Øystein Aarseth

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Øystein Aarseth (March 22 1968–August 10 1993) was a guitarist for the infamous Norwegian black metal band Mayhem who went by the stage name Euronymous. He was also the founder and owner of Deathlike Silence, his own record label for underground black metal bands.

Career

Aarseth joined Mayhem in 1984. At the time he went by the stage name "Destructor". When he joined the band (which then consisted of Jorn Stubberud on bass and Kjetil Manheim on drums) he changed his name to Euronymous, which he claimed means "Prince Of Death" in Greek, but in fact derived from a reference to the Greek demon Euronymous in the Satanic Bible. Aarseth's pro Satan stance in the band had a profound effect on all of its members, and on the Norwegian black metal scene as a whole (though Aarseth's "inner circle" was meant to bring back the viking religion see "Asatru", It was also known that Aarseth also hated LaVey, the founder of the church of satan, Euronymous could not really then be considered a satanist, or a "pure" satanist.)(To Many, Aarseth was more of a nerd than a true evil person and never much followed through with everything. Aarseth became the single man at the hub of all the black metal goings-on. He opened a record store called Helvete (Norwegian for "Hell") and started his own record label and mailorder, which he named "Deathlike Silence". When Mayhem's vocalist, Dead, committed suicide, Euronymous discovered the corpse and took pictures which were later used as an album cover for a bootleg against Aarseth's wishes. It is also widely thought that Euronymous consumed portions of Dead's brain and made a necklace using fragments of Dead's skull. In a recent interview, Hellhammer claimed the necklace was stolen while on tour. It is believed though that black metal band Marduk probably has some other, smaller pieces. "It" from Abruptum also claims to still have some small fragments.

Personal life

According to Varg Vikernes in the book Lords Of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, Aarseth was a homosexual. According to Vikernes: "Some weeks before I killed Øystein, another guy joined me on a trip to Oslo, and he told me he had once searched Øystein's drawers and had actually found a dildo with shit on it." Also according to Vikernes, Aarseth was not serious about Satanism, but Vikernes would say that if you are a Satanist, you invert everything that Christianity is, and would provoke Aarseth about not being a Satanist and "not following anything," but Aarseth would follow. Vikernes also says that Øystein: "spent large parts of his time watching child pornography - disgusting films with hermaphrodites having anal intercourse with men, so called "snuff" films where ordinary people are kidnapped and tortured to death in front of the camera. For example - I have been eagerly told descriptions of what these films are like from (Aarseth)-dildos with nails are pushed into women's crotches, or they are nailed to tables through their labias." (Note that Aarseth was probably not homosexual, according to Varg Vikernes in his Burzum story articles, Aarseth had acctually attacked two men for "looking at his girl".)

Aarseth seemed to have a fascination in death and other sick-minded things, a highly potential reason for his liking of former Mayhem vocalist Dead, real name Per Yngve Ohlin, though according to Vikernes in the same book, Dead hated Aarseth. However, the authors of Lords of Chaos warn that Varg Vikernes is well-known for his compulsive lying, as can be seen by his differing interview answers between the two versions of Lords of Chaos.

Death

In 1993, Øystein Aarseth was stabbed to death by Varg Vikernes (who at the time went by the name "Count Grishnackh"). According to the official report, he was stabbed a total of twenty-three times: two to the head, five to the neck, and sixteen to the back. However, Vikernes disputes this, saying instead that Aarseth fell on some broken glass as he was fleeing, which would explain high number of back punctures. There is much speculation with regards to the motive for the murder, but Vikernes has stated that the stabbing was motivated mostly by self-defence (see: A Burzum Story).

After Aarseth's death, Mayhem continued recording their upcoming album, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. However, Euronymous's mother told Hellhammer, Mayhem's drummer, to remove basslines that had been recorded by Varg. He said to her that he would personally re-record the bass himself, but the truth is that he had no idea how to, so the album remained the same, featuring Varg on it. Other rumours about Occultus, Mayhem's former vocalist, playing the new bass lines are thought to be false as well. By the time Century Black started distributing Mayhem this has become a bit of an open secret so the basslines were removed completely on most of the recent prints of the album.es:Øystein Aarseth fr:Øystein Aarseth no:Øystein Aarseth pl:Øystein Aarseth pt:Øystein Aarseth fi:Euronymous sv:Euronymous