The early Norwegian Black Metal scene was notorious for its uncompromising stance against “trendy” death and Black Metal bands that didn’t fit the self-proclaimed standards of the new arising Norwegian “elite”. Hate mail, death threats, even attacks (Paradise Lost, Therion) were some of the violent expressions of this radical attitude. Much of it most likely goes back to Euronymous, who — as the oldest figure and “thought leader” of the Norwegian scene — seems to have had a strong influence on the easily impressionable younger minds around him.
Ivar Bjørnson (Peersen) of ENSLAVED seemed to have been drawn into that wave of influence. Back in those years, rumors circulated that he had repeatedly sent hate letters to bands and individuals he disliked. When asked about it in ‘Skogen’ zine in 1994, Ivar (at that point only 16 years old!) responded:
“I guess I did some stupid letters to persons I didn’t like before…..All that childish crap, running around and writing threatening letters, is really something I am not proud of. I hope this will be buried by the sands of time. Anti-this, anti-that. What is it good for? If one is to dislike something or somebody, tell it face to face!”
I don’t know who else might have been on the receiving end of Ivar’s letters (if you do, let me know), but at least one such letter resurfaced from the ‘sands of time’ on Facebook a couple of years ago. Bart Smits, former vocalist of THE GATHERING, shared a funny story from 1992, involving a then-14-year-old Ivar (aka Daimonion):
“On the Internet it’s quite easy to listen to a band before you buy their album or shirt. So you don’t have to go to their web- or Facebookpage to express your dislike of that band. In the days of tape trading all was different. I never had much negative mail regarding The Gathering demo’s or album but digging through some old stuff one caught my eye.
It was from a (I guess 13/14 year old) member of a Norwegian band Enslaved. He heard from his mates that The Gathering was worth a listen so he wrote a letter asking how much the “Always…” album was and how to order. After replying to him, I got a letter with the money for the album and a T-shirt. Also a warning about a band I had never heard of (I also never heard about Enslaved btw) saying not to deal with them as they were fakes and total nerds.
Apparently he also wasn’t quite fond of The Gathering either, because a while after I sent the album I got a little note written on the back of a flyer to say that the lyrics and image sucked and we looked like a bunch of skaters.
“May the forces of darkness crush The Gathering!” Classic!
To this day, when I see the name Enslaved I have to grin a little. I still have this picture in my mind of a 13 year old kid with full-on corpsepaint riding his bike to the local postoffice to buy a stamp, scribble his hatred on the first piece of paper he could find and mail his letter of diapproval to me. Sometimes I think I still feel the forces of destruction crushing me, but I think that after some 30 years that effect has worn off a bit. I only have a bit of a sore knee at the moment, so that might still be related. Thanks for that, Daimonion!
And I’m proud to be a nerd as well!”
