Disgraceland

by Jake Brennan

  But a snuff film? Showing the torture and murder of one of the scene’s biggest stars? That would really be something: true evil. Let’s see Dave Mustaine rub out James Hetfield on film. Megadeth? More like megapussies.

  Varg was enraged. First of all, because he hadn’t been the one to think of it. Secondly, he wasn’t going to let a brown-eyed, socialist, closet homosexual who owed him money get over on him. Euronymous needed to be confronted.

  August 10, 1993. Varg Vikernes turned up at Euronymous’s apartment unannounced at three in the morning, under the guise of signing his next Burzum record contract. This was something that Euronymous, despite the time of night, was very keen on making happen. Burzum was one of his record label’s main moneymakers. Without a signed contract, there were no royalties to collect.

  He buzzed Varg in to let him up to his fourth-floor apartment. It would prove to be a crucial mistake.

  Varg wasn’t there to sign any papers. He was there to put an end to this beef, one way or another. Secure in the fact that his hunting knife was nestled snugly in his pocket.

  Euronymous opened the door in his underwear. Varg would later testify that when he asked Euronymous about his plans to murder him, Euronymous responded by kicking him in the chest.

  Varg was stunned. He grabbed Euronymous and threw him to the floor. Euronymous quickly got to his feet and ran toward the kitchen.

  Varg assumed it was to grab a knife or some other sort of weapon. Maybe the shotgun that Dead shot himself with: Varg knew Euronymous kept it handy.

  The Count was not afraid: he was determined. Determined to not be murdered by this poser. Determined, instead, to take his life. To survive. It was his nature. He grabbed his own knife and took off after Euronymous, catching up to him before he could find a weapon. Varg stabbed him. But Euronymous managed to keep moving, back toward the door and out of the apartment. He broke down the hallway, screaming for help and ringing as many doorbells as he could along the way.

  Varg was hot on his trail. Close enough to continue stabbing him all the way down the stairwell. Euronymous could do little, but he somehow stayed on his feet.

  His momentum kept hurtling him down the stairs.

  His adrenaline kept the screams for help coming at a piercing volume.

  The horrific sounds kept the neighbors terrified and paralyzed in their apartments.

  Varg’s hate kept the stabbings coming: twenty-two of them, until Euronymous could run no more.

  His momentum slowed. He staggered to a wobbling standstill for a second or two before falling to his knees. Bloodied and gasping for breath, he looked up to face his murderer: his one-time friend and comrade-in-arms, Count Grishnackh, who then took his knife in both of his hands, raised it above his head and silently called upon the great Norse god of thunder. Then, with the pure Viking rage that was his lineage, Varg brought the knife down straight into Euronymous’s skull.

  He died instantly.

  Varg was arrested nine days later. An informant gave authorities all they needed on Varg for the murder and the church burnings. Another member of the scene, Bard “Faust” Eithun, drummer from the black metal band Emperor, admitted to the murder of the homosexual man in Lillehammer’s Olympic park. He claimed he just “wanted to see what killing a man felt like.” He got eight years. For killing a man in cold blood. Dead mused about what was more wicked: the murder or the lack of justice.

  Pure evil. With little consequence.

  Varg pleaded innocent to all of the charges and turned his trial into a sideshow that no doubt made Charlie Manson proud; playing the role of Satanist, neofascist, and pagan warlord. Basically, if the rebellious shoe fit, Varg wore it. The press ate it all up, quickly making Count Grishnackh Norway’s public enemy number one.

  Varg Vikernes was convicted for arson for three of the more than thirty church burnings, attempted arson of a fourth, possession of illegal explosives, and the murder of Euronymous. He was sentenced to twenty-one years in prison, which, unbelievably, is the maximum penalty allowed in Norway for murder and arson.

  Pure evil. With little consequence.

  Today Norwegian black metal is bigger than ever. Second-generation bands like Gorgoroth have taken the genre far beyond the cold, dark Norwegian forest, to every corner of the world.

  The horrors carried out by Dead, Euronymous, Varg, and others from the original black metal scene built a notorious reputation for the genre to attract new generations of followers with.

