Original subtitles

Dead is and remains -

- a kind of saint figure -

- in black metal.

He was artistic at -

- a very extreme, strange way.

When he sang the songs, -

- he was at the place he sang about.

I think he made Mayhem the Mayhem I liked.

He was the one who added the last detail the band needed.

It was clear that he was bothered by something.

He was not well. He needed help.

He did not have to end up in these things to Øystein, -

- which only became worse and worse.

Norwegian texts: Jørn-Are Haugli Johansen

In the 80's we did not have internet, but we had local radio.

The studio was good enough, -

- but the mixer had never heard of Lucifer.

He thought we were playing reggae.

The first time I heard about Mayhem was in an interview with Øystein and Jørn.

Most people are much more likely to get in touch with the band.

It's much more personal.

People write to us, we write back.

We get a lot of letters.

We got the address of Mayhem, and then we wrote letters to them.

It took two or three weeks, and then we got an answer.

It was very fun in the beginning when we discovered that there were several -

- which was a little blown in the head. -It was big. We framed it.

It was boss.

The letters looked like this.

A little elaborate. Euronymous, Necrobutcher and Manheim.

Mayhem is like that trio. "Death is fucking fun."

"Greetings to the true Mayhem."

Mayhem was a band I became aware of when I was 13 years old.

Then I had the band Slaught, which I started due to. Mayhem.

He who designed the logo, had probably seen a lot of this logo.

They became in a way a blueprint for how you can be -

- a very genuine band, for Norwegian extreme metal bands.

Mayhem is in a way patient number one.

There were a lot of little things bubbling around all over Norway.

It was pretty unestablished at first.

The first Norwegian band, apart from Mayhem, that I listened to, was -

- a band from Nittedal called Vomit. They were out very early.

They were the only ones we knew about who were doing the same thing as us.

At least in Norway.

Of course, they became superheroes for us.

They were much older than us and had very long, black hair.

I have seen pictures of myself at that time.

There are braces and pimples ...

We were there, sort of, while they were ...

They were terribly tough, scary and harsh.

We really looked up to them.

I wonder what Mayhem saw in Vomit. It was probably musical.

It was just us. It was Mayhem and Vomit when they met us.

They had no choice.

Either they had to sit alone at Langhus, -

- or there were some bastards in Nittedal -

- who thought they were cool.

They thought our music was good, then.

Once Kittil and I had to jump into Mayhem.

They had neither singer nor drummer.

We got to a point where we did not get much further. A crossroads.

Are you going to go all in, or are you going to come up with something else?

I was one of those who wanted to invent something else.

I did not want to live on crispbread.

It was best to give up.

There and then many probably agreed with me that Mayhem had delivered.

It is not good to say what happens next.

Kittil and I were a little like that -

- temporary drummer and vocalist.

Right now we are borrowing two boys from Vomit.

We borrow the vocalist and the drummer. That sounds great.

They have a hell of a clue about playing and stuff.

But they are completely different people than us. That's a little weird.

We did not fit in.

Mayhem was not a joke. They were bloody serious.

It was not us.

We tried to make tough pictures and stuff, but it's ...

Kittil and I did not get it. We refused to look evil.

Øystein and Jørn were completely desperate.

What do you do in the future? Are you betting on getting a permanent vocalist?

Of course. We aim to get regular musicians.

The trouble is that there are so few people in Norway who like that kind of music.

There are even fewer who manage to play it.

We had a mailbox at Langhus post office. Box 75.

I lived at Langhus, so it was my job to empty it.

One day there was a package there.

I opened the package, -

- and there was only one such rotten ...

It smelled absolutely damn good.

I saw that it was a mouse.

Crucified on two sticks.

It was upstairs with a cassette.

It was the demo called ...

... "December Moon" from a band called Morbid.

He has received information that we needed a vocalist.

He wondered if he could rehearse for us.

Here was my classroom when I went to school here.

Pelle went further down. There are three wings that go out.

We used to climb on the roof that goes between the wings.

When we got up, we had to bend down, so the caretaker did not see us.

Then we climbed further up here.

Here we had fun. We joked and fooled around with each other.

He told what he had done.

Maybe I should tell you what I did.

If he was interested. That's how big brothers are. You look up to them, -

- but they do not look up to little brother.

It was a great time. It's one of my best memories of him.

To have him a little for himself.

He was probably very different.

He went by the name "Horn-Per".

Everyone knew who he was. He had painted the moped completely black.

With pentagram on. No one else had.

When he went to this school, he went to a pretty close-knit class.

