Norwegian black metal band Mayhem celebrated 40 years of conjuring chaos and darkness, with an amazing two hour show at Quantic Club, on September 3rd. Despite the setbacks (Attila‘s stolen luggage, power cut, migraine… to mention just a few) which seemed to have killed the mood and doomed our chances of an interview with the infamous legends, Necrobuther sat with us for quite a while and we discussed about music, life stuff, past, present and legacy.
DinIntunerec: Hello, welcome to Bucharest and thank you for agreeing to this discussion. First of all, celebrating 40 years is legendary! Nothing short of amazing! Can you walk us through the most powerful memories from all these years, the main things that define who you are today? Also, what does this anniversary mean to you personally?
Necrobuther: For me… It’s… I will reverse the question and say that a lot of people said to me… Oh, when you started out, when you were 16 years old in this band, you didn’t believe that you would get where you are now. But, unfortunately for them, that’s completely wrong, because if I didn’t have faith in this project, I would have never succeeded.
I believed in it the whole time, the whole project, that we would be great and successful. And the only thing which is surprising is that it took 40 years to get where we are now, and I think it should have happened like 30 years ago. Under normal circumstances. But, unfortunately, we had some setbacks. First, you know, one suicide, and then a murder, then two guys quit or got fired, and then we built up everything again. So, the last piece that came into the puzzle was Charles, I think 14 years ago, and Teloch came 15 years ago.
They are the newest members. And after that, when they came in, we started to build on that. Now, we’ve got a lot of years without any problems, let’s say. Like big problems. We have problems, but not like in the past… People are not killing themselves, at least, anymore.
DinIntunerec: How do you stay inspired and motivated to keep creating and performing after four decades?
Necrobuther: For me, it’s the most natural thing to do in the world, so I don’t need any inspiration or motivation to live my life. This is my life, I just live it, you know. I guess one thing that is inspiring, is the fact that we are still here after 40 years, that itself is very inspiring. And I’m thinking, (maybe I’m asking a later question, but we’ll see)… If I can make it for another ten years now, that would be like a 50-year anniversary. I started the band when I was 16 years old.
That means I’ll be 66 years old, when we celebrate 50. And the retirement in Norway is 67, when you get your state pension. When I was younger, I was hoping that it would carry me financially through my life, but, you know, only hoping. We were always struggling with money. We never had lots of money or anything like that. So, the fear of having another job has constantly been haunting me.
DinIntunerec: What would be so dreadful about that?
Necrobuther: For one thing, it would fuck up the touring… Then it would fuck up the time for rehearsing and all of these things, you know. And then everything would take even more time. So, I had the fear that at some point, something would fuck up and then we had to quit… And I’ll have to find myself a regular job or something.
However, some years ago, I realized that this was gonna be it. It’s a lifetime achievement when you start your own business when you’re 16 years old, you stay with it your whole life, and then you retire. I don’t have any problems with receiving state pension, because in Norway, you pay 10% of your salary that you make your whole life… It’s 10% that they hold back for your pension. So, if you only get 67 years old, all that money goes to somebody else. It’s your personal money, really, they took from you in tax. So, I’m thinking, I need to stay here some more years to collect my tax money. You know what I mean? I’m gonna be like that grumpy guy who never goes. I’ll be over 100 years old and still get my pension.
DinIntunerec: When and how did you come up with the name The True Mayhem? Why not just Mayhem?
Necrobuther: Yeah, this is a classic story. We found the name Mayhem in 1984, when we started to rehearse. Then, we saw another band called New York City Mayhem. And there was another band called itself Mayhem in Brazil. And we thought: “Oh no, this is no good.” We have to clarify who we are. So, we thought, we’ll just say we are The True Mayhem, right? So there would be no confusion which Mayhem they were talking about.
DinIntunerec: Was your music perceived differently in the ‘80s and ’90s? What do you think about the new generation? Do you think they pay attention to the lyrics and understand your message?
Necrobuther: This is my bonus. Most music is temporary. It means you play for your contemporaries, also for your age group. Your kids or your parents… They will say this is noise. If you know what I mean? It’s always been like that. Elvis was Satan playing noise, and then there was Beatles, and then there was The Rolling Stones. Then Black Sabbath, afterwards Venom, and then there was Mayhem.
