and they like the name Satan just as they might be attracted to a swastika and the colors red and black. The whole thing can be summed up by Occam’s Razor. Communication is the key. They simply don’t have the proper medium to find out what Satanism is all about.

  HAS TELEVISION SENSATIONALISM DONE A LOT TO SPREAD FALSE CONCEPTIONS ABOUT SATANISM?

  LAVEY: Well, if you see one of these tabloid talkshows, they’ll have someone on who’s screaming about their kids being sacrificed, going on for twenty minutes about it, and one of our people will have forty seconds of airtime to counter that. Now, if a representative of the Church of Satan had just one entire hour on national TV to say what we want to say, Christianity would be finished. But as it is you’ve got academics on the one hand who dismiss us, and then the hysterics on the other who claim we’re taking over everything.

  MANY FEAR A STRONG CONNECTION BETWEEN SATANISM AND SOME FORMS OF FASCISM. IS THERE ANY TRUTH TO THIS?

  BARTON: It’s an unholy alliance. Many different types of such people have made contact with us in the past. The anti-Christian strength of National Socialist Germany is part of the appeal to Satanists—the drama, the lighting, the choreography with which they moved millions of people. However, the Satanic attitude is that people should be judged by their own merit—in every race there are leaders and followers. Satanists are the “Others,” who will push the pendulum in the direction it needs to go to reset the balance—depending on circumstances, this could be toward fascism or in the opposite direction. Satanism is a very brutal, realistic way of looking at things sometimes. Let it stand or fall on its own merit as Doctor LaVey wrote it.

  LAVEY: Aesthetics more than anything else are the common ground between Satanism and fascism. The aesthetics of National Socialism and Satanism dovetail.

  BARTON: They were aware of pomp, drama, fear...

  LAVEY: The aesthetics of Satanism are those of National Socialism. There’s the power of romance and drama. The National Socialists had that drama, coupled with the romance of overcoming such incredible odds. Satan is a standard to fight under, you’re flying the colors. I believe in Satanism as colors you’re fighting under. Esprit d’Corps. Mayakovsky did a beautiful poem about reactions to a Soviet passport—you know you represent something that’s feared. There’s awe, it’s controversial, like the SS experienced when going into a cabaret—everyone shuts up. There’s something magical about the concept—frightening evil and taking pride in being that. It’s a hard act to follow, in a sense that calm self-recognition of one’s own nature is the ultimate evil.

  BARTON: In every culture there’s the Prometheus figure—that’s essential in the human spirit. Those who are on the borderlands, the magicians.

  LAVEY: I get gut reactions to the stupid bravado of assholes. It’s fear—they’re threatened. I realize it’s wonderful, that I should upset them that much.

  ARE HATRED OR ANGER IMPORTANT EMOTIONS TO A SATANIST?

  BARTON: Satanists have the posture of true anger against a god that allows tragedy. We would stand in eternal defiance to such a “god.”

  LAVEY: I can empathize with Varg Vikernes burning a church down. People’s prejudices get the best of them—I’ll plead guilty to feeling that way at times. There are a lot of people whose greatest purpose is for target practice—moving targets.

  WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE TO BLACK METAL TYPES WHO WOULD ACCUSE YOU OF FORSAKING ANY REAL OCCULTISM OR “BLACK MAGIC” IN YOUR PHILOSOPHY OF SATANISM?

  LAVEY: The Church of Satan acknowledges the potential of ritual magic and its practice, but there is also something else besides this. These people obsessed with occultism—who I call “occultniks”—can’t conceive of pragmatism being hand-in-hand with magic. We’re too practical for people who are looking for “the key.” This is where these types are missing the boat. There’s no rationalism, no grounding. We are the ones wielding the power—Satan has become ruler of the earth. Our image of Satan demands not worship but skepticism and rational inquiry.

