Doug: 0:15

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of the Uncannery. I am Doug.

Ron: 0:20

I am Ron.

Don: 0:24

And.

Doug: 0:24

I have a robotic cadence and I'm Ron and I have a robotic cadence, and I'm Don.

Doug: 0:29

Today I have a question for you, gentlemen. I want to hear about the teenage years for just a moment. I want to hear about the teenage years. Did you have an anthem that you listened to, that kind of I don't know defined your adolescence? Was it rebellious in nature? Was there a style of music that you liked, that mom just didn't want any more of? Turn that rack at all. Did you have anything like that? I want to start here.

Ron: 0:58

No, I was so not rebellious or cool as a teenager, like I didn't really listen to popular music until probably high school and then, I think it was just my buddies, like my buddy's dad, who drove us around and to school he just listened to classic rock. So when I got into popular music it was like stuff from the seventies and no one was yelling at me to stop playing that Cause everyone liked it.

Doug: 1:24

Turn that rush record off young man. It's 40 years old.

Ron: 1:29

I did get really into Def Leppard. I really loved Def Leppard in high school.

Doug: 1:35

What era of Def Leppard are we talking about? Like the 80s? Pyromania, pyromania, hysteria, yeah, oh yeah, hysteria.

Ron: 1:48

I think that's still one of the single best produced albums ever made.

Doug: 1:50

I would agree they still pay that guy an exorbitant amount. That might be a whole separate podcast. The guy who produced that. He is still looked after. People are still going after him saying produce our records and he makes unbelievable amounts of money to get that sound and everybody don.

Ron: 2:04

How are you rebelling?

Don: 2:06

I'm not a I'm not a rebel um, but trying to think about the anthem song. Like I, I have very strong memories of two specific categories of music, but I don't know, an anthem might be too strong, like the things that would just naturally pop into the cd player on my car when we went out. Driving would be b-52s, cosmic thing, cd yeah, especially deadbeat club was our favorite. And then and this one is a strange memory because I have super strong memories of the cd and I can remember what it looks like, but I can't name a single song on it but I could probably.

Don: 2:38

If we played it, I could probably sing along.

Ron: 2:41

Okay is kerosene hat by cracker oh yeah, yeah, you're taking it back, okay, and but neither of these made any family members mad I never really played music around my family, so they never had the opportunity really to opine okay I feel like this is like maybe a generation like by that time we had walkman and stuff and you would just go listen to your music on your headphones. Okay, I know, I don't even I don. I didn't know anyone who was like making their parents mad because they were playing music on the record player or anything.

Doug: 3:13

Yeah, For me things started to change because of the parental advisory explicit label that was on CDs. I remember really wanting Limp Bizkit's, the Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. I wanted it so badly because there was a promotion. It was like a wrestling promo that had one of the songs in it and I couldn't. I would be praying that the commercial would come on so I could hear the clip of the rap rock all over again.

Don: 3:43

And.

Doug: 3:44

I remember I think that's what started it I remember bargaining with my mom saying I'm only going to listen to songs one, seven, nine and 12 on this. None of them are explicit. Those are the only ones. And then, of course, I'm listening to the whole thing.

Don: 3:58

but I did your mother not want you to listen to it because of the sticker or because she had listened to the songs and determined that the content was not appropriate for young Douglas's ears?

Doug: 4:08

She is. So no, she had not heard the album, she simply saw the sticker, saw the album cover, which was just very kind of lurid art, and I think she made her decision right then. And there I don't know if I need my son listening to this. I think that's what started it for me. Maybe it is just me then. Yeah, that was it. And then Linkin Park yeah, that was a big part of it, okay.

Don: 4:32

And did you choose music because your mother didn't want you to listen to it?

Doug: 4:36

or did you choose?

Don: 4:37

music because you liked it and you like this mom?

Doug: 4:41

You don't. That's what I want now. You like this mom, you don't. That's what I want now.

Don: 4:54

No nothing that evil.

Doug: 4:55

No, this was just, I think, the second. The teenage hormones started to kick in, like those prepubescent moments where you go. Things are changing. I just attached myself to more aggressive music immediately. That was the outlet, because I realized I could have the feelings without any of the violence, the anger. It was just I could enjoy the music and I felt like I could channel it through that. I think that's where things changed. Yeah, it was around that time. Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit I remember those were the two that were the discussion of, I'm not sure.

Ron: 5:22

And it's really hard to say why you like anything as an adolescent, I feel Because it's like there's so many spheres of influence. Was it someone you knew? Was it someone you wanted to know? Was it something you thought would make you look cool? Was it? What were the music? There was always musical acts that you listened to in deep privacy and told no one about. For me, that was the shins. I was like no one can learn. I like the shins.

Doug: 5:47

How sad. I love the shins.