So, here’s the cool thing. We have picked up new fans all the time. Even now, today, 40 years later, we still have fans who are under 16 years old and their parents have to bring them to the concerts. This means that we reached out to other generations than ourselves, and this is what makes us legendary. I don’t want to brag about myself, but this is what the legendary bands are about. They speak to different generations. That is the sign of quality, you know. I would know, because I’m in the middle of it. I don’t see it from the outside.
DinIntunerec: There are tens of bands that got inspired by your sound, by your live shows, by your lyrics. So, this is also part of your legacy.
Necrobuther: Yeah, absolutely. Everything that comes with it. To add to your question… This music is not even enough for people to listen to it. They have to start their own bands too, the fans. That’s how strong they feel about this music. This is how strong I felt about it when I was a kid too. I started the band under a different name. We were called Musta. With a drummer who used to be my classmate. I’ve known the guy for 49 years. I’m 55 now. Or is it 56? No, I’m 56, for fuck’s sake. What was I saying?… Well, I started my first band as I was feeling so strong about the music I was listening to back then… Obviously, some of our fans have done the same… got inspired and started their own venture…
DinIntunerec: With your latest albums I noticed the creative process changed, I mean at some point Teloch used to write the songs, then little by little, it started to become more and more of a joint effort, everyone throwing things into the pot. Can you offer some more details on that?
Necrobuther: In many bands, there is one songwriter or two songwriters, which is very typical. And the rest of the band, even if they have good ideas, are left out of the process. So, you give that some time, and then other members have to realize after a while that if you have something good to come up with, they can’t deny it forever. So, that’s why we said, okay, you know what? We don’t have that anymore. Nobody has any exclusive rights to write everything. Everybody comes with suggestions, and then we will count out in the end what comes on the record.
So, we are all free to do our inputs. We do our inputs on our instruments. Like our own personal touch to it, you know, the drums, the guitar, the bass, the vocals. But then, for example, I was asked to write some lyrics for the new album, and I came up with the Bad Blood track. At the same time, Charles was also let in, allowed to chip in. He came up with, I think, five songs on the new album, the Daemon album, and Teloch did the others. Or something like that… And it’s going to be the same process for the next album as well.
Many good ideas are lost because people have big egos, and they don’t allow other people to come in as songwriters and stuff.
That has been going on in Mayhem for many years and we have fought hard to get out of this. So that everybody should be respected as musician and songwriter. We all have written songs by ourselves in the past. Then we had other people who came in and said, no, Jan, no Necro, you are not allowed to write anything because this is a concept and you don’t get it. This is what happened with one of our albums, like I said. That’s why we don’t play many songs of it either, because it’s kind of made in the studio… It wasn’t rehearsed.
Same with Blasphemer, when he wrote Ordo ad Chao. Nobody was let into the project, and it became a studio project, and we couldn’t do much of it live. That is what happens when you don’t bring your fellow musicians into the loop. When you suddenly want to play it live, it doesn’t work, because you never even tried it out.
DinIntunerec: Daemon, your latest full-length is a conceptual album. Can we get a little deeper into that ? What inspired its creation, and how does it connect to Mayhem’s legacy and evolution as a band?
Necrobuther: We have three different songwriters, text writers and stuff on Daemon. So the concept this time was that all the members were going to try to chip in. And we all know, everybody has demons in them. We’re all fighting our demons on some level. So I think that this album is manifesting, from a musical point of view, the demons within us. Obviously, we play aggressive music, so it’s not our soft side that comes out. It is our demon that comes out. Also, it’s fictional, we’re on stage, lights are blinking, it’s like at the theater. So it’s like a more theatrical aspect of it.
I think that since we now have come into this, about the evolution… Hopefully, we have two more… We have contracted two more albums on the contract we have now with Century Media Records. We release an album every fifth year, approximately. So it’s not hard to see that those are probably going to be our two last albums. The next one and then maybe one more. I thought to myself, if Daemon was going to be the last one, I would be happy with that too. So everything is a bonus. But we are working on a new album, we have made some songs which everybody like. So it looks more and more that we’re going to do it.
We’ll record maybe next year, and then we’ll start the world tour.
If it comes out in 2026, it’ll take a couple of years to fulfill the 200 concerts we have to do on the five continents. By that time, when we finish that, three or four years from now, we’ll see if we have the health, if the world is still here as we know it. Because a lot of things are changing all the time, like Russia.
We were always touring in Russia. Every time we come out with an album, we tour in Russia. Last time we toured was just before the COVID thing. We did six shows in Russia. Some places we have never played before. And I thought, okay, great. Now we can start touring even more in Russia. But now, it looks like we’re never going to go back to Russia again.
