Biography

Aarseth formed the original Mayhem line up in 1983. At the time he was going by the stage name "Destructor" but on joining the band he changed his name to Euronymous, a title taken from a Hellhammer song, misspelled from Eurynomos by both Aarseth and Hellhammer.

He opened a record store called Helvete (Norwegian for "Hell") and started his own record label and mailorder, which he named Deathlike Silence Productions. When Mayhem's vocalist Dead committed suicide in April 1991, Aarseth discovered the corpse and took pictures later used for a bootleg cover, though against Aarseth's wishes. It was widely rumoured that Aarseth consumed portions of Dead's brain, but he dismissed this in an interview, although he claimed he had intended to do so. He was also believed to have made a necklace from fragments of Dead's skull. In a recent interview, Hellhammer claimed the necklace was later stolen on tour. The story further says that black metal band Marduk still has other smaller pieces, which was confirmed by Morgan Hakansson. "It" from Abruptum also claims to have fragments.

In a recent interview of Anders Kobro of Carpathian Forest, Kobro was asked about what Euronymous was like as a person. Kobro replied with "I met Øystein on only two, three occasions at nightclubs and did a leisure a jam with him once. As a musician, he was amazing. As a person, a selfish idiot. I mean if one of the band members had more girls around him than than Euronymous did, he did not like it. if he saw someone who had more public attention than him, he did not like it, I mean if anyone did anything just a little bit better than he did, he was not happy. "

Beliefs

Aarseth was a practitioner of theistic Satanism and also a proponent of violence, totalitarianism and state terrorism - factors which would motivate his desire to incite religious fanaticism in a religiously liberal Scandinavia. Although he did not use the music of Mayhem to promote his political leanings, he saw them as mutually compatible with black metal - influenced by the repressive nature of his Satanism as well as his intense misanthropy; all traits which have since apparently been shunned by the majority of black metal musicians in spite of their respect for his role in developing the genre. He admittedly held a disdain for individualism; a mindset which later on would be a motivating factor for the hostility of many black metal musicians towards Right-Hand Path religions. Nevertheless, his beliefs were to have a profound effect on the then-nascent black metal participants.

'Satanism comes from religious Christianity, and there it shall stay. I'm a religious person and I will fight those who misuse His name. People are not supposed to believe in themselves and be individualists. They are supposed to OBEY, to be the SLAVES of religion.' - Euronymous, in an interview by Esa Lahdenpera

Communism

An admirer of communist dictators such as Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, Euronymous was a member of Rød Ungdom, where according to fellow black metal musician Frost, he may have honed his leadership skills of which he would utilize in the early Norwegian black metal scene, where he allegedly led a Black Metal Inner Circle. However, given the divisions within Communism between those who sought the eventual dissolution of the state as envisioned by Karl Marx and those who saw the preservation of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat as it remained under Stalin, the extent to which Euronymous genuinely supported communism would of course be questionable, as given his inclination towards Stalinism and violence - as well as an apparent belief that bands such as Venom were genuinely 'evil' - it is most likely he would have rejected the Communism as envisioned by Marx. Indeed, Euronymous himself implied this, having implied awareness of what Marx ultimately sought.

Satanism

Ostensibly, the theistic Satanism embraced by Euronymous was a deliberate fundamental inversion of Roman Catholic dogma, fully supporting what was found to be abhorrent and blasphemous: for instance, he was an ardent proponent of sodomy, rape and murder simply because they were evil acts. He opposed the teachings of Aleister Crowley and Anton LaVey, for unlike Euronymous they promoted what he saw as 'peace', and commercial frivolity, as well as individualism in contrast to precedence of dogma (although Crowley and LaVey both included dogma in their belief systems, they were also naturally opposed to the subservience that Euronymous promoted).

"Euronymous had this total Satan attitude. I didn't have that- he had that. he was such a devil worshipper you wouldn't believe it." - Mortiis (Source: Christe, Ian. Sound of the Beast: the Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal. New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2004.)

Aarseth apparently did not have a problem with the following of Paganism in the Black Metal scene, however, as the majority of the bands followed this and/or embraced their ancient European/Viking roots. However, Varg Vikernes (who was going by the stage name "Count Grishnackh" at the time) later claimed that Aarseth - determined to promote Satanism and incite intense Christian opposition - disapproved of Vikernes' desire to encourage Paganism. .

Death

On August 10, 1993, Varg Vikernes of Burzum murdered Aarseth. On that night, Vikernes and Snorre Ruch travelled from Bergen to Aarseth’s apartment in Oslo. Upon their arrival a confrontation began, which ended when Vikernes fatally stabbed Aarseth. His body was found outside the apartment with twenty-three cut wounds – two to the head, five to the neck, and sixteen to the back.

It has been speculated that the murder was the result of a power struggle, a financial dispute over Burzum records, or an attempt at "out doing" the stabbing in Lillehammer. Vikernes claims that Aarseth had plotted to torture him to death and videotape the event – using a meeting about an unsigned contract as a pretext. On the night of the murder, Vikernes claims he intended to hand Aarseth the signed contract and "tell him to fuck off", but that Aarseth attacked him first. Additionally, Vikernes defends that most of Aarseth’s cut wounds were caused by broken glass he had fallen on during the struggle.

Regardless of the circumstances, Vikernes was arrested within days, and a few months later was sentenced to 21 years in prison for both the murder and church arsons. In a controversial display, Vikernes actually smiled at the moment his verdict was read, an image that was widely reprinted in the news media.

In May 1994, Mayhem finally released the album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, which features Aarseth on electric guitar and Vikernes on bass guitar. Before the release, Aarseth's family had asked Hellhammer, Mayhem's drummer, to remove the bass parts recorded by Vikernes. Although Hellhammer promised to personally re-record the bass parts, in truth he had no idea how to and the final album retains Vikernes' contributions.

Music/instruments

Euronymous played a Standard sunburst Gibson Les Paul guitar, which can be seen in many pictures of him playing. He stated in various interviews that his main guitar influences were bands such as Venom, Bathory, Slayer, Celtic Frost/Hellhammer, and Sodom. He played through a Marshall Half Stack and used an Ibanez Tube Screamer pedal as well as a Metal Master distortion pedal to create a unique sound.