Mayhem‘s Necrobutcher has spoken out about the infamous deaths of his late bandmates, revealing that he himself was on his way to kill Euronymous before he heard of his passing.
The story of Mayhem was recently captured in the movie Lords Of Chaos, starring Sky Ferreira and Rory Culkin. Revered by as forefathers of Norwegian black metal and hugely influential on the world of hard rock, Mayhem were struck by tragedy in 1991 when vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin (“Dead”) took his own life, before guitarist a Øystein Aarseth (“Euronymous”) was murdered by former member Varg Vikernes (“Count Grishnackh”) of Burzum.
Now, with the band preparing to release new album ‘Daemon’ on October 25, Necrobutcher (real name Jørn Stubberud) has spoken of the events that surrounded Euronymous’ death.
“OK, I can tell it right now, because I’ve been holding it in for many years, but actually I was on my way down to kill him myself,” he told Consequence Of Sound. “And when it happened, I saw the morning paper, thinking ‘F**k, I gotta get home to my place and get out all the weapons and drugs and shit I had in my house, because they’re coming to my house because I’m probably going to be the No. 1 suspect for this’.”
He continued: “But little did I know that the Norwegian police already knew that Count Grishnackh [Varg] was going down also to kill him. Because they bugged his phone, and he actually talked about this killing before he went to Bergen so the cops already knew that he was coming, so they probably were thinking to themselves, ‘We didn’t nail this guy for the church burnings, so let’s nail him for murder, and get rid of this f–king guy in Oslo the same time.’ So that’s basically what happened.”
The interview also saw Necrobutcher go on to discuss the 25th anniversary of the band’s seminal debut ‘De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’, and how he found performing it to be a ‘therapeutic experience’.
The influential metal band remain a tour-de-force on the scene, and ‘Daemon’ will mark their sixth album.
Mayhem will perform at Leeds’ Damnation Festival on Saturday November 2, before calling at Dublin Academy on Sunday November 3 and London’s Electric Ballroom on Monday November 4.