  In our personal practice of Satanism, there is no limit to the supernatural you can put into it. You can do anything you want. Some can consider their performance on stage a ritual—a very powerful one—for whatever purpose. I advocate that. An emotionally-charged Rock concert performed by dedicated Satanists is today’s rally, ritual, and call to arms.

  BARTON: The occultniks want supernaturalism to be their fetish. We certainly believe in elements of the supernatural. We’re tapping into these forces everyday.

  FROM SOME OF YOUR WRITINGS IT APPEARS THAT YOU’RE NOT TOO FOND OF THE ROCK AND ROLL GENRE. WHY IS THAT?

  LAVEY: First you need to tell me what it is. How can someone say, “I don’t like Rock and Roll”, because what is it? It’s never been defined. There’s so much that’s fallen under that general heading, but I guess it then evolved into what we have now, which I’ve described as being like a linear metronome, i.e., music without music. They’ve just run out of ideas, really.

  IS ROCK, AS IT STANDS TODAY, A HOPELESS FORM AS FAR AS YOU’RE CONCERNED?

  LAVEY: The biggest point I’m stressing is that kids are being born into a default situation where there are no good alternatives. They don’t know about any other form of music besides Rock. All music for young people emanates from that particular culture. But I would say it’s not hopeless because it does still have impact to those who don’t know about any other form of music.

  IN WHAT WAY?

  LAVEY: I believe it’s really the visuals that are what matters now. Not MTV images but rather the record sleeves. There’s a visual identification. Just like if it were Nazi-oriented music and the artwork has a swastika on the jacket, if it’s Satanic there’s going to be Satanic imagery on the package. And you can clearly see a tendency toward the Satanic, especially within the Heavy Metal genre of Rock. That creates a strong differentiation between something like Black Metal and other Rock music, and it’s an alternative for these kids. They’re going to opt for the Satanic whether it’s the lyrics or the visuals; they want to tap into that option. That’s what matters. So kids who don’t know anything besides Rock music can still gain strength and motivation from Black Metal, Death Metal, and so forth.

  THE CHURCH OF SATAN DOESN’T DISCOURAGE THESE PEOPLE FROM JOINING?

  LAVEY: No, not at all. From our correspondence we know there are a lot of people who are stimulated by this kind of music and after that they want to explore Satanism more seriously, as a philosophy.

  In a strong sense the enemy, Christianity, has created a Frankenstein monster by drawing so much attention to this music, because the kids will go for the dark stuff every time! There are entire fanzines dedicated to Satanic Black Metal, exclusively. It follows that if the market is moving towards Satanic Rock then you’ll have two camps emerging—those who are just stimulated and then those who decide they want to pursue the ideas we’re promoting. Just as there are those who will raise the sign of the horns at a Metal concert not knowing why they’re doing it, there are many who do it and understand...

  SOME MUSIC GROUPS HAVE OPENLY ENDORSED THE CHURCH OF SATAN. ARE THEY REACHING AN AUDIENCE THAT’S POTENTIALLY VALUABLE TO YOU?

  LAVEY: The majority of their audience are not just numbskulls, and the reason they go for these bands is because they’re the real thing. There’s a whole camp who want that. We hear every day from people who are only devoted to the groups who practice what they preach.

  BARTON: And these letters are so fervent... they want the music to be more blasphemous, more violent against Christianity, with no compromise and no holding back. You could say the music is almost an updated version of the “Horst Wessel Lied” for them—it’s providing that sort of motivation and focus. So many kids write and say, “I got into Satanism because of this music—it makes me feel powerful.”

  LAVEY: It�
�s the sound of the world for them. That’s their threshold—if they don’t go anywhere with it then it’s just noise but if they go to the next step... these are their tools. What else do they have to work with? Pride is a part of it too; they don’t want to be ostracized from their colleagues.

  WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS THAT MAKE A PIECE OF MUSIC SATANIC?

