Metal

“Dead” on His Last Album Cover

Norwegian black metal has produced some vile artwork over the years, but hands down the most gruesome, say-a-prayer-and-puke-in-your-mouth album cover is Mayhem’s Dawn of the Black Hearts.

Recorded in Sarpsborg, Norway on February 28, 1990

The photograph features the fashionable lead singer wearing a vintage “I ♥ Transylvania” tshirt under a black denim jacket—with his brains oozing out of his blasted skull like a shriveling slug crawling over a pile of salt. He was 22 at the time. The boy’s family knew him as little Per Yngve Ohlin, but to the global black metal community he is “Dead.”

Norway is one of the darkest human habitats on earth. Circadian rhythms are stretched between polar night and the midnight sun. Earmuffs are a must. Despite the high standard of living, socialized medicine, state-sponsored churches, A-ha’s “Take on Me,” and a thriving whaling industry, antsy Norwegian gnomes produced the most Satanic music scene since the Thuggee drum circles. Kali maaah!

Dead said in his heavy accent, “I have always hated the Christianity and all faiths who had anything to do with God, but especially the Christianity.” He was not alone.

It was the late 80s, and Scandinavia’s blood-thirsty teenagers were sick of gentle Jesus and his band of merry miracle-workers. These kids wanted something mean. Black magic. Black leather. The blackened husks of burnt churches. They gathered in abandoned urban ruins to shred guitar strings and invoke the dark gods. Lucifer. Odin. Pan. Angra Mainyu. The Boogie Man. They were all slotted to appear, but the headliner was Mayhem.

Led by guitarist Euronymous, Mayhem sought to be the evilest, scariest, blackest black metal band on the block—so black, they could tear rainbows out of the sky. Euronymous was an avid Communist who dreamed of a Satanic Proletariat rising up to cut the throats of capitalist swine—but black metal embraced diversity. The scene attracted anarchists, fascists, Satanists, neo-pagans, and naughty boys of every creed.

Dead joined Mayhem as a teenager in 1988, replacing a string of less committed vocalists. He and Euronymous set themselves to the fashion-conscious task of saving metal from Metallica fans.

“Scandinavia hasn’t got any scene,” Dead complained early on. “Only wimps and trendies are here.”

Dead was reputed to bury his clothes to capture the feel of the grave. He huffed the putrid fumes of a raven carcass before every gig to get into the doom groove. Imagine an undead beach-bunny with corpsepaint framed by golden locks, and vocals like a gruff ice-giant berating his server for an overcooked whale steak. The front of Mayhem’s stage was lined with impaled pig heads, and Dead would gash himself with hunting knives or broken glass, smearing anyone who got too close.

“We wanna scare those shouldn’t be at our concerts,” said Dead, “and they will have to escape through the emergency exit with parts of their body missing, so we can have something to throw around.”

Competition was tough in those days. With every metalhead going out of his way to out-evil the next guy, it would take something special to stand out. Mayhem refused to be entertainers for tourists and “non-evil wimps.”

“If someone doesn’t like blood and rotten flesh thrown in their face they can FUCK OFF, and that’s exactly what they do. We are trying to turn the scene back to what it once was, when no Death Metallers were wearing Adidas shit and looked totally normal[...]

“I wanna have stage equipment at our shows of Transylvanian landscape, instruments of torture that are from the 1th century, real trees from a dead forest[...] different animal heads and human craniums hanging in meat hooks by chains from the dead trees and the heads have huge screws in their eyes… that’s what I think would make the perfect mood.”

Oh, the fanciful ambitions of youth. The dawn of the 90s found Dead working hard to compose the lyrics for Mayhem’s upcoming album. Songs like “Life Eternal” reveal an individual of singular focus:

To release the soul one must die
To find peace inside you must get eternal

I am a mortal, but am I human?
How beautiful life is now when my time has come
A human destiny, but nothing human inside

What will be left of me when I’m dead?
There was nothing when I lived

“The wimps will not ever understand it,” he predicted.

The album would be called De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. “That title comes from a story of a book with that name,” Dead explained, “which is Latin for ‘Lord Satan’s secret files,’ and it’s thought to exist in only one copy, and I won’t give up searching for it.”

“I must find it before some wimpy mainstream jerk will do that. I think I’ll have an expedition on my own around the world to find it. It’s so dark, darker than death.”

Perhaps history would be dramatically different if Dead had found this mythical tome, but he just ended up crashing at Euronymous’ dirty little cabin on the outskirts of Oslo instead. They often had no money or food, so Dead passed the time by watching classic horror movies, supposed snuff films, “sadistic porno, kinky shit, and lesbian stuff.”

Friends said that he became increasingly depressed, and that Euronymous’ constant bullying was driving him crazy. No one ever mentioned a girlfriend. Or groupies. Or any female companions whatsoever.