From a different perspective, also, let’s face it, this is hard. It’s physically hard also. I hope that Hellhammer and all the guys will keep it up. But ten more years, we’re going to be in our mid-60s. We will see. We hope for the best. It looks like we have two more albums. It’s going to take us about ten years to fulfill the whole thing. By that time, we celebrate 50 years, and why not, if we make it to that, of course we have to celebrate it. Then we have to go out and do the 50-year anniversary tour. That’s going to take a couple of years as well. At least two years. And then we are 69.
Some artists never give up.
I heard some stories from artists. Some people say they should quit. They are old, they are fat, they lost their hair, whatever. But there are fans who refuse. They refuse to admit that their heroes are getting older and there is more and more hassle for them. And they just say, we still want you guys. And if enough people do that, and the pressure is on the booking agents… Well, the booking agents call our manager, and the manager calls us and says, hey guys, we have offers. The fans want to hear you. I mean, we are entertainers. It’s like heroin, we have to do it. Regardless of how old and creepy we are.
Look at these people like Paul Di’Anno, for example, he’s in a wheelchair now. Yet, he’s still doing it. They never give up. Actually, I put some extra stuff to your interview, made it a little bit exclusive. I’m thinking to myself every fucking year, because we play at Wacken, Rockstadt, or wherever, you know… When the fuck are these Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and all these fucking bands going to quit? Because we want to be on the top of the bill, but we can never do that, as long as these old fucking dinosaurs are still there. We will never get rid of these guys. They’re 20 years older than me. Why the hell is this going on? But this is also great for me. If they do it, I can also do it.
But I only want ten more years.
Afterwards, maybe I can do some gigs here and there. But, I’m not going to do 200 gigs in two years and shit like that. I would like to kick back and have some vacations myself, and enjoy my time with my family. That’s the problem, you know, when you’re a touring artist. You are missing a lot of birthdays, you’re missing Christmases, you’re missing all the vacations, graduations, weddings… I mean, I don’t celebrate my own birthday, but my kids, they like to celebrate their dad. My grandchildren as well.
So, at some point, you know, it would be good to retire from the whole thing. But, as long as I have fans who demand that I come and play, I will do it, probably. Now I do it because I want to. Not just because of the fans… But there will come a time when I will think: Oh, I’m tired. But the fans refuse to let me go. Which is a good thing.
DinIntunerec: Bad Blood from the aforementioned album is a crushing one! Can you share the inspiration behind this song?
Necrobuther: You’ll love this one… ha, ha! I came home after a long tour, I think it was in the United States, a five week tour. And there had been some very bad mood after a while. We were tired and we got on each other’s nerves more and more. So, when I came home, tried to sleep… I hadn’t slept properly for five weeks because I have insomnia and I can’t sleep on the bus. So imagine five weeks, it’s heavy.
So when I came home, I still couldn’t sleep. I was lying in bed thinking that if I could get my feelings down on paper, it would make some very strong lyrics. So I got up in the night, wrote up what was on my head, like bad blood, brotherhood destroyed. Basically, my frustration of the other band members, that they had fucked up the band, the brotherhood, by acting like idiots. So that became the Bad Blood track.
Attila writes great lyrics, but they’re mostly about conspiracy theories, or some books, or some folklore, or some stuff like that. I tried to get him for the next album to write something personal. That’s always the strongest material, in my opinion. So, I wrote Bad Blood lyric and I was hoping that he would catch on… Not write shit about me, obviously… Just to take his feelings and put them down on paper. So, this song came about through frustration of the work environment, the stress that is on a touring band. Especially, since we’ve been around for 40 years, we get on each other’s nerves a lot. Even with small things, like slamming the door, talking when you’re sleeping, just stupid things like that.
DinIntunerec: After your intense set at Rockstadt Extreme Fest 2023, you’re returning to Romania. What draws you to this country?
Necrobuther: We have been touring around in Europe, starting with 1990. We started touring in 1985, really. But in Europe we came in 1990. Then we started to do more and more European tours in the 2000s. Romania was never on the map. We would have come if there were any offers. Then, finally, an offer came from Brasov. So, we put Brasov on the map. Then, we did Brasov one more time in 2022. In 2023, we did Rockstadt Extreme Fest. Now we have come back to Romania for our 40th anniversary tour. Actually, it is our first time in Bucharest. Ever.