  LAVEY: The key element of Satanic music can be revealed in the question, will it appeal to you on an individual rather than herd basis? It’s evocative, emotionally charged. It evokes something which wasn’t previously hyped and it’s done without forcing the cards. There’s no group or collective identity which it merely confers on the listener. It shouldn’t be a secondary device to tap into an identity associated with the music. Satanic music stands on its own merit without one knowing who wrote it or where and when it came from. Simplistically speaking, it’s the kind of music you can walk away whistling or humming—thematic.

  WHY IS THE SATANIC MUSIC YOU’RE DEFINING DANGEROUS?

  LAVEY: Because Satanic music will cause introspection and get someone to think, and even worse—to feel. The more they think and feel the more dangerous they are to a system dependent on consumerism and mass conformity.

  MOST KIDS WOULD PROBABLY TELL YOU THE ONLY SATANIC MUSIC IS HEAVY METAL, OR BLACK METAL.

  LAVEY: This is the real horror of it all: they’re listening to something akin to a jet blasting off and are motivated by what it says, spelled out loud and clear. They’re moved by it, and they’re truly militant. Now comes the real threat: supposing we drop the megaton bomb, and they hear—and listen to—music hyped as Satanic that has the sound of Wagner or Liszt or Beethoven? Suppose they’re bombarded with that kind of stirring sound, packaged as Satanic music? That will be like putting guns in the savages’ hands, like giving them AK-47’s! It’s just like what Hitler did—he came along during the Weimar Republic, which was producing the most banal music. When you hear this sort of thing [LaVey begins playing a 1920’s era march on his organ, bubbly and monotonous. Without warning he transforms it into the opening lines of the “Horst Wessel Lied,” electrifying the room.] Now that’s pretty heady stuff after that first bit! That’s a demonstration of what I’m getting at.

  DESCRIBE HOW THIS PROCESS WILL HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE.

  LAVEY: Picture an assembly of kids—who aren’t under the influence of any mind-numbing drugs—who’ve listened to a whole evening of Black Metal and then hear a roll on some kettle drums and trumpet fanfare. It’ll be like that scene in Samson, or in Cabaret, with thousands of right arms going up into the air. God help the Christians then!

  These kids are being primed right now with the Satanic Metal and when that moment comes and they hear the sounds of drums and trumpets it will be like an epiphany, a religious experience. The time is right. It’s approaching D-Day and the apocalypse is at hand. They’ve created a musical mood that’s made the homogenized din, this wash of omnipresent sound, so that any drastic violent change in the format is going to have impact that’s unbelievable—it’ll drop ’em in their tracks. It doesn’t take much—it’s just the right timing. It’s happening right around them and they don’t even know it. Like the flock of birds all flying out of the trees at the sound of the first thunderclap of a storm, it’s going to happen at one given moment.

  SELLING SATAN

  One of the most remarkable features of consumer society is its ability to turn any kind of rebellious expression into a commodity. This is especially prominent and predictable in regard to youth culture. In the period of vociferous musical protest in the Sixties, one of the major record labels ran an advertising campaign that proudly proclaimed “all the revolutionaries are on CBS.” This trend has continued ever since, and each time a youthful attempt is made to construct an angry identity or voice a radical opinion, there is a huge commercial apparatus already positioned to pick up, mass-produce, shrink-wrap, and sell that very same angst back to other youngsters.

  It would only be a matter of time before this happened to Black Metal, especially since the early bands like Venom had already demonstrated that such rebelliousness could easily be turned into hard cash. When the Black Metal underground became manifest toward the end of the Eighties, the black-clad musicians increasingly excelled at low-budget marketing, eventually using the shock value of their criminal acts as PR for their records. As a result, Black Metal turned into a thriving cottage industry with a monumentally high public profile. It was inevitable that larger record companies would wake up and smell the money.