At this school he was well. It was like a small village school.

In secondary school, it was found that the classes should be divided.

It quickly went wrong. It was a harsh environment.

It was like that ... He was bullied by a gang.

He was beaten. Skambank. He was more or less beaten to death.

He had a very weak pulse, or no pulse.

Then he came to the hospital, and they cut open the whole stomach.

They soon saw that the spleen was broken.

He was beaten because he was a little weird.

He did not quite fit in anywhere.

He was very ashamed of this.

It was probably a bad time for him.

It ended well, after all, when he moved to Tungelstaskolan.

It got much better there. He made new friends.

He came home and said he was in a band. It was absolutely amazing.

No one understood anything.

The experiences from the hospital and the beating he received ...

He was fascinated by the fact that he actually died, or did not have a pulse.

It was an inspiration to him -

- to see death from within instead of from without.

"Here I have an infinite inspiration and power I can pick from."

It also made him later take the artist name "Dead".

When everyone wanted to look tough and stain their teeth,

- he had a mine where he tried to look dead.

Morbid had recorded a demo.

It was not as big as the LP.

He was very fascinated by Mayhem and what they had managed to produce.

He showed off their record and their band logo.

I remember it was a little intimidating.

It was scary just looking at the logo itself.

He said nothing to us, only that he was going to Norway.

Pelle had everything he owned. I was not prepared for that.

I thought he was going to audition, but he had decided.

He had a bag with everything he owned.

There were some clothes, some magazines ... The Phantom and Dracula.

A pair of ampoules of fake blood.

And cobwebs. That was what he had with him. His earthly goods.

The first thing we do is actually take pictures.

We drew the fake blood -

- to see if we got any funny pictures for the promo.

This was going to be shitty.

He understood the music. He had a good voice.

He even had an image. He called himself "Dead".

It was all-consuming for him, it was not just image.

That was his main interest.

Life after death.

He talks a lot about lying in his coffin and getting bedsores ...

Starved himself to look dead.

I sit there and just ... "What is this for?"

"He's not kidding. There's nothing funny about this guy."

Not many days after that ... Then I was done.

Then I quietly pulled myself out of that whole environment, really.

Then came Jan Axel, who played a thousand times better than me.

He probably fit in much better.

This set is very similar to the one I have used all these years.

Jan Axel is a fantastic drummer. Perhaps one of the most talented.

He has helped to shape what is the style of Norwegian black metal.

I probably hit harder and was faster.

Quick bass drums and stuff. That was probably what the guys looked for the most.

From 88 to 91 they made their best songs.

That Hellhammer came in, I think contributed a lot to that.

Hellhammer's drumming took them to a new level.

Pelle's vision and texts as well.

I think he made Mayhem the Mayhem I liked.

What they made after he joined is what I like best.

He was perhaps the last piece to get the band perfect.

Freezing Moon.

"Freezing Moon" I remember very well. It was very long -

- a kind of underground hit. Øystein played it in many contexts.

It was like his signature song -

- when he found the right, new path for Mayhem, musically.

Very fun that there is a version with Pelle.

The Freezing Moon version with him is just completely ... Classic!

When I hear that, I still get chills.

He sang in an absolutely incredible way.

Very raw, uncut voice.

The way he phrased, the way he left his vocals ...

The way he got it out of his vocal cords was quite peculiar.

I think it was because. his empathy.

When he sang those songs, he was there. He was at the place he was singing about.

I remember Pelle had a bag of dead crows he had dug down -

- in advance of the recording. I had to hold it while he sang.

Between the verses he appeared in the bag and ... And then up again to sing.

He was very like that ... He was artistic in an extreme, weird way.

He managed to put such an aesthetic framework on textual content.

In what eventually became the Norwegian black metal.

Pelle put a kind of sophisticated touch on it.

Dark, but not violent. Mysterious, occult.

In many ways more "disturbing". The unknown. "What's happening here?"

"Who are you? What the hell is going on in your head?"

He wandered around in his own world.

He was kidding. He had some dark sides too.

It was clear that he was bothered by something.

For the first few years I had to write the lyrics, -

- where I pulled out elements from horror movies.

I mixed it with the sexual frustration I had as a teenager.

As ... Before you ...

Before you find someone to have sex with.

It was pretty primitive stuff.

While Pelle ... The lyrics he wrote, it was as dark as hell.

It was about longing to get to the other side.

On the dead side.

These are some of the most personal texts I have read.

The strongest texts written. At least in black metal.

I did not see how personal it really was until afterwards.