It’s not up to us. If it was up to me, I would have been here 40 years ago. We have fans here. A lot. So, I don’t understand why we haven’t been here before. But, then again, it gives me more pleasure to be here now. Instead, let’s say we could have done some shitty-ass clubs and two, three hundred people would have shown up. Now, 40 years later, we have a thousand people. Packed house, nice venue. So, as long as the power doesn’t go off again, it’s going to be epic!
DinIntunerec: How do you see the underground metal scene nowadays? Apart from quantity, as it seems there are a lot of new bands emerging everywhere, do you think there is quality too?
Necrobuther: People talk about the underground and shit. Also people say, oh, you’re not underground anymore. But, that’s not the thing. The underground is getting bigger. So, it’s not really underground anymore in that sense. But the word underground comes from this kind of style and how we did it back in the days. I stand for it. We’re underground band, for sure. But now, underground is bigger. We’re still underground, in a sense. The event tonight it’s not going to be covered by Romanian state TV, for example. If you know what I mean.
So, I would just say, we are still underground, it’s just that the underground is getting bigger. So, people don’t see it as underground anymore. They think we moved to mainstream. But it is not true… mainstream is that Swift girl or what do you call that woman in America?
DinIntunerec: You mean Taylor Swift?
Necrobuther: Oh. Yeah. That’s mainstream. We are underground and proud of that. You should use my Taylor Smith comparison. It’s a good one.
DinIntunerec: What I meant is that back in the days, there were way less bands, but most of them were memorable. Now, there are thousands of bands everywhere. But everything sounds devoid of emotion and more or less the same. This is a personal view, you know. I can’t understand how people living on a beach pretend they play black metal. How can the beach, the sun, the parties with flowers. cocktails and bikini inspire black metal?
Necrobuther: This is why everything they do sounds so sterile. Everything sounds the same. Sometimes you listen to an album and you don’t realize when a song is over and when the next one begins, because it’s all the same. All have the same expression. Nothing new. But, you know, it’s probably hard to come up with something original when you have the basics, the metal, the double bass drums, the screaming vocals and stuff.
So you have the concept and then you have thousands and thousands of people doing it their own way. After almost half a century of this type of music, in the end, it kind of stagnates. Or people repeat themselves… It’s just bound to happen. And the good ones are drawn into all that stuff, like thousands and thousands and thousands of records. I’m sure there must be many diamonds there that are just lost. Because they are never released.
Unfortunately, many people don’t know what to expect about having a band, about starting a band.
Maybe they expect too much. Probably they believe it’s not so much work as it really is. They just look on the bright side maybe, on the idea of fame. They want to sound like their idols. They desperately try to copy artists that are somehow iconic. It’s nothing new. All type of music and art and stuff, everything is inspired by other artists. All the musicians will tell you they were inspired by something else. Sometimes the product doesn’t sound like the thing they were inspired by. But some other times it’s almost the same.
DinIntunerec: What was the best or worst, an unforgettable incident, a memory that happened during your stage shows?
Necrobuther: Let me think… So, one of the strongest experiences I had when I’ve been out touring is when I met Dead‘s brothers in Stockholm for the first time. They told me how grateful they were that I kept their brother’s legacy alive and I felt very proud and honored they felt that way.
However, I also have a fanboy moment. I was playing in Finland four weeks ago and met up with Thomas Fischer from Celtic Frost. I went up to him and I introduced myself and I said to him it’s weird that we haven’t met before. He said: “No, that’s not true, we met 20 years ago. You came into the backstage and said hello when we played in Oslo…” He remembered the whole thing… I had forgotten about it. Wow… this guy meets someone and remembers after 20 years… I also meet people, but I don’t remember everybody that comes into our backstage…
The fact he remembered, made me happy. I was the one that went over to him, because Celtic Frost has always been a great inspiration for me. So, the fact that he remembered means it must have meant something for him as well. It was like two brothers meeting up… Just twin souls, one from Switzerland and one from Norway… We had some similar stories… You know his bass player died, Martin Ain… But he kept on carrying his legacy and I did the same with my dead members.
DinIntunerec: What is the most important life lesson that you have learnt so far?
Necrobutcher: Most important life lesson… I think it must be that you find something you believe in 100% and then you stand behind that and you don’t compromise. That is my life lesson that I would like to share with other people.
DinIntunerec: Thank you for your time, any final words for our readers?
Necrobutcher: Well, I must go and get ready for my show tonight… I’ll wrap it up by saying thank you for coming to the show tonight and for supporting us all along our 40 years journey!