Ron: 5:49

That was very public, I do too, but I think I don't even that. Doesn't even sound like an embarrassing group to me anymore, but I think somewhere at my school I must have heard ron at home in his bedroom listening 1940s musicals, musicals Now we're talking, now we're talking. It's all cats for me.

Doug: 6:09

And that I really hope that neither of you gentlemen bring to the podcast cats. I just can't do it.

Ron: 6:15

I think now I will. Actually I'm very fascinated by cats, but that's a discussion for another time. The musical cats. Yeah, I've only been introduced to it in the last couple of years, but the fact that it was as popular as it was, I think, said a lot about a culture in decline.

Doug: 6:31

Okay, you always find a way to sell me, papa.

Don: 6:35

And you did it again, yeah.

Doug: 6:37

I'll take it. Yeah, no, there's too much, all right. So why do I bring this up? Today? We are going to talk about this journey that I started on of the rebellious music led me into heavy metal music and I think that even before I was buying records, I think that the genesis of this I've always looked at it as in fifth grade my uncle gave me an Iron Maiden album and that took me a very different direction. Just because the energy that was involved the operatic singing, the guitar solos I just I loved all of it immediately and I think that's what kind of started to steer me on that path. And there's a weird thing that happens with metal that when you really get into it it becomes like this almost depraved act of looking for what's heavier than that?

Don: 7:23

what's heavier than that?

Doug: 7:25

And that eventually led me to the genre that is known as black metal Very much. What do you mean by heavier than that? That is a great question. So if you look at the Genesis, many people are going to put Black Sabbath as the Genesis of heavy metal. There were groups before that, but they really were the first prototype for that. Heavier involves we're becoming less melodic. The vocals are going from screams into territory. That yeah, like we're going from the singing to the screams. We're playing drums at a speed that sounds like a machine gun, to where it's described as a blast beat. That's like a very common term. We're borrowing from other extreme genres of music like hardcore, punk, rock. We're borrowing from you name it. It's just becoming a more warped and isolated version. It's more it's harsher to the ear. I would say Not that there's not a lot of craftsmanship to it. I definitely have put on many a record and people say there's no musicianship in this and I go you try to play this because there is. But eventually I land on black metal.

Don: 8:39

So it has to do with the musical sound of it, not with the content of the lyrics.

Doug: 8:45

for example, it also could have to do with that. There are so many sub genres. You have your industrial metal that has a lot to do with like kind of an industrial sound meaning factory, like kind of noises and drum machines that kind of create a droning machine-like sound. You have death metal, which is you're also screamy and like big drum beats and things, but it's focused around the name of the band that is, the originator of the genre is death and so they were trying to emulate that sound, but it's characterized with like very low, guttural kind of screams.

Don: 9:20

See, that's really strange, because I always associate death with being quiet.

Ron: 9:24

Yeah, If these metal heads they don't go gentle into that. Good night if you will, but there's like this sort of the idea of being heavy does involve darkness and spookiness and, I guess, things that are antithetical to popular music at the time which is usually about like love songs and upbeat songs and I'm driving to the coffee shop songs, and and then it's like punk, right where punk shows up and is we're gonna play the music?

Ron: 9:52

really bad, we're not gonna be very commercial. And then it becomes very commercial and I think they were trying to like, oh, punk fail, let's do it, let's go further by being like, yeah, by talking about death and blood and ghosts and JR Tolkien.

Doug: 10:08

Watch out for JR. That's all I got to say. Yeah, a lot of that. But it also has to do with, I think of genres like doom, metal, or sometimes it's like the whole podcast is actually just going to be genres, nevermind.

Don: 10:20

We're not just talking about black metal.

Doug: 10:22

This is going to be one hour of every sub genre in existence, but I think of doom metal or like stoner metal, like the idea of the slowest possible, heaviest riffs that are grooving bluesy but just are like played at the slowest speed humanly possible, but that would be considered heavy. Just as much as Metallica's first four albums would be considered heavy. It's a Metallica's first four albums would be considered heavy. It's a. It actually is a great question. It needs a book to be written.

Doug: 10:50

What is heavy just to study from that perspective. So black metal is a weird one, because they very much were at the outskirts and fringes of what extreme metal was and they were trying to take it to, in their minds, probably the most extreme places, even rejecting what was probably selling. I don't know, like maybe if you sold 10,000 albums, which maybe that seems like a lot, but internationally selling 10,000 albums is probably not that much they were trying to say that was commercial. These black metal groups, if we do a pressing of 500 and sell out, that's it, that's how rare.

Don: 11:29

we are Black metal trying not to make money doing what they're doing.

Doug: 11:33

Oh yeah, the money was never important. It was all about the reputation and of course we'll get into it.

Ron: 11:38

It's like a scene right.

Doug: 11:39

Yeah.

Ron: 11:41

Is it the same as artificially generated like? Because it's scarce, it must be cool.

