Isn't he a handsome devil?
The first time I saw the video for Gorgoroth’s “Carving a Giant,” it gave me the screaming willies. I’ve seen worse—much worse—but there was something about these corpsepainted ghouls playing Norwegian black metal with bloody bodies writhing at their feet that really creeped me out. If demons fantasize about anything when they stroke it, surely it’s about stuff like this. In many ways, their stage props are the artistic realization of everything poor Per Yngve Ohlin of Mayhem had hoped to accomplish.
The vocalist in the video, known by his stage name Gaahl (age 35,) apparently lives up to this theatrical imagery. He brawled with Scandinavian street gangs as a youth, and was subsequently incarcerated for a brutal, sustained assault in 2001. Then in 2006 he spent nine months in prison for another assault during which Gaahl beat the damnit out of a beligerent visitor in his home, supposedly detaining and torturing the man, then collecting his pitiful captive’s blood to have a swig. In court, Gaahl’s mother insisted that her son is a vegetarian who “eats absolutely no innards,” so he would never drink blood. According to Gaahl, the man attacked him first so he proceeded to enact his own justice without recourse to local authorities.
“I am my own God as I am my own Satan,” he once told an interviewer. “Maybe you could call it Gaahlism.”
While he holds a rather high opinion of himself—as well as ancient Roman emperors such as Caligula and Nero—it takes a lot to win the guy over. Gaahl stated early on: “There are always someone to kill or curse, especially subhumans—niggers, mulattoes, muslims and others!” His pet peeves also include ugly people, sweatpants in public, concepts of equality, and of course, Christianity. He is an avid supporter of the church-burnings that swept Norway in the 1990s, and looks forward to the day they resume full force.
“We have to remove every trace from what Christianity, and the semitic roots, have to offer this world.”
But don’t freak out—Gaahl is no Satan-worshipper. However often he may use the name to describe “the natural order, the will of man, the will to grow, the will to become a superman,” Gaahl is on more of a Euro-shamanic kick.
“The word Satan is from hebrew religions and has nothing to do with my blood. I deny everything that comes from this semitic root. God has nothing to do with our race in any way.”
Aside from being a fierce Norse pagan and a renowned fashion show consultant, Gaahl was also the reluctant recipient of the “Gay Person of the Year” award at Norway’s 2010 Bergen Gay Galla. In a recent interview with Vice Magazine, Gaahl gushes about his young lover-boy, Robin:
“I’ve always preferred the aesthetics of men, but I’d never met a being that could put me out of balance with the universe like this.”
Gaahl left Gorgoroth in 2007 to pursue other projects—including a new fashion line called Wynjo, meaning “the road to happiness and perfection”—but his contribution to Norwegian black metal lingers like the smell of rotten corpses burning on stakes. You won’t find Gaahl hanging on any stakes, though. Not if he can help it.
The lyrics to “Carving a Giant” reflect the antithesis of martyrdom—or self-sacrifice of any sort:
Carving a giant
Carving the eye of a god
Create me
I interpret the song to be about imposing one’s Will upon the Universe, even if that means the Universe might run home to mommy with a ripped bunnyhole. For Gaahl, “the god within yourself is the only true god.” And I don’t think this guy is fucking around when it comes to deicide.
You’d think that the Christians of Norway would gather around this guy’s castle with torches and pitchforks before it’s too late, but I suppose that as long as they have room for “niggers,” “mulattoes,” whale-hunters, Muslims, and Jews, Norway will always have a special place for Gaahl.
Gorgoroth — “Carving a Giant”
2007
