And the people who did have anything to do with those things are either dead or in jail. As I said at the time, the band that restarted in 1994, we had nothing to do with those things. But I understand we made it hard for the opinion-makers to like us because of what happened in the early ’90s.

It wasn’t that we had been neglected – more that they were working against us, hate campaigns in the major newspapers. It was like people started to be proud of us, that Mayhem had done so well over the years. Today you were invited to lunch at London’s Norwegian Embassy. Mayhem used to be public enemy number one in Norway. “All the documentaries made about us… they never talk to us! So I thought, ‘F**k it, if I write down what happened, there is no room for misunderstandings.’” NME met up with Stubberud on a brief UK visit. A weighty collection of memoirs and photos, Stubberud describes the book as his “counter-attack” on Mayhem’s mythology. They remain a fearsome live act and bassist Jørn Stubberud – better known as Necrobutcher – is about to release a book, The Death Archives: Mayhem 1984-94, telling his side of the story.

But in 2016, Mayhem are an ongoing concern. Mayhem have a backstory that’s hard to escape. You’ll know Euronymous was stabbed to death by former friend (and notorious white supremacist) Varg Vikernes of Burzum, and you’ll know the band were linked to the burning of a number of ancient Christian stave churches across Norway. You might have heard about their early singer Dead, who blew his brains out in 1991, and you’ll know about their guitarist Euronymous, who discovered Dead’s corpse and wore a piece of his skull on a necklace. Louis Pattison meets the author.Įven if you’ve never listened to Norwegian black metal, you probably know about the band Mayhem. And it’s a story that makes Game Of Thrones look like Last Of The Summer Wine. For the first time, a book tells the story of black metal band Mayhem from an insider’s perspective – that of bassist Necrobutcher.

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