Mayhem! Mayhem! Mayhem! Mayhem!

When Mayhem played at Jessheim on February 3, 1990, -

- it must be considered one of the first moments -

- where the black metal environment begins to sprout and grow.

The Jessheim concert was great. Finally, Mayhem was to play.

They have practiced and practiced, and Aarseth has written letters to gather people.

People came from all sorts of places in Norway.

Everyone is there to see what Mayhem has come up with.

It was a typical community house, which can be found in all villages.

I was probably only fourteen years old. My father drove me and waited outside.

Outside the room, they talked a lot about Pelle.

What he wanted to invent.

It was fabulous. What would happen? Maybe an ambulance was ready?

Mayhem! Mayhem! Mayhem! Mayhem!

I remember there was an incredible amount of clutter. Very unstructured.

It took a very long time between songs. They had technical problems.

I wonder if the sound went, the power went ... A lot of strange things happened.

The pissed off fuses in the shed go all the time!

Some people left before Mayhem would play.

They did not like mayhem. Mayhem was like just ... rubbish.

But the rest of us were a little more tough, we wanted to see them.

It was damn tough.

It took the whole scene to the next level.

It was groundbreaking to see Mayhem live with Dead on vocals.

The suit he was wearing. Ragged clothes, corpse make-up and ...

Texts and expressions that were such a worship of death.

It was not done at that level in Norway.

The feeling of being at a concert, and there were 100-120 pieces there, -

- and you feel that you are experiencing something completely new. Something no one has experienced before.

It created a tremendous impression.

In the audience that night, there are people who start bands like Emperor:

Bård Eithun and Thomas Haugen.

People who start Immortal: Olve Eikemo, Harald Nævdal.

Gylve Nagell, who already plays in Black Death, later Darkthrone.

Snorre Ruch, who later started Thorns.

All become part of the bedrock in Norwegian black metal.

Then I just have to say one thing.

In retrospect, I have read a number of letters and flyers Øystein has written.

Now people had to know the time of the visit and come to the concert.

He thought that Pelle should be cut up at the concert.

Pelle talked about doing it. It was part of the stage show.

He was going to spray blood on people. Øystein was really excited about it.

I was not turned on by it. I thought it was a stupid idea.

It was going too far.

I gave him some knives that were dull as hell, -

- for him to do such theatrical things with blunt knives.

Of course you did not go deep. Until it was not raw enough, -

- so he smashed a cola bottle and started with it. Then it went wrong.

He cut himself so damn hard that he had to leave the stage.

It was totally ... Yeah, damn it.

Øystein thought it was a cool thing. He knew it was a shock effect.

I thought it was not worth it. That buddy was too cool to ...

Even if he talked about it himself, I would not -

- encourage him to do it, but Øystein encouraged him to do it.

That was where things started to cut between me and Øystein.

I thought it was a little painful. A bit like a lack of empathy.

From then on, I also felt that Mayhem fell victim to -

- its own image. Øystein started to get a little weird then too.

Just that he thought this was really cool, sort of.

He loved talking about Pelle to the rest of us -

- as a very strange, mysterious person. He talked for hours about -

- how expensive and exceptional Pelle was.

It is part of his myth-making around Pelle.

The Pelle of Reality, of which I also saw a part, was -

- a clearly bothered person.

He must have been deeply depressed. He needed help.

He did not have to end up in Øystein's stuff.

The tour was also something in itself. Øystein's indomitable optimism made -

- that we went with InterRail tickets, because they were cheap. We were broke.

There was so much shit all the time.

We were hungry, tired, tired ...

We are talking about very bad equipment and shabby schemes.

I don 't remember any of the concerts. Just all the shit.

Me, Øystein and Pelle lived together.

Øystein and Pelle began to quarrel and disagree.

Pelle was tired of Øystein's optimism which never led to anything.

It just resulted in chaos. Øystein was then annoyed and grumpy at him, -

- who just complained and sewed all the time.

Pelle was then to go home and did not bother with this nonsense anymore.

It had been Easter, and everyone in the band had been at home with their parents.

Pelle stayed in the house. He was probably alone then.

He was having a hell of a time.

Dad had been in touch with him and tried to encourage him to -

- to come to Stockholm and maybe go to school.

I think he was ashamed.

He was too proud to come home with his tail between his legs and say:

"It went to hell. Now I want a band where everyone is focused."

Or something like that. It was too hard for him to get home -

- with the tail between the legs and answer all the questions.

At the same time he must have had a depression.

So he went out into the woods and tried to kill himself. It did not go well.