  Mayhem still sells records and still tours. Sure it’s with the one original member and yeah, their shows these days have more in common with a Fat Elvis Vegas Revue than they do the Dawn of the Black Hearts bootleg, but despite—or possibly because of—the band’s horrific acts, there is a large and active international audience for Norwegian black metal; a genre of music that was built on a foundation of murder, arson, cannibalism, and what can only be described as the most extreme form of musical rebellion to ever exist.

  Dead thought about all of this from inside the back of Mayhem’s fast-moving tour bus. Dead, of course, was dead. None of the current members of the band knew of his presence, but they could feel it on some deeper level. It was more like the cold sweat of realizing a forgotten shame than a haunted feeling. And Dead was surprised with how far the band and the black metal scene had come. He took in the passing cars out the window and let his mind wander. “Evil.” His bandmates weren’t evil. They weren’t antisocial. Here in the present, at the end of the day they were entertainers. They were fucking capitalists. Out here crisscrossing the United States playing sold-out shows and selling boxes upon boxes of concert T-shirts with the now-iconic Mayhem logo in the trademarked black-metal font on them. Satanists? Nah. Opportunists. These days, Mayhem has more in common with Elvis Presley or Bo Diddley than Venom or Aleister Crowley.

  The sudden roar of the pursuing choppers on the interstate behind their bus pushed these thoughts away. A gang of Hells Angels on Harley-Davidsons pulled up alongside the tour bus at seventy miles per hour, their bikes roaring like majestic beasts. The “Hells Angels.” What a name. What a sight, he thought. Now that’s evil.

  Chapter 4

  Gram Parsons

  Gram Parsons held on tight and wrapped his arms around the torso of a burly Hells Angel named Tiny. Tiny’s chopper spit dust from the dry California earth indiscriminately. The bike roared. Sitting on the back of it, the back of his head resting on the sissy bar, and holding on for dear life, Gram Parsons’s skull hurt. He felt the egg start to swell. He knew he should have worn a helmet. But Tiny didn’t have an extra brain bucket. His old lady had split and took it with her. So Gram took his chances as he hopped on the back of Tiny’s chopper out on Interstate 580 and spun off for Altamont Speedway, with his dome exposed and his shiny, shoulder-length caramel hair flowing in the northern California wind.

  Gram looked good today. He knew it. And he had to. It was a big day. It wasn’t every day that you and your band got to open for the Rolling Stones, the biggest, baddest rock ’n’ roll band on the planet. But despite his confidence in his attire—embroidered halter top, snakeskin vest, silk bell bottoms that fit perfectly, and a tight puka shell necklace—Gram was rattled. His head hurt.

  The sound of the chopper beneath him was loud, but hitching a ride on the back of a Hells Angel’s chopper was a necessity. Altamont was a shitshow. The Rolling Stones, at the time one of the world’s biggest grossing concert attractions, wanted to give back to their fans, so a free concert was arranged. Hastily. In forty-eight hours. The concert was to be a sort of Woodstock for the West, albeit four months later and about twenty degrees colder. At least that was the idea being bandied about by Mick Jagger, whose hippie-dippie mumbo jumbo musing on the event couldn’t have been more of the time. Leading up to Altamont, Jagger said, “It’s creating a microcosmic society which sets examples for the rest of America as to how one can behave at large gatherings…The concert is an excuse for everyone to talk to each other, get together, sleep with ea
ch other, hold each other, and get very stoned.” San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park was the original idea but city authorities knew better, so in hurried fashion it was decided that Altamont Speedway—about sixty miles outside of San Francisco—would be the place.

  One hundred thousand people were expected. Three hundred thousand showed up. Naturally there was a pileup on the freeway. There were simply too many people, too many cars for the road to hold, and so Interstate 580 became a parking lot. Gram Parsons and his bandmates, the Flying Burrito Brothers, were performing at Altamont in support of their excellent debut, The Gilded Palace of Sin, which was by definition a country album but had effortlessly crossed over to a mainstream rock ’n’ roll audience. Gram and his band might have felt like they were on their way, but today, in the December dust of Northern California, they weren’t going anywhere, having literally driven themselves off into a ditch. Gram was incensed. He wasn’t going to miss this. He might have had a Byrd, Chris Hillman, in his band, but there was a bona fide Rolling Stone, his man-crush, Keith Richards, waiting for him backstage—if he could only get himself through the four-mile-long sea of people. So he flagged down the Hells Angel as soon as he saw him deftly maneuvering through the traffic and up along the side of the highway where Gram and the rest of his band had broken down.

