Mayhem

Mayhem was both a band and a formative center of Norwegian Black Metal: its early recordings and performances established a reputation for extremity, while its founder, Øystein Aarseth, known as Euronymous, helped define the underground around it. Its history also shows how the scene was made: through scarce records, personal networks, visual codes, and shifting ideas of what counted as authentic commitment. The book presents Mayhem as a Norwegian counterpart to Venom’s international influence, and as a group whose legacy remained inseparable from Euronymous even after his death in 1993.

Formation and Early Identity

Mayhem began in 1984, drawing inspiration first from Venom and later from Bathory and Hellhammer. Aarseth initially used the stage name Destructor; the earliest lineup also included Necro Butcher on bass, Manheim on drums, and Messiah as lead vocalist. Aarseth later adopted Euronymous, a name the book connects to occult reference works and a title associated with a prince of death. The shift in name suited the group’s increasingly crafted identity, but its early image was not yet the fully developed theatrical style that would become associated with Norwegian Black Metal.

In early interviews, the band described its music as Total Death Metal. The book notes that Aarseth later claimed Mayhem had played exclusively Black Metal from the beginning, a retrospective account that sits beside the group’s earlier description of itself. At that stage, its public image centered on death, violence, and dark humor rather than a defined religious program. Band members sometimes added inverted crosses to their signatures, but the evidence does not describe this as a developed religious doctrine.

Mayhem played its first show in 1985. Its debut demo, Pure Fucking Armageddon, followed in 1986 in a limited run of 100 numbered copies. The recording was exceptionally primitive and brutal by the standards of its moment. When magazine editor Metalion first encountered the band outside a Motörhead concert, its members had no demo tapes to offer; he later recalled that their single earlier performance had consisted of covers by Celtic Frost, Bathory, and Venom, with Messiah as singer. The contrast between that tentative beginning and the demo’s subsequent reputation helps explain why Mayhem’s early history became a subject of underground recollection.

Releases, Lineups, and the Making of a Reputation

After a second demo, Mayhem issued the Deathcrush mini-album in 1987. Released on its own Posercorpse Music label in an edition of 1,000 copies, it sold out fairly quickly and helped the band build a small but serious following. Its influence grew in part through scarcity: Euronymous released material slowly, whether because of limited finances or because he wanted close control over every aspect of production. Live appearances were also few, which made the performances that did take place enduring reference points for fans.

The group’s lineup changed as its sound and standing developed. In 1987, Maniac replaced the earlier singer, whom Euronymous subsequently described as a former session vocalist, although Messiah had appeared on both the demo and Deathcrush. After the mini-album, Dead, previously the distinctive vocalist of Stockholm group Morbid, joined Mayhem and moved to Oslo. Jan Axel Blomberg, known as Hellhammer, became the drummer. The band’s growing reputation did not bring financial security: even as Deathcrush sold briskly and Mayhem was regarded as one of the most extreme groups in a quiet, conservative country, its members remained very poor.

Mayhem’s look developed alongside its recorded sound. At first, black hair, leather jackets, and dark clothes were ordinary features of the group’s appearance rather than a fully elaborated uniform. Euronymous later adopted corpsepaint, the stylized black-and-white makeup used at concerts and in photographs. It gave the musicians a macabre visual presence and became one of the defining trademarks of Norwegian Black Metal. The shift illustrates how the scene’s identity depended not only on musical experimentation but also on conspicuous attitudes and appearance.

Euronymous, the Underground, and Its Networks

The book describes Norwegian Black Metal as a culture in which music and outlook mattered together, without a stable rulebook. Its boundaries shifted over time, often under the influence of prominent personalities. Mayhem occupied an unusually powerful position in that environment. Aarseth’s control of releases and his standing among younger, disaffected listeners helped make the band a model for groups moving from Death Metal toward Black Metal. The account also cautions against treating the scene as a fixed doctrine: styles and commitments varied, while acceptance depended on personal trust and perceived seriousness.

That social structure gathered around Aarseth’s record shop and label plans. By mid-1991, Darkthrone, Burzum, Immortal, Thorns, Enslaved, and Arcturus were in contact with him, with Emperor joining later; he hoped to release much of their work through Deathlike Silence Productions. Aarseth later used the name Norwegian Black Circle when speaking to the press about the church burnings that began before the end of that year. Emperor’s Ihsahn recalled the shop as a demanding environment where newcomers sought acceptance, trusted participants were admitted, and the older figures commanded respect. Corpsepaint appeared there even during ordinary daytime shopping, turning the style into a visible signal of membership as well as a stage image.

Mayhem’s reach also depended on correspondence and face-to-face contact across the underground. Bård Eithun, who later worked in Aarseth’s shop, said that writing to Mayhem in 1987 brought him into contact with Aarseth and began his involvement in the scene. He met Aarseth and Dead in person outside an Anthrax concert in Oslo in 1989, where Aarseth was selling records. Such encounters connect the band’s influence to practical networks of letters, magazines, records, and shared workplaces—not simply to its recordings.

Legacy, Conflict, and Changing Influence

The book places Mayhem at the beginning of Norwegian Black Metal’s wider cultural influence, but does not reduce the genre to the band alone. Its dramatic personalities helped shape the scene, while its music could accommodate considerable sonic experimentation. Mayhem’s releases, particularly the later album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, are identified as highly influential, alongside Darkthrone’s work. A member of Absurd recalled that Aarseth had wanted to sign the group to Deathlike Silence Productions because its Death from the Forest demo appealed to him. This continuing interest in selecting and circulating other bands’ music extended Mayhem’s influence beyond its own catalogue.

Euronymous’s murder became a rupture in that history and a source of new attention. Ihsahn recalled that, on hearing Aarseth’s name on television, he immediately suspected Varg Vikernes, because he knew that the two men were no longer friends and hated one another. Vikernes later described the person who accompanied him as Mayhem’s second guitarist and Aarseth’s best friend, saying the visit was intended to show Aarseth new guitar riffs; this is Vikernes’s account of the circumstances. The book also records that the killing and subsequent newspaper coverage drew newcomers to Black Metal and encouraged new bands in 1993, including people attracted by the publicity rather than by prior knowledge of the music.

That sudden attention did not mean that crime had created Mayhem’s audience. Ketil Sveen emphasized that Black Metal had been selling before the church fires and murders around 1993, and that Aarseth had been working in the field since the mid-1980s. International reporting did, however, make the music known to a much broader public; one distributor described sales across 25 countries. Later, the scene’s commercial prospects rose and then narrowed as some of its stronger voices turned inward and returned to a harder style. In this history, Mayhem’s significance lies in both sides of the change: it helped make an underground scene visible and influential, while the scene’s codes and fortunes continued to shift around the band and the personalities who shaped it.