Motörhead

Motörhead appears in the account of Norwegian Black Metal as the band whose concert brought Jon Kristiansen, known as Metalion, into contact with Mayhem. The reference marks a chance meeting that connected the magazine publisher with a group then beginning to establish itself in Norway’s underground metal scene.

The concert encounter

During this period, Metalion met Mayhem outside a Motörhead concert. He was selling his magazine, and the band members told him about their group. The account presents the meeting as an introduction rather than a performance review: it gives no details about the concert itself or Motörhead’s set.

Connection to Mayhem

The encounter put Metalion in contact with Mayhem before the band had made a demo tape. After a few months, he and the group became closer; in the summer of 1986, Mayhem recorded its first demo, Pure Fucking Armageddon. Motörhead’s place in this history is therefore circumstantial but distinct: its concert formed the setting for a meeting that helped Metalion discover Mayhem.

Scope of the reference

The book does not develop Motörhead’s musical influence on Mayhem or on the Norwegian scene in this passage. It records the concert as a point of contact in Metalion’s recollection of how he encountered the band, without assigning Motörhead a further role in the scene’s development.