Doug: 11:47

I think that there is some of that. I very much still like the music a lot. I actually make this kind of music now but there's something to it, especially this very specific era that we're going to look at, in the early 90s, that kind of set the tone for what this is, and it's changed a lot now. But, yeah, there was a certain exclusivity to it that I don't know. I was drawn to as I was like looking at the history of metal Cause I was also fascinated by that, like going okay, here's Iron Maiden, and that leads to this band Down the rabbit hole we go, and it's the NFTs of.

Don: 12:22

That's right Once you get that print.

Doug: 12:25

That's it, the ones we're going to look at today. We're going to the 1993 black metal murders. Actually, this involves bands that I discovered their music and I discovered they killed each other. So it's quite the tale. And I'd like to start it with a quote from one of the front men of the bands that we're going to be talking about, and not only the front man, but he actually played every single instrument on every single one of his records. His name is Varg Vikernes has a one-man black metal project called Bortsom.

Doug: 13:00

He said youth are not being told what to do, or they're being told what to do, but instinctively they know it's wrong. Christianity is good, america is good, but we knew deep down, we knew this wasn't it? This is something that he was reflecting on as he was producing his first few albums as being a Norwegian musician, and he felt very ostracized from his community. He saw the world changing around him and he felt that heacized from his community. He saw the world changing around him and he felt that he was losing his cultural identity and losing his mind. In my opinion and we're going to break down some of what that is. So shall we start at the beginning, please do.

Don: 13:40

Okay.

Doug: 13:41

In the late 80s, as we're talking about. With heavy heavy metal getting heavier, we're seeing that bands are pushing boundaries in terms of vocal attempts, as I was saying, how noisy things can get, how fast you can play, how slow you can play, and people are beginning to experiment that genre I told you about a moment ago. Death metal emerges from this band named Death that has very low, growly vocals, that's incorporating elements of a lot of the eighties music or the eighties metal music. That's there, but there's a new extremity that is being hit that starts to attract groups of musicians that want to play this style of music. That music is American in its base. That's where this starts, but these records make their way to Norway.

Doug: 14:30

A group of teenagers in Norway who started to play this music realized that they wanted to create their own identity and their own sound and they pushed themselves towards the more evil tendencies of some of the groups in the more extreme genres and they said what can we do to really push this in the direction that they wanted to? A band emerges from this experiment called Mayhem. The year is 1987 and they release their Death Crush EP or, as I have heard it, most interviewed and talked about the Death Crush EP, which is very famous for the album cover. I shouldn't be laughing, it's just, it's so extreme. It is the severed hands of a prisoner that are hung up on a wire with a red background and the band logo. So they're really making a statement in terms of how extreme the imagery is on the front. They have not played a live show. They essentially have just released the record and have circulated this around the teens in Norway who are interested in this scene, just on its reputation alone.

Doug: 15:42

People are being drawn to Norway because this is such a unique sound. The guitarist, euronymous, kind of created something that was completely unique to them at the time and actually Varg Vikernes was part of the project as well. At this time. It was this group and this eventually shoots into a bunch of other bands. This inspires these musicians to start creating albums and Norway essentially becomes the hub of black metal. This is the place you will see. On the backs of some of the albums it will say true, norwegian black metal. And if your bell is ringing a little bit for sounds a little nationalistic, did they ever get into slightly racially? Did they ever get into territory where they maybe made some insensitive racial comments?

Ron: 16:28

Absolutely, and we're getting there, not the Norwegians, they're so nice. I mean, the Norwegian kids are punks, yeah.

Doug: 16:38

Yeah, and that's the thing is it does feel a bit like punk rock. It's the idea of we're not just going to be like this other group. This is our thing, we'll do it our way, which is the thing that Iminded too, because these groups decide this is the way that it should sound, which was the opposite of what they wanted to do originally. Dark Throne another group in 1992, so we're fast-forwarding a little bit releases A Blaze in the Northern Sky around the same time that Burzum that I talked about earlier releases their self-titled album a month later. These albums are landmark in establishing okay, this is the scene. These are the groups that are putting forth this music and this is what the sound is. And we even have groups that are changing their sound intentionally to sound more like this mayhem death crush record that had come out. This is changing the way that people play music. Don you seem to have an acquisitive look on your face? Do you have questions?

Don: 17:53

well, I yeah I do. So. You keep talking about their belief in the sound of a music or that that it should sound a certain way, and but at the same time, we started with their belief that they weren't going to commercialize. So are they like mild mannered businessmen during the day, and then they turn into these black metal? It sounds like a cult is what it sounds like. There's a belief that it has to sound this way. You can call them ghouls, yeah.

