In the early 90s, Scandinavia -in particular Norway- had a lot of kids who hated everything, but they didn’t just sit around being haters, oh no- they got off their arses and formed black metal bands, burned down churches, killed each other and made only the best t-shirt designs ever! Platform took some kids to a cemetery, gave them beer and weed and stuck some t-shirts on them in the name of nice photos and satanic music.
(T Shirts supplied by www.heavymetalonline.co.uk)
Photos by MED LACOSTE
MAYHEM
Mayhem had a singer called Dead. Dead saw himself as “A creature from another world, whose blood had frozen in his veins,” He basically saw himself as er, dead. Eventually he lived up to his name and shot himself in the head. Euronymous, Mayhem’s bassist, took some photos of Dead’s dead body and made a necklace out of bits of his skull. Euronymous met a similar grizzly fate…
Best Album: De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
BURZUM
The only member of Burzum is Varg Vikernes, (aka Count Grishnackh!), Varg burnt down several of Norway’s famous wooden Churches in the early nineties and was planning on blowing up a Cathedral WITH Euronymous before he traveled to see him and stabbed the Mayhem bassist to death. He was convicted of the church burnings and murder and served 16 years of a 21 year sentence and was released earlier this year. He is into Nordic mysticism and being pretty unrepentant about everything he’s done.
Best Album: Aske
DARKTHRONE
No one in Darkthrone has murdered anyone, but no other band has defined the spirit of black metal quite so well. They have spent nearly twenty years being totally and utterly anti Christian, completely un-politically correct and absolutely, hatefully primitive. Darkthrone drummer and lyricist Fenriz now spends much of his time railing against the modernization of metal and hiking alone in the vast forests outside of Oslo.
Best Album: A Blaze In The Northern Sky
ENSIFERUM
Ensiferum are a Finnish viking metal band from Helsinki. They’re not strictly black metal but their t shirt with a Viking on it is so cool and their name is Latin for ‘Sword Bearing’, which is pretty jokes. The band themselves describe their sound as ‘heroic folk metal’. This kind of thing is massive in Finland.
Best Album: Victory Songs