  Gram pleaded his case: He was a musician. He was with the Rolling Stones. He needed to get to the stage on time.

  The Hells Angels were doing security—for the promise of $500 in beer—so they could come and go as they pleased, and their bikes made it possible for them to work their way through the mass of hippie humanity with little resistance. Tiny, the Hells Angel on the chopper, wanted to know how the rest of Gram’s band was going to get to the stage on time. “Oh, they’ll figure it out.” Gram wasted no time, hopped on the back of the chopper, and Tiny quickly—too quickly—yanked the throttle. When he did, the bike shot forward with a short blast, and Gram’s head shot back and violently banged into the bike’s steel sissy bar behind him. For a second Gram saw stars. He blinked his eyes open and squinted through the dust being spit up by the walking concertgoers. He held his arms tight around Tiny’s chest clad in his leather biker vest. The one with the red Hells Angels top rocker patch emblazoned across the back and the bottom rocker letters C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A bending below the immediately recognizable “Death’s Head” logo and small, square “MC” patch.

  Gram’s head pounded. He focused on the song swirling around in his brain that morning: “Suspicious Minds” by Elvis Presley. The King was back. Thinking about it made Gram happy. The world was a better place with Elvis in it. Or at least with Elvis on top of the charts. Gram Parsons had a special affinity for Elvis Presley. He was a country boy like him. White, but steeped in blues and gospel music and burdened by the trappings of wealth—just like Gram was. Gram, of course, hadn’t earned his money like Elvis had. Gram inherited it. He never knew the poverty Elvis came from: Gram’s mom was Avis Snively, whose family was responsible for one-third of the citrus fruits exported out of Florida, so he was raised without ever having to worry about money. But he wasn’t without worry completely. Gram did know the pain Elvis felt. Money solves a lot of problems, but deep-rooted emotional turmoil isn’t one of them. He could always relate to the raw sadness that anchored the best of Elvis’s songs and was comforted that in 1969, the Chips Moman–produced “Suspicious Minds” was sitting high upon the charts and the King was back.

  We’re caught in a trap

  I can’t walk out…

  There were people everywhere. Something had to give if Gram was going to make it to the stage on time. Tiny moved his chopper from the highway up the hill to the entrance of the Speedway. Once atop the rise, a vista unfolded before them peppered with sun-stroked hippies setting up camp en masse. The Altamont Pass was in full display. Dusty. Hazed. Its grass burned by the sun and patrolled by rattlesnakes, it was beautiful in that “only in California” kind of way. Nestled next to the Diablo mountain range, on this day Altamont looked as good a place as any for the devil to set up shop.

  Tiny accelerated down the hill. Gram held on tight. Tiny maneuvered the chopper around the stoned hippies frolicking and just beginning to feel the effects of the powerful, speed-laced Owsley Purple LSD that had begun circulating through the crowd early that day.

  Gram was impressed with the way Tiny handled the powerful machine. Aside from the bumpy start—which was really more Gram’s fault—the ride into the concert, though filled with fits and starts, was wildly efficient and wildly exhilarating.

  Gram needed the excitement. His pain was real and, if he wasn’t careful, all-consuming. It had been eleven years since his old man realized he couldn’t see his way through and decided instead to bite down on the barrel of a shotgun, but the dreams haunted Gram. Back when the grief was new and especially raw, the dreams were vivid; literal nightmares depicting his father’s suicide. But as time passed, his dreams took on a more fantastical nature. They were less violent but still entirely fucked-up. Death portals bent by the subconscious and forced open by unprocessed grief that horrified him.

  As a boy, Gram sweated through his dreams until, while a student at Harvard, he discovered the benefit of LSD and the ability to make his own dreams.

  He then found speed and the ability to outrun his nightmares.

  And of course, there was always the old reliable benefit of booze and the ability it provided him to outdrink his nightmares.

  And finally, if all of that failed, there was heroin and its ability to totally obliterate his nightmares altogether.