Doug: 18:19

I would argue that there is very cult like behavior in this because it's the kids almost all of them are between the ages of 16 and 20 that are in these projects. And that is the great irony of this is they listen to already this very fringe music and say we're going to create our own thing and make our own sound. They're making a decision. This is the sound, which I think was the purpose the whole time was to not do that, like they were supposed to just individually express themselves, and then they, yeah, almost sell themselves short by saying this is the way that it should sound. No, these are very misguided youth. So, to go back to our quote from the beginning, when they were teenagers, the way Varg describes it is the parents generally were not parenting them much. It's like a group of middle-class Norwegians that essentially have parents that say just do good in school, do your thing, and aren't really invested in the kids' lives as much. So they turn to music. And once you have this figure in Mayhem, no-transcript.

Ron: 19:56

Doug currently has a the book of revelations out in front of him and he's just picking random adjectives and proper nouns from there.

Doug: 20:04

This is really a cult like study. So I start my cult and I want to welcome the two of you to our first meeting.

Ron: 20:10

The Uncanna cult.

Doug: 20:11

Great.

Ron: 20:17

I love it.

Doug: 20:18

And a quick shout out to the board game let's Summon Demons. Just unbelievable replay, valuable that we've had. We're looking for sponsors. I'm just saying we'd love to host.

Ron: 20:29

We've had some've had some good fun. I think I won both times, didn't I?

Doug: 20:35

yes, yeah, I'm good at it, give us money.

Don: 20:38

How do you spell pander?

Doug: 20:39

I'm not spelled with a s, with two lines through. I think that's it. So this is all we've discussed so far is mayhem has created an ep. This leads other people to want to create this sound. That's the focal point is, this genre of music is created and that's what I was captivated by at the time was like okay, this does sound different, and I love the kind of neoclassical melodies that were involved.

Doug: 21:05

I like the fact that we currently and I would say that we don't have the, we're not in a LA grade studio right now. We could at least say that even the stuff that we're sitting here recording this podcast with right now would be considered the top of the line, highest quality recording equipment that you could possibly use to record something like a black metal record. There are tales of Varg using a computer PC mic like what you would use to talk to friends online during a video game or during a Discord. Call is essentially what he was using to record all of the vocals for his album. The guitars were often directly into the mixing board or 8-track player and the distortion was created by just clipping the audio as high as it could possibly go, without any natural amplification. I just was interested in the idea of the diy ethic of it and I liked a lot of the records that happens a lot, though, right with like new music scene formation.

Ron: 22:01

Like you, I feel like the music scene is a sort of or a boros, where a scene pops up. It it's all very DIY, it's young people figuring something out. It finds a market, becomes big, then you bring in the microphones and the cool stuff and then becomes the kind of blase or passe. And then and then a new, a new group of gutter punks rises up from the ashes and they they got their weird Apple laptops and their garage banding some weird stuff, and now they're hot, absolutely yeah.

Doug: 22:35

Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say and once you lose that, mama got to cry to papa. Nobody's ever said that, by the way.

Doug: 22:44

Who's papa Didn't have to make it sad man as I'm learning the backgrounds of all these bands, I'm not taking it incredibly serious, I'm just like, okay, so here they are. A lot of the lyrics verge on either pagan or satanic, and that's common for metal that you're going to use something that's outlandish to go towards, to go towards. They were a bit more serious than I originally had taken in. So I'd like to go to April of 1991. Mayhem has played a few live shows. At this point I want to talk about their vocalist. I know that I said Euronymous was the name of the guitarist. It's a little bit easier to remember the singer's name. Ironically or literally, depending on how you look at it, his name is Dead. That's, his name is Dead Dead.

Doug: 23:37

The singer of Mayhem was notorious for the style of paint that he wore on his face. He was famous for his stage performances in which he would lacerate himself live. It's very extreme performances that he would give, and what is tragic about all of this is that behavior was I believe it seems to be somewhat of a cry for help, because in April of 1991, he took his own life. There is speculation that Euronymous was encouraging him to do this. There is speculation that Deadhead asked potentially for help and was not getting it to continue to keep the grim atmosphere of the band alive. But the young man did take his life, and that was supposed to be the end of mayhem. What Euronymous decided to do is Dead had taken his own life by. Basically, he had shot himself with a shotgun. Euronymous opened up the cabin door to where he was living because he hadn't heard from him in a few days, and found dead there, and instead of calling the police, he decided to take high definition photographs of the body and collect pieces of the skull, to which he would, in the future, make necklaces from these fragments and would give to people that he deemed worthy to be in the scene.

Doug: 25:10

It's at this point that we veer into the territory of. There's something very wrong here, to say the least. Varg Vikernes, who was in the band and had left the band, is now part of this band. Bartsum was frustrated with the fact that, essentially, the scene had grown into something of Euronymous being a person who wanted the glamour of the violence and murder that had surrounded this political message and, in the subsequent years, actually created a group called, I believe, the Inner Circle that would burn churches in Norway, and we're talking between four and 600 year old churches that were in Norway because they represented the stain of Christianity on pagan land, and Varg was especially disturbed at the fact that Euronymous was a person who was proclaiming that he was the head of the scene. He was the person who knew dead best. He had made these necklaces and determined who was in, but he wasn't willing to take up the cause and prove himself and the message of these bands which, by the way, there's nothing that's directly saying on any of these records go burn churches.

