Skip to content

Black Metal

The truth about IMMORTAL’s weird “Call Of The Wintermoon” video

Seriously, is there anyone out there who still hasn’t seen Immortal’s ‘video clip’ for Call of the Wintermoon? The one where Abbath, Demonaz and their then-drummer Kolgrim charge through the woods in corpse paint, spike gear and wizard robes, breathing fire and making ridiculous faces?

The sheer absurdity still cracks people up and leaves them wondering what the hell they just watched. For years, puzzled fans tried to explain it the only way they could: by assuming Immortal had a great sense of humor and didn’t take themselves too seriously. Grim and frostbitten Black Metal — but with a wink.

And yet, nothing could be further from the truth. According to the band, the video was never even supposed to exist.

Read More »The truth about IMMORTAL’s weird “Call Of The Wintermoon” video

Why did Dead actually commit suicid?

There’s a pretty common belief in the scene that two main reasons led to Per “Dead” Ohlin’s suicide: first, that he’d become deeply disillusioned after death/black metal got “corrupted” by mainstream success, and second, that after a near-death experience as a kid, he developed a morbid fascination with death that never left him.

Dr. Schitz, a close friend of Dead and his bandmate in MORBID, doesn’t buy into that at all. In fact, he says those claims are basically a myth — partly started by Euronymous, and later spread by outsiders who never actually knew Dead personally or had any real access to the “inner circle” of Morbid/Mayhem to know things first-hand.Read More »Why did Dead actually commit suicid?

VENOM Interview (German METAL HAMMER, #5 / 1985)

English translation:

There is hardly any other band that has been subject to such mixed opinions as the group that coined the term „Black Metal“. They probably even have more opponents than fans. Nevertheless, the success of Venom is unstoppable. The new mini LP „Canadian Assault“ will probably go gold in Canada.

VENOM themselves say that they make their music the way they want and can. “If someone accuses us of not being good musicians, they may be right,” says drummer Abbadon. “When we recorded “Welcome To Hell“, we were on average 18 years old and did everything the way we thought was right at the time.“

We have always stick to this attitude. No producer talks us into the sound, we do what we want. If we felt like playing love songs, no one could talk us out of it. So I don’t understand why so many people complain about us. We don’t force anyone to listen to our records. We try to do our best for our fans, for those who don’t like us: piss off!”

The day before Venom flew to the US I was able to do the following interview with Cronos.

Read More »VENOM Interview (German METAL HAMMER, #5 / 1985)

Infamous DARKTHRONE Interview (German ROCK HARD magazine, issue #71, April 1993)

English translation:

In our previuos issue, Atrocity frontman Krulle was willing to provide information about various incidents related to Satanism and Norway. Now it was time to interview a band from the orbit of this cult-like group of imbeciles. Ted Skjellum from DARK THRONE seemed to be the right man, even though their new LP “Under A Funeral Moon” doesn’t live up to expectations.

Unfortunately, my conversation with Ted ended up being rather disappointing, as the man hates interviews and certainly doesn’t like being asked about the Norwegian scene. Well, I can only counter that with the saying “The spirits that I’ve cited…”, because after all DARK THRONE were pretty much the first ones who clearly committed themselves to the burgeoning Black Metal movement. So here are the few useful statements from Ted, and I assure you that this was the last time this idiot has been given space in our magazine.

Read More »Infamous DARKTHRONE Interview (German ROCK HARD magazine, issue #71, April 1993)