Then he went back to the house -

- and shot himself with a shotgun that was lying there.

A few days after, or the same day, -

Øystein found him dead.

He probably did not quite know how to react.

He reacted by being elated and thought -

- that it was interesting, and he gets started, quite simply.

He goes out and buys a camera, and then he takes pictures of Pelle's body.

If I've got it right, he's moving things around a bit -

- so that he would look better. He arranged the pictures.

It was probably Øystein who called me. He said, "Pelle has gone home."

"What? Has he traveled to Sweden now?" "No, he's gone home."

"He has blown his hat off."

"Geez? Seriously?" "Yes, that's absolutely true."

"But!" Typical Øystein. "But I took pictures!"

Maybe not so surprised by the pictures, but the way he said it.

"What are we going to do with them?"

The first time I meet Øystein again, he comes with an envelope.

Up there are some pictures.

When I realize that these are the pictures of Per, I just say:

"You have to burn those pictures. You can not contact me until that happens."

But he did not.

When you get Jørn to quit Mayhem, you have in a way ...

Then it's over. It is clear that Øystein drew Mayhem's image into -

- something that was no longer fun.

It was just destructive.

Then I think Øystein realized that the material was very strong.

He understood that there was a strength in it. Or a force in the offensive images.

I was shocked when I heard what had happened.

That he had found him, fetched a camera, -

- taken pictures and all that. He showed me the pictures.

Unfortunately, those images were scattered.

Someone said Pelle was dead, but I thought it could not be true.

I met him a few months before, and we exchanged letters.

I sent a letter to Øystein and received a reply after a few days. That's right.

Then I got a piece of the skull, two hailstones and a little more.

I also received a letter from Øystein with a picture and a piece of skull.

That was just enough. It was very easy to lose Pelle.

He was a role model. Very cool vocalist who wrote good lyrics.

I had no special, deep reactions.

Other than that: "Oh fuck, tough!" It's completely hollow in the hat.

I did not think much. You were in a certain mode.

It felt like ... something I could do myself.

Why did I have no reaction? Why did I not distance myself from it?

Maybe because you wanted to be in that environment?

You looked up to Øystein, perhaps, that was why you did everything, -

- or man ... There was a little brainwashing.

For Øystein, the Mayhem project is the only one.

That's what he works for.

You have to see it in that context. When this happens, -

- Øystein puts this into this project.

The music, black metal ... Building Mayhem.

Pelle was clearly part of the story of Mayhem.

He committed suicide early.

It also became such a mythical thing. It has helped Mayhem.

It's a morbid thing to say, but should one be ice cold -

- and just look at what it has done for the band, -

- has given them an incredible amount of free advertising.

It becomes part of the Mayhem myth.

I never got over that.

I have been annoyed all these years by products that I see.

T-shirts, plates and ...

That people use that image in a commercial context.

Whereupon it has become so common that people who have a T-shirt with that picture, -

- comes to me at a concert and asks for my autograph.

I really just most want to knock them straight down.

Yeah Al that sounds pretty crap to me, Looks like it aint for me either.

It has become a cult image.

The problem with that is that those who are fans, or write about music, -

- loses respect a little. They see the icon Dead, -

- which is his artist name. They see him and he's dead.

That's what they see.

What I see is something completely different. I see my big brother's tragic end.

It is as if I see all his suffering in one and the same picture.

If I become friends with someone on Facebook, -

- they can have the image in their stream. Then I usually say it's my brother.

"That picture is the worst I know." Then they answer: "Oi. Huff then. Sorry."

"Obviously I have to remove it."

The actors who spread the image, on the other hand,

- Facebook, Google, Instagram and all these ...

They will not hear about their role in this.

Sometimes there are fresh flowers here when I come.

So people come here all the time.

The hope lies in the fans.

Maybe a guy in Kiel writes:

"You should know that your brother's music has saved my life."

"He got me to school every day." That he is a positive driving force for many.

Something you get strength from. I'm very proud of that.

What else might you think of in connection with black metal and stuff, -

- is that it must be negative. Death, cremation and murder.

All such unpleasant things. But it is also ...

Like all music and art, there is also something that gives power and energy.

It is very powerful.

Dead is and remains a kind of saint figure -

- in black metal.

Such will always exist.

Especially in such a dramatically structured genre.

The live recordings of Pelle and his voice, -

- and his lyrics, it's ...

It is put on a pedestal, and most of the black metal ends up in the shade.

There was so much that fit into the little he had time to do.

At the same time he was a boy from Stockholm.

Which unfortunately did not get older than he did.