Ron: 26:35

There's no, I heard, if you really slow down and play it backwards yeah, it's yeah.

Doug: 26:39

That only works for the zeppelin record. You should know this. You were the guy who had the 70s rebellious stage that's your mother should have been. I don't know what had happened oh no, no, it's back.

Ron: 26:49

The Zeppelin ghost.

Doug: 26:52

Yeah. So Varg was upset with Euronymous and because he in his mind he was all talk and the research to let our viewers know and to a lot of the research from this I have taken, not only from just interviews that have been done, but a great majority of this has been documented in the film Until the Light Takes Us, which has direct interviews from Varg while he is in prison. Not to spoil what's going to happen here, is Varg going to go to prison? Varg is going to go to prison.

Ron: 27:24

Wait and see. Maybe he'll get out.

Doug: 27:27

He does wait and see, maybe he'll get out.

Don: 27:28

he does norway shockingly, shockingly light on their uh sentences for murder if I was ever going to go to prison, I would want to go to prison in norway.

Doug: 27:38

Yeah, and they look pretty nice yeah, his setup, especially in the film, it's like he's he has a computer, he has all of his instruments in his cell. It it's unbelievable, can I?

Don: 27:48

ask. So we're still talking. You mentioned the meaning of the music or the meaning of the, and I'm looking at, I'm looking, I'm at some images of the people you've been talking about. Sure, and I've got dead here during a performance. Is that what are they trying? What are they trying to convey? Is it that that Norway is all about violence and death? Is that the pure message that we're supposed to be taking away? This?

Doug: 28:14

isn't to discredit adolescents, but much in the adolescents. Beware he's about to take a shot.

Doug: 28:22

Watch out, kids, I'm coming for you Much in the way that you will see kids get very passionate about something, because passion is passion and it's time to be excited about those things. I think that maybe is the most disconnected aspect of this. There seems to be some kind of misanthropic message that is communicated through their music and you hear it in the isolation, in the way that they describe Norwegian weather and the forests and the beauty of the moon, but then you hear it in their anti-Christian messages. You hear it but there's not. Again, I think that this is the problem is Varg, as I just said, is thinking the way you express yourself in black metal, as you go and you burn down churches and to Euronymous it's you have a great reputation for making evil sounding music and you're an evil guy. That's the whole thing is like I, my singer, committed suicide and I made a necklace from the pieces of his brains and I'm deeming who's important here. And then I only mentioned their name once earlier, but Dark Throne, who released that album, a Blaze in the Northern Sky. Their idea was we won't play live at all, we'll just make records, because we just love the way that this music sounds and we love the music exclusively and your music is really what holds the value. They are also some of the only ones that are still making this type of music today, and they've gone so many different directions.

Doug: 29:50

But to be honest, don, I don't think there's an answer to that question. I think that it's very much in the imagery at the end of this is like the product of teen angst. It seems to be a product of teen angst of I don't feel like I have a place in my world. And is this a matter of you're right? Norway's culture's fallen apart and we need to go reclaim it because the McDonald's opened up, which is something like Vark talks about going by a McDonald's and shooting at the windows with a rifle after it's closed just to make a statement. Or is this? I am 16, 17 years old and I don't know who.

Don: 30:36

I am. I don't know if I have an answer for this, but none of these musicians are 16 or 17 years old, right?

Doug: 30:41

When they first start making the music. Yes, they are, but then they grow up. Yes, eventually they do yes.

Don: 30:56

And I guess that's so. What you're describing to me sounds and if I'm not hearing it, let me know. It just sounds like can we make a sound in an image that will make people uncomfortable? Yes, like that seems to be the goal, not because there's a message that we want to convey. I just want to do something that is unconventional and will make people uncomfortable.

Doug: 31:07

Yeah, and so, looking at the themes right, when does it head? I think that's a part of it, but then what's weird is to flip that on its head from what you just said. Then there's also we want to do something unconventional that makes people uncomfortable, because we're looking for the people who are really cool with that. That's the other part of it is who are the, the people that we can separate from the unwashed masses that understand what we're trying to do? But I almost think it's the self-defense mechanism of the genre which is like but nobody knows what we're trying to do, so let's just see if you're on the inside or not.

