Mayhem

Mayhem is probably THE weirdest band that ever existed....here are some reasons why...i just thought it would be interesting reading material; (all the stuff here is sourced from Wikipedia)

(Mayhem is an influential black metal band formed in 1981 in Oslo. Much controversy has followed the various murders,suicides and other forms of violence that have surrounded the band since its inception.
Mayhem's Classic Line-up had the metal titans (stage names:) Necrobutcher,Euronymous,Dead and Hellhammer.It maintained the usual death metal obsessions in gore and violence,and more sinister and nihilistic preoccupations.)

Euronymous owned a record label and wanted the outlet to look like "...like a black church in the future. We've thought about having total darkness inside, so that people would have to carry torches to be able to see the records."(hmm...occult)

Dead, as suggested by his stage name, was melancholic by nature and fascinated by death, decay, and darkness.According to some friend, "He (Dead) wasn't a guy you could know very well. I think even the other guys in Mayhem didn't know him very well. He was hard to get close to. I met him two weeks before he died. I'd met him maybe six to eight times, all in all. He had lots of weird ideas. I remember (Euronymous) was talking about him and said he did not have any humour. He did, but it was very obscure. Honestly, I don't think he was enjoying living in this world." (weird...)
Dead had, over time, carefully cultivated a notoriety for strange behavior; once burying a set of clothes underground for weeks so that he could later wear the decaying rags onstage. He had kept a rotting raven in a plastic bag so better to "inhale the scent of death" before going on stage. Such morbid fascinations and antics further developed Mayhem's progressing musical atmosphere, and by this point the band's lyrics had moved increasingly toward Satanism, darkness, depression and evil. A focal point of gigs at this time was the planting of pigs heads on stakes, center stage, and Dead cutting himself with a knife.(weirder....)
By April 1991, Dead was dead, aged 22, having suffered a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head and several lacerations to the wrists, inflicted by a hunting knife he had bought that day. Dead committed suicide in a house he was sharing in Kråkstad with the other members of the band, and left a note asking that they "Excuse all the blood, Cheers." although other members of the band claimed it was more extensive, it also said "the knife was too dull to finish the job so i had to use the shotgun" Euronymous was first to discover the body, and took a series of polaroids of the corpse, some of which were later used as cover art for their bootleg album.
According to Occultus, who briefly took position as vocalist after Dead's suicide: "He (Dead) didn't see himself as human; he saw himself as a creature from another world. He said he had many visions that his blood has frozen in his veins, that he was dead. That is the reason he took that name. He knew he would die.." (that takes the cake, if you ask me....)
Euronymous took pieces of Dead's brain and made a stew, in which he put ham, frozen vegetables, and pepper. "He'd always said he wanted to eat flesh, so he figured this was an easy way." Euronymous also claimed to have collected and forged fragments of Dead's skull into necklaces, sending pieces to those he felt 'worthy'.(ewww....)

Euronymous was next in line to die.He was brutally stabbed by the then bassist to whom he owed a lot a money.The autopsy revealed that Euronymous suffered twenty-three stab wounds: two to the head, five to the neck, and sixteen to the back. However, the bassist claimed that Euronymous fell onto pieces of broken glass from a lamp shade broken in the ruckus, which he says, attributed to the multiple puncture wounds. (you dont say?!)

They split in 1994...and reunited a few years later with the surviving members and some new ones...but its the 'classic' Mayhem that fans remember the most.

The new Mayhem was just as weird, though.
In 2004, Maniac(the vocalist) was forced out of the band. Stage fright had lead to both dependence on alcohol and reluctance to tour, which frustrated his bandmates. It is rumored that Necrobutcher signaled his departure from Mayhem by kicking him down a flight of stairs, after Maniac had gotten drunk before a gig and been unable to remember the lyrics.(tee hee)

By now most of you would have a fixed idea of what Mayhem's music sounds like...but I really enjoy it...ass kickin stuff \m/..do listen to it if you do get a chance to.

Stay heavy
sid