Then on April 8, 1991, Euronymous called up Necrobutcher to announce the good news. “Dead has done something really cool!” he told the bass-player. “He killed himself.”

As the story goes, Euronymous returned to the cabin to find the doors locked. He climbed in through the bedroom window and found Dead living up to his namesake, having blown his forehead off with Euronymous’ own shotgun. He’d tried to cut his wrists, but the knife was too dull. His suicide note read: “Excuse all the blood. Let the party begin.”

Not one to miss a photo op, Euronymous hopped into his car to buy a camera. He sped back home, snapped a few pictures—“Okay, now give me spooky… that’s it… hold that pose…”—and then called the police. But not before securing some chunks of Dead’s shredded brain—which he later ate with a few minions—and some skull fragments that he would turn into amulets.

Dead’s suicide became the stuff of black metal legend. Euronymous rode the shockwave to infernal glory, making Dead a martyr in the war against “the trend people”:

“Dead killed himself because he lived only for the true old black metal scene and lifestyle. It means black clothes, spikes, crosses, and so on…”

Euronymous soon began selling such artifacts at the most notorious record shop in black metal history—Helvete. It was there that he and bassist Varg Vilkernes would organize people against goodness and normalcy. The group set dozens of ancient churches ablaze. There were demonic conjurings, assaults on homosexuals, and even a murder or two. One of them was Euronymous. Having tired of the guitarists’ Commie bullshit, the fascist-leaning Vilkernes stabbed Euronymous to death in his tighty whities on August 10, 1993.

Two years later, the famous bootleg Dawn of the Black Hearts was released in South America. The recording features Dead’s vocals and the cover shows his face looking like an inside-out tomato. The story metastasized and spread across the globe, touching metal fans from Argentina to Japan.

Years later, Necrobutcher discussed the impact of Per Yngve Ohlin’s icon:

“Some people became more aware of the scene after Dead had shot himself. After that, churches started to burn and it just went crazy here. I think it was Dead’s suicide that really changed the whole scene[...] A lot of young musicians got into this scene because it was the most aggressive and violent scene out there at the time.”

Dead might not perform the songs on De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, but his words would echo from the beyond:

Darkness is growing
The eternity opens

The cemetery lights up again
As in ancient times

Fallen souls die behind my steps
By following the freezing moon

And to think, Christians still burn heavy metal albums. Good thing there’s the Internet, huh?

Mayhem — “Freezing Moon”
c.1990

Randy Rhoads and that
Damned Beechcraft

March 19, 2011 By JoeBot

Courtesy of Brandt Hardin at DREGstudios.com

It is questionable whether humans were ever meant to fly. The instinctive, white-knuckle terror which grips the average person at great heights is proof to many that we should just stay on the ground. Desperate prayers are uttered, pills are swallowed, lifetimes reconsidered, armrests torn from their hinges. Then the gears ease down for a smooth landing, and the Universe becomes a safe place once again—for now, anyway. While it is arguable that the laws of physics would not allow us to become airborne if we were not intended to be, gravity and high velocity are unforgiving judges of performance. Just one false move, and you’re an Icarus-splat on the dirt.

Randy Rhoads was acutely conscious of that fact, and terrified of flying. So it is curious that he came to be in the passenger seat of a Beechcraft light airplane on March 19, 1982, with the pilot executing daredevil dive-bombs over Ozzy Osbourne’s tour bus.

Ozzy had recognized Rhoads’ genius upon hearing the first note of his two-minute audition in 1980. The “Prince of Darkness” immediately invited Rhoads to record on Blizzard of Ozz. Over the course of two years, the young guitarist would ride a rising tide of permed headbangers to become a heavy metal legend. Besides his mastery of blistering metal riffs, Rhoads was also a proficient classical player, as evidenced by his elaborate solos. In fact, he remained an eager student to the end, scheduling lessons with various classical instructors on each stop of the Diary of a Madman Tour—down to his last gig in Knoxville, TN.

The band stopped for tour bus repairs on their way to Orlando, FL. As it happened, the depot was next to a small airstrip, and the wily tour bus driver knew how to get a plane off the ground (though his license had been revoked.) As the rest of the band slept on the bus, three thrill-seekers gaffled a Beechcraft Bonanza for a quick joyride: 25 year-old Randy Rhoads; the band’s hairdresser and costume designer, Rachael Youngblood; and the bus driver, Andrew Aycock, who snorted a sackful of magic pilot dust before jumping into the cockpit.