  Self-medicating became a daily necessity, and today was no different. Gram needed to get backstage, find Keith, and get his head on straight before getting onstage.

  Altamont Speedway was littered with stoned hippies lying on blankets, smoking grass, copping feels, blitzing out on acid, playing Frisbee, talking jive, talking revolution. Gram looked around in wonder. He sensed that Tiny couldn’t give a fuck. Tiny was focused on the job at hand: getting Gram to the stage to see his friend the Rolling Stone before he himself went onstage. So Tiny punched it. He drove over blankets, through picnic baskets and foam coolers, all along the way kicking dust up into the faces of everyone they passed. And when some stoned college kid, ignorant to the job at hand, refused to get out of the way, Tiny would slow down and slowly scuff his front wheel up softly against the unsuspecting hippie’s leg or foot while simultaneously giving a pull on the throttle and letting out a death growl from the chopper. It never failed. They’d get the message on the quick and get out of the way.

  As they got closer to the stage the mass of people thickened. Tiny had to slow his chopper to a near stop. Gram moved his cowboy boots from the passenger pegs to the ground, slightly upsetting the balance of the bike. The stage area was in sight. Not the stage, though—it was only four feet tall!—but the stage area. A four-foot-tall stage. For three hundred thousand people. Hippie planning at its best.

  The roar of the chopper parted the remaining audience members who were crammed at the foot of the stage. All that separated the audience from the band was a thin piece of twine. Gram’s heart pulsed with excitement. Keith would be close. He could feel it. And he’d see Gram’s new band and be blown away and then they’d go cop and party into the morning and after that, who knew what? Maybe Keith would produce Gram’s next record? Maybe Keith would even ask Gram to join the Stones? Wild, Gram thought. Wild.

  Finally, Tiny pulled his massive motorcycle up to a stop and parked it, literally, right in front of the stage. Gram hopped off without thanking Tiny for the Herculean task he’d just pulled off for him. Gram was too excited. Let’s get into this, he thought. Where’s Keith? He slipped under the twine and to the side of the stage. From the way he was dressed, it was obvious to the other Hells Angels running stage security that he belonged there. Tiny shook his head and cracked a beer. “Goddamn hippies.”

  Somehow, the rest of the Flying Burrito Brothers managed to find their way into the
show and the backstage area. Gram searched for Keith but he was nowhere to be found, which meant neither was any heroin. Gram took some acid and pulled hard on a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Showtime arrived, and the Burrito Brothers jumped onstage under the California sunshine and dove into a speed-laced-LSD inspired version of the iconic truck-driving tune that Dave Dudley had made famous six years before, “Six Days on the Road.” They sounded great and the crowd loved it. Those of them who could hear and see it, anyway.

  After the set, Gram passed out backstage. When he came to, he was being rousted by Burrito Brothers guitar player Bernie Leadon, who was making the case in no uncertain terms that if they didn’t get out of there now, with the Stones, in their helicopter, then they’d never get out and who knew what the hell would happen. The Hells Angels were on a rampage. Janked on cheap beer, speed, and acid, they’d taken to beating audience members with pool cues. Some kid pulled a gun and got stuck by an Angel and had bled out all over the festival grounds. Bad vibes. All around. You gotta move.

  Gram shook it off, stood up, and got swept up in the movement and energy of the exiting entourage. People all around him were yelling. Screaming. Road crew. Angels. Fans. Entourage members. The mood was beyond dark. The look on the face of Stones drummer, Charlie Watts, said it all. Shit was bad. There was a dead kid in the middle of the Speedway’s dance floor. Woodstock of the West, my ass. Altamont was more like a Hades holiday. The ’60s were over, man, and tonight sealed it. Peace and love died on the dance floor tonight next to an eighteen-year-old named Meredith Hunter.

  Before Gram knew it, he was jammed into the Stones helicopter next to the beautiful Mamas and Papas singer, Michelle Phillips. She roused something in Gram quick, the same thing she roused in most men—lust. Gram couldn’t control himself, and without warning or conceit, and perhaps trying to spin the wheel one last time on the free-love decade, Gram took his chances and tried jamming his tongue down Michelle’s throat. Remarkably, she played it cool. She squirmed in her seat, smiled, and made light of the situation every time Gram made another move until he eventually got the picture.