Ron: 31:42

Is it also like the way that teenagers will desire some form of power over in a period of their life where they're very powerless, and so they'll go and create a cool skate skateboard club down at the rink and then one of them will be chief of the skate rink, like, if you see them, like, oh, we're gonna create our own scene and circle and that and part of achieving that power is by refuting the actual holders of the power the people, the establishment. And we keep talking about the punk scene. But I feel like that's another kind of important parallel, because the english punk scene appears in the 70s, during a moment where, like it actually is like a very tumultuous time for england and politics and their role in the world, and so they also have a very anti-establishment kind of ethos. But it's channeled more politically than let's just pretend we're dead and stuff. Like.

Ron: 32:33

I don't know a whole lot about the national history of Norway, but I don't believe the same sort of environment exists at the same time in the late 80s, early 90s for Norway. Like you said, they're middle-class, comfortable, cozy kids. They don't really have like a real sort of something to channel that energy and what we might consider a productive or interesting way. So they have to invent this. Yeah, let's just, that's a good impression of the voice.

Doug: 32:58

I like that, I and I, I don't know, and that's the thing that fascinates me is.

Doug: 33:06

The only part of our tale that is left out is and then I want to circle back to. What we're talking about right now is eventually tensions build between Varg, who's part of Butzum, and Euronymous from Mayhem, where Euronymous begins to basically speak out against Varg and say that he might burn the churches, but he's not part of the real. Again, it's like this bickering and quarreling back and forth of who is the most extreme and actually does this, and this leads Varg to going to his house. When somebody basically tells Varg oh yeah, euronymous wants to kill you, and Varg says okay, and again the one-upsmanship continues, then I'll kill him first, Shows up at his house, stabs him over 20 times and kills him and gets a sentence in prison gets the maximum sentence in prison in Norway for this.

Doug: 34:00

And you can look at the images of Varg as he's being admitted into prison. The most famous image is him like smiling at one of the cameras after he gets his conviction no-transcript, yeah, what do you say about art and creation Like these? I would say are healthy outlets, right, as if it had stopped in the music we had put into the lyrics and what we created, and we're creating this thing that people can also enjoy, or maybe endure is a better word, right, that would have been a healthy way to channel it, but now we're seeing that this is quite the opposite, that it's a group of people that are creating this and like the life is just as important as the art. And then it becomes too serious and again we have people who have died because of it.

Ron: 35:52

Ron's looking uh, I had two thoughts and I forgot both of them it's probably because I overextended myself on that last portion there.

Don: 36:01

So you said you like some of this music the best. You enjoy it. You said you enjoy this music the best. Very much so Even though it was produced by evil people who committed murder and burned down historic monuments.

Ron: 36:13

Yes, but I would say that's most art in history.

Don: 36:16

I would twitch back on that, but go ahead in history.

Ron: 36:20

See, I would twist back on that, but go ahead don't. But there's. I feel like there is always an ugly element to the production of art and the and the marketing of art and who owns art. Like there are terrible people replete through the history of hollywood and filmmaking and music industry, people who take advantage of artists and cut them out of deals and all sorts of like, behind the scenes wheeling and dealing. The medicis were thugs. Yeah, yeah, some medici shit. But yes, in this instance I'm not trying to absolve these kids of these crimes, but I'm saying this to me there's a quaint, charming nature at least they did it out in the open, at least they they were.

Ron: 36:54

They were literally backstabbing each other or something, right? I don't mean that literally, but there's always a messiness. I I think to art and I don't really want to slap them on the wrist for being like you didn't do it the right way, like. I think they are victims of very understandable and, I think, teenage emotions and experiences that everyone has just amped up to a very dangerous degree, right? That sort of desire to create something for yourself, to be separate from what you consider a bad authority, not necessarily authoritarian, but something like that, right? And also that drive to be genuine, to be real I'm going to be real evil, I'm going to be the most evil. I'm going to be the most real of you all, because you're all fakers and posers, right? Like? How often is that also an element of artistic scenes? Who's real, who's not? Who's doing it right? Who? What are the standards we're setting ourselves for this genre or whatever it is we're making?

Don: 37:49

I can only think of this one, really this one, unless the serial killers have a secret well, that I don't know about to to the degree that they murder each other.

Ron: 37:56

But this happens in, this happens in rap culture. East west rivalry in america.

Doug: 38:01

Right, and that was the one I was gonna say the closest one I can imagine is, yeah, the rappers killing each other in the 90s especially.

Ron: 38:09

That's like what I think of it which follows, I think, a very similar trajectory of we have to make this music that's very anti establishment and will not be marketable to a group of people we don't like, namely white people or people in power, and then we're just going to make it as thug as possible and and it's true to our experience, but then it's not really true to most of those artists experience, because they don't actually live like that and so then they get called oh you're not really thug enough, and blah, blah, blah and then they kill each other yeah yeah, but to go back to your hollywood example right, there's behind the scenes is one thing and absolutely I agree there's sketchiness.