It isn’t hard to imagine what Aycock was thinking as he buzzed the tour bus like he was the rock n’ roll Red Baron. Aycock’s ex-wife, whom he’d fought with all the way from Tennessee, was down there. One can assume that the moniker “Gaycock” had been dropped on him at least once, now that she was free of his surname. Perhaps he just wanted to impress his former soulmate—or else put the fear of God into her. One way or the other, it’s clear that Aycock got cocky and his gak-fueled lunacy got the best of him.

But what were his passengers doing? Had they known they were in for a wild ride? Was Randy trying to overcome his flight phobia? Was he laughing at the gods? Screaming for his life? We will never know. On the third or fourth pass, the Beechcraft’s wing clipped the tour bus, tearing off its roof. The plane spun out, lobbed off the top of a pine tree, and smashed into a nearby mansion, exploding on impact. Everyone on board was incinerated.

Ozzy was overcome with grief for his close friend. “He was a saint,” the singer said of Rhoads, “He was an angel, and too good for this world. His death is always on my mind.” Although Randy Rhoads is pretty much unknown outside of heavy metal circles, his California gravesite still attracts scattered throngs of shredder devotees on his deathday.

The Mr. Crowley EP quickly became the best-selling picture disc of all-time, but sadly, Osbourne’s subsequent albums would never have the same bite after Rhoads’ passing. The band’s mullets would never be so skillfully feathered after the loss of Rachael Youngblood, either. That Ozzy did not follow them to the grave directly is a striking testament to his pact with the dark gods of this world. He later joked: “Had I been awake, I’d have been on that plane—probably sitting on the fucking wing.”

It seems that a rock star’s natural impulse is to defy gravity. High on drugs, high-dollar whores, high society, traveling at high altitudes—it all just comes with the territory. Rigorous tour schedules and stunning wads of pocket money put successful musicians on the next flight to somewhere, day after day. It’s no wonder that some crash to the ground—particularly those flying in light private planes.

The Beechcraft was the martyr-making death machine in early rock n’ roll history. Its first victims were claimed on February 3, 1959—the Day the Music Died. Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. “Big Bopper” Richardson boarded a 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza—the first in the Bonanza series—departing Clear Lake, IA. Taking off in the fog and snow, their plane barely made it five miles before disappearing from radar. Of course, all three artists reappeared at the top of the pop charts.

On July 31, 1964, “Gentleman” Jim Reeves hit a thunderstorm ten miles out of Nashville, TN and crashed his Beechcraft 35-B33 Debonair into the woods—just a year and a half after Pasty Cline had come to a similar end. In fact, Jim Reeves had taken pilot lessons from the same instructor as Patsy’s manager, Randy Hughes, who flew the plane she died in. Predictably, Reeve’s country ballad “I Love You Because” became the best-selling single of 1964 after his death.

On December 10, 1967—three days after recording the aqueous tune “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay”—Otis Redding was plunged into the freezing waters of Lake Monoma outside of Madison, WI. His death machine was a twin-engine Beechcraft H18, which made it less than four miles from the runway before spinning out of control. All but one of the passengers either drowned or succumbed to hypothermia. Redding’s memorial drew 4,500 people, and his posthumously released R&B record sold 4 million copies.

Jim Croce, whose rock hit “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” was the baddest tune in the whole damn town, had recently lost his luggage on a major air-carrier. Sick of the hassles, he hired his own Beechcraft E18S to fly him and his band out from Natchitoches, Louisiana on September 20, 1973. They may have over-packed a bit, because the pilot failed to gain sufficient altitude while taking off. The plane clipped some trees at the end of the runway and smashed into the ground. Released after his death, “I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song” seems strangely poignant in light of the accident.

The Beechcraft’s ferocious appetite eventually subsided after Randy Rhoads died in 1982, giving way to a variety of other star-hungry vehicles. In 1985, teen idol Ricky Nelson’s DC-3 went down in a ball of flame. In 1990, Stevie Ray Vaughn’s helicopter crashed into a ski slope. In 1997, John Denver crashed his Rutan Long-EZ into the Monterey Bay. And in 2001, up-and-coming star Aaliyah was killed when her coked-up pilot couldn’t get the overloaded Cessna 402-B to the end of the runway before crashing.

Statistically, flying is supposedly sixty times safer than traveling in an automobile—except for rock stars. You’d have to be suicidal to cut a hit record—or, err, upload a widely pirated MP3 album—and then step on board a small plane. Sure, you might take heart knowing that aircraft fatalities have fallen steadily in developed countries since the early 1970s. It may relieve some anxiety to hear that 2010 was the third year in the last four in which there were no U.S. airline fatalities. For nearly ten years now, no major star has died in an air crash. It is possible that as aviation safety technologies continually advance—and rock stars avoid ultralight planes—the Gods of Death have become more merciful. You’d better hope so, Mr. Superstar. Otherwise, the Ancient Ones are getting plenty thirsty for the next martyr’s blood.