  The biggest success story in Norwegian Black Metal—measured in chart positions, magazine coverage, and gaudy magazine posters—is Dimmu Borgir, a band which boasts of six-figure CD sales on the German label Nuclear Blast. Dimmu Borgir were not part of the initial waves of Norwegian Black Metal, and therefore they have neither blood nor soot on their hands. But they have been very adept at capitalizing on the shocking image of their predecessors in the genre, while at the same time carefully distancing themselves from the worst excesses so as not to lose record sales or gigs. A typical example can be seen in the promo pictures of Dimmu Borgir engaging in the mock sacrifice of a virgin—pictures that were produced in versions ranging from “softcore” (less gore) to “hardcore” (very bloody), so that different media could pick the version most suited to their audience. In other words, it seemed as if Dimmu Borgir wanted to be provocative enough to make the kids think they were cool, but not so provocative that the kids couldn’t get their parents to buy them the album for Christmas.

  NORWEGIAN HEADLINE: “INVITED TO THE SPELLEMANNSPRIS [NORWEGIAN GRAMMY AWARDS] SHOW: WANT TO USE BLOOD AND CORPSEPAINT”

  Walking a tig

  htrope between credibility and commercial success, Dimmu Borgir are the pathfinders for an growing trend in which the leading figures of the Black Metal scene concentrate on making a living from music instead rather than plotting to burn churches. This is easy to understand. Most of the veterans of the scene have grown older (and, presumably, wiser), running up increasingly larger bills in the process.

  Asbjørn Slettemark is the editor of the Norwegian music business weekly Faro-Journalen, which counts the Scandinavian correspondent for Billboard magazine among its staff.

  ASBJØRN SLETTEMARK

  HOW POPULAR IS NORWEGIAN BLACK METAL?

  Two or three years ago it was on the verge of becoming really, really big, and the international press was interested in Black Metal. If there had been more bands like Dimmu Borgir and The Kovenant that could have made it big in the mainstream, Black Metal could have been another example of an underground that stepped up to the major league. But strong forces in the scene suddenly became very introverted and reverted to an older, harder style of Black Metal.

  Three years ago you would be signed if you were a Black Metal band from Norway, because the record companies knew that a Norwegian release would sell at least 5,000 copies. Of course, that led to a lot of Norwegian rubbish being released on German and Dutch labels. The audience proved faithful, and probably will be so for a while longer. But today it is quality that counts, and it is the veterans that sell.

  HOW MUCH DO THEY SELL?

  For a while, it was popular among Black Metal bands to brag about sales figures. People have stopped doing that now. There is a handful of bands that sell well, about 10,000 to 20,000 copies of each release. But sales figures are hard to confirm, because labels tend to exaggerate; and on the other hand, many of the retailers for Black Metal records don’t register their sales.

  WHAT HAPPENS WHEN BIGGER LABELS SUCH AS NUCLEAR BLAST START SIGNING BANDS LIKE DIMMU BORGIR?

  It is my impression that Nuclear Blast realized their stable of Death Metal and Speed Metal artists were starting to lag behind. It seems to me like they picked Dimmu Borgir more or less by chance, because the records that got them the contract weren’t really that special. But Dimmu Borgir were still developing as a band, and they were willing to do the image and magazine poster thing. It wouldn
’t be possible to sell a more established band like Mayhem or Darkthrone the same way. I guess Dimmu Borgir have the good old Pop Star ambition, the standing in front of the mirror singing into the toothbrush thing.

  In Europe, there is a marked divide between those that are into mainstream metal like Korn and Metallica, and the Black Metal audience. If you can bridge that chasm then you can triple your sales figures. And this is what Dimmu Borgir tried to do. For example, they were promoted toward the mainstream press, something that almost never happens to Black Metal bands.

  The level of promotion was largely what separated Dimmu Borgir from their colleagues and competitors in the scene. With a professional record company behind them they were aggressively marketed. Record shops were provided with generous amounts of promotional material and eye-catching posters. The only things missing are the glossy cardboard display-stands for the store aisles.