Don: 38:45

That happens in all industries behind the scenes and as long as I don't see it, I don't have to react to it. Yeah, but then when an actor does a fantastic performance and they have a an au revoir of performances and oscars, and then we find out that they drink infant blood or they are pedophiles, which they all do by the way but we shut down access to their films Like I can think of artists right now that I would like to enjoy their work, but I don't, because of what I found out about the way that they've abused others or they've done bad things.

Don: 39:20

So it it does affect like objectively it doesn't change the performance that they did. Sure, it's a great performance, but I don't allow myself to enjoy that because of the external. So the same thing here. I'm wondering, and like the thug rap correlation makes a little bit more sense to me then. But I think I'm thinking about your mom. Oh my gosh, of course. Why would she let you listen to music produced by murderers that don't have a wholesome message for the young formative mind to, or the young forming mind to adhere to?

Doug: 39:51

And I think it's funny that you were going that direction. Somebody I was thinking of immediately was Andy Warhol, as weird as that is. I was thinking of Andy because Andy Warhol, as weird as that is. I was thinking of Andy because there are so many memoirs, like I think it was like an Edie Segwick's memoir or something like that, of her saying like how many times she had considered taking her own life, like over just her treatment of Andy, in the way that he treated people essentially.

Doug: 40:15

But Andy Warhol is maybe even beyond just his art. How many galleries can you go in? And it's, oh, there's Brillo boxes and soup cans. It's gotta be another Andy piece. But even beyond that, just like the ways that, like we have fonts or bold colors, or like we do monochrome celebrities, like things that like we don't even associate with, like instantly saying Andy, but that's a part of our art, I think that he is also representative of somebody that's like such a vapid figure. Yet all of us consume and think of art in a different way now because of him.

Doug: 40:47

Obviously, black metal is like the most niche and small of the genres, but I I think that's the difficulty is, I think, for me I find it impossible. Yeah, like the. I think I would ask you what you mean by not allowing yourself to enjoy the performance. It's like is it like a non-consumer Like this person has done this? He's in this film, so I will no longer watch that film? It almost, but I would almost say that's different. That's consumption versus enjoyment, because I think enjoyment is something that's like you. It's like a snap decision that you make if I enjoy this or I don't. It interferes with right.

Don: 41:33

So it interferes because when I'm watching it I can't think but the terrible things that that person did to whatever victim they had Right, so it's not, it's what I did enjoy. I can't enjoy because right. So I listening to the music, sure, if we're all pretending that we're dead and we're all pretending that we're Satanists, or pretending that whatever versus oh no, we're really going to go kill people.

Don: 41:56

That a different right element. That would interfere with my enjoyment. If we go to the concert and we're not sure who's coming home, that wouldn't be fun for me 100 yeah, important to say this sort of violence doesn't really spiral out of this group.

Ron: 42:12

Right, though I think it is worth saying the instances the story of varg and and eronymous is contained between them right the rest of the scene and the. There are otherg and Hieronymus is contained between them right the rest of the scene and the. There are other groups and artists who make this kind of music and, like you said earlier, they eschew this kind of thing, like they are not going around burning churches and trying to kill their friends. This is a kind of extreme example.

Doug: 42:34

Yeah, arguably the most extreme, which is why, of course, we bring it to the uncannery. But I, yeah, what I take out of it is knowing and I think that this is something that is like shared amongst people that have talked about this is knowing that the sound of the records and then what's represented there, especially for those that like make not this style of music in terms of we're trying to accomplish the same goals, but maybe we like borrow some of the things aesthetically from the sounds of the music, which I definitely do is that the records in of themselves, kind of speak towards a sound that is unique, that now has a message that can be far more positive, and so it's. I, yeah, I don't know. I think it's a good thing to be confronted about, because the honest answer is I do love the record still. So, yeah, like, how do you begin to separate that?

Doug: 43:32

And I, honestly I think that it's a certain amount of almost surgical precision that you have to be listening to the guitar tracks, vocals, drums and bass as its own isolated vacuum. I think that's. That is what it is, because there's not. I don't interact with this music in a way where I am taking it in, for lack of a better term, like taking it in spiritually. That's what I would say.

Ron: 44:02

Yeah.

Doug: 44:03

As esoteric as this sounds.

Ron: 44:04

There is like a lot of ways that people listen to music and, like when you're a teenager, you identify by music, right, like it become. You are like listening to the lyrics and you're trying to form meanings out of them and trying to find connections and I feel, as I'm older, I just really want to. There's a different kind of enjoyment where I don't really need to know much or even anything about the person who made it. Does it just sound cool? Does it make me feel a neat emotion or enjoyment, or, yeah, maybe it's just nostalgia sometimes now, yeah, like does it remind me about a time and I don't know, for this kind music, I do divorce these people and their actions from the art and it doesn't really impact my enjoyment of the art and it is interesting to try and figure out why.

Ron: 44:48

But I guess it's sometimes I just feel like people. I guess to me it's not like the art created the tragedy, right, it's like the people made the tragedy and they decisions they made and factors relating to their environment and how they were raised or what they were doing those led to the, to both the art and the tragedy, but I don't see like the tragedy arising from the art. Therefore, the art is safe to enjoy. I don't know, does that make any sense?

Doug: 45:16

it does, but it also, yeah, it does. The art's the cool thing from the tragedy.

Ron: 45:20

It would be more tragic to lose the art as well as the people, the people who are actually harmed in these.

Doug: 45:26

It's interesting to think of it from third perspective, because now it'll be the third time I've brought up dark throne that group specifically the.

Doug: 45:35

The drummer Gilf was asked about all of them and he brought up several things about Euronymous and Varg. And one of the things that he said about Varg is we don't talk at all anymore because he was more interested in the politics and social situations that came up because of this music. And I was purely interested in the music and when that became an issue we went our separate ways. And when he talks about Euronymous he said I will always be grateful that I was able to take that guitar tone from him, but at a certain point all of us realized that there was only madness there. It's something that they've brought up and so, knowing that's somebody who knew both of them personally, I think that they it's interesting to hear his perspective and taking on like he continued the art on the side of, I would rather make the music exclusively instead of continue to attach myself to what the ideology behind this is. The music is the most important thing there.

Don: 46:36

So do you listen to this music? Because you're still rebelling.

Doug: 46:40

It's a great question I think that for me, I admire and maybe this goes for all art, because I can see myself with almost any medium, being into this, whether it's like film, canvas, sculpture, and I don't like it could be anything. When something is striving to go outside of the box, I'm always going to want to be yeah, like I always generally am drawn to it in some way, but I think I generally listen to it. Now, for similar reasons that I'm interested in what people are doing with these colors on the canvas. I happen to be drawn to these colors on the canvas and I want to see what these paintings look like.

Doug: 47:24

So when I think of some of the more modern artists that are blending other genres in like I know Ron, we've talked about Deaf Haven before and I think about Wolves in the Throne Room, which is like a group from Oregon that kind of focuses on their, like, local surroundings and that's the the focal point of their music I just I see a lot of beauty in it. I think that's what it is. I see a lot of beauty in it in a very unique perspective. But with that I wonder if those bands that I love so much now would exist if not for the attention that those cases got.

Don: 48:01

It's hard to say there you go, ron, forewarned is forearmed, so be careful. I've been to that church the one that he burned down, so unfortunate Not before it was burnt down, but I was there after it was rebuilt Beautiful.

Doug: 48:20

Did they have any information on the burnings before it was burnt down? But I was there after it was rebuilt, beautiful.

Don: 48:24

Did they have any information on the burnings today? So it was, so I didn't. I didn't know about this. This is actually your, your story. Here is first time that I have put that all together. But it's surrounded like it's in the middle, it's outside Bergen, norway, and it's a short drive out Like I think we took a tram and then walked like 10 minutes, something like that and it's surrounded by a really like significant security fence and it's just like literally in the middle of the forest.

Don: 48:46

You have to walk through this quiet neighborhood of quaint little Norwegian houses and then there's this giant church and it's got these like significant security walls and it's like why would you like? And you go inside the church and there's nothing materialistically valuable. There's not like gold and it's carvings and it's beautiful, but it's just bare wood. And so we asked somebody like why, like what's? And they did say because somebody decided to burn it down or somebody thought that it was a good idea to burn all churches down, or something like that. And that was as much as we got and it clearly was.

Don: 49:17

I'm irritated by that. Don't ask me another question. Type of because it was, it was a local. It was the person working there that we asked, but it wasn't like here. Let me tell you the whole story. It was like some jerk did this and we had to rebuild it.

Ron: 49:28

Yeah, takes a drag of their cigarette, hands you a Bersam cassette. Yeah, says it's all here, right?

Doug: 49:37

Yeah, yeah. I need to go collect my thoughts and think about this for a moment. But for the next episode. I think you should listen to more wholesome music. I was just going to say I might've burned my copies of all these records, who knows, in protest.

Don: 49:50

Burned them onto your computer, onto your CD.

Ron: 49:54

Lime wire baby.

Doug: 49:56

Oh, I got to shout out the good old days. That's right.

Don: 50:00

Thanks, doug. I appreciate the. It's a genre of music that I am aware exists, but I don't listen to, I don't enjoy, I don't know very much about it.

Ron: 50:08

Yeah, next time tell us about where butt rock came from, please, oh yeah.

Doug: 50:11

We'll give you all of that. We'll maybe do some impressions too. I pride myself on my butt. Rock vocals Good yeah, fantastic.

Ron: 50:19

Thank you, gentlemen, thank you.

Doug: 50:34

Thank you.