Sometimes, horrible people make great art. John Lennon, for example, was a notorious wife-beater and emotionally abused his son Julian. Pablo Picasso often neglected or was overly distant to his many mistresses, two wives and four children. And then there’s Varg Vikernes, aka Count Grishnackh, one of the greatest and most influential black metal musicians in the Norwegian scene of the 90’s. He’s also a murderer, possible church arsonist and most definite white supremacist.

For those of you who don’t know anything about Varg Vikernes or black metal, here’s some background: In the 1990’s in Oslo, Norway, a new genre of metal formed inspired by bands such as Celtic Frost, Bathory, and Venom, who made up the first wave of black metal and helped define its aesthetic. In fact, the term “black metal” actually comes from the name of an album by the latter.

The aforementioned bands, including acts like Mayhem and Darkthrone, made up the second wave. They often hung out in the basement of a shop called “Helvete”, Norwegian for “Hell”, which was owned by the musician and central figure of the scene, Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth. They were all united by an anti-Christian and anti-modernity philosophy, often expressed by Satanic and trasngressive lyrics and imagery. Varg Vikernes, ironically born as Kristian Vikernes, entered the scene with a one-man project called Burzum,

The whole history of second-wave black metal is morbidly fascinating and legendary within the metal community, marked by a series of church burnings, suicides, murders and sensationalistic media coverage. It’s also been pretty exhaustively chronicled, so there’s not really anything I could say that hasn’t already been said. For the whole story I recommend the documentary Until the Light Takes Us, available on YouTube. But for now, I want to focus on the formerly second most insane person from the Oslo black metal scene.

Varg’s Crimes

The Murder of Euronymous

I say the formerly second most insane person, because he murdered the most insane one, Euronymous, in August 1993. His motivation for doing so isn’t really known. Some believe that the animosity came from a sort of power struggle between the two as they competed for social dominance within the circle of black metalers.

Vikernes maintains that he acted in self-defense. Allegedly, he heard from a friend that Euronymous planned to kidnap him, torture him to death, record it and make a snuff film out of it. In August 1993, Vikernes and another band member had driven to Euronymous’ apartment to sign a contract. Vikernes said that he began to confront Euronymous, when he panicked, kicked Vikernes in the chest and started to fight with Vikernes. He then proceeded to stab Euronymous to death.

There’s plenty of speculation on Vikernes’s motives, so again there’s nothing I can say that already hasn’t been said. I will say though that I would not be completely shocked if it turned out Vikernes really did believe Euronymous was going to torture him to death, given his prior behavior.

Allegedly in order to foster the “evil” image of Mayhem, Euronymous encouraged the suicidal and self-harming behavior of his bandmate Dead, who eventually ended up committing suicide in April 1991. The members of the band were all living in the same house at the time and Euronymous was the first to find Dead’s body. Rather than immediately calling the police or Dead’s friends and family, like a normal person, Euronymous left to go buy a disposable camera to take pictures of Dead’s corpse, which would go on to be the album art for one of Mayhem‘s live albums. Many of Euronymous’ friends were disgusted by his treatment of Dead’s death, especially bandmate Necrobutcher, who ended their friendship and left the band.

Vikernes said that he did not regret killing Euronymous in a YouTube comment saying that he was a bad person and the world is better off without him. So maybe he’s right on that point at least.

Church Burnings

In addition to the murder of Euronymous, Vikernes was put on trial for and found guilty of a series of church burnings. While it’s not proven that he committed any arsons and he denies all responsibility, like many other members of the scene he strongly approved of them. Not only did he directly state so, the image of the ruins of one of the burned churches was used as the cover of a Burzum album. What’s more interesting and revealing about Varg is how he explained the motivations behind the arsons.

Varg’s Ideology

Vikernes started a YouTube channel in 2013 called ThuleanPerspective. In one video in a series on black metal history, he explains that the motivation for church burnings, aside from wanting to fit into the scene and impress other members, was in fact nationalism.

Whether or not this is true is irrelevant: the value lies in how Vikernes views the burnings. If you watched the video, you might have noticed Varg refer to the churches as “embassies of Judaism.” Yeah, this is part where it gets pretty racist. As Varg explains in the video, he sees Christianity and Islam as “anti-European aggressors” that destroyed and continue to destroy his Norwegian heritage.

“The churches in Europe were being built on top of our sacred sites… [they] thereby sealed our culture, they sealed all knowledge about our culture. We’re not allowed because there’s a church on top of it.”

Vikernes implies that the historic stave churches were built on top of ancient pagan Norwegian religious sites in order to help forcibly convert the ancient Norwegians. I think. I tried to Google if it was actually true and nothing came up aside from quotes by him and that’s the extent of research I’m willing to put into this.

While I agree that the destruction of religious sites would be a legitimate grievance against 12th-century Christians, Vikernes loses all my sympathy given his blatantly anti-Semitic interpretation of history. In general, he expresses viewpoints in his videos pretty common among fascist circles today. He even has an entire playlist dedicated to white genocide on his channel.

For some reason, he tries to deny being a white supremacist in the video below, but only really manages to reveal just how racist he is. In it, he says he does not think Europeans are superior to other races, just that certain races (or human sub-species as he calls them) belong where they are because their bodies are well-adapted to their respective environments. But this, of course, still boils down to opposing miscegenation and immigration. So yeah, still very racist.

What’s most interesting about his philosophy is that he is not just any run-of-the-mill fascist. I wouldn’t even call him a fascist, since his ideology, called Odalism, promotes returning to a time before the state even existed. In one video, he states:

“Ôðalism is in the strictest sense an ideology based on blood (of the native population) and soil (the homeland of the native population); protecting, promoting and if necessary reviving the customs, traditions, world view, values and religion that naturally came from each particular population in their homeland.”

Basically, different races and ethnicities stay where they are, don’t mix with other races and ethniciites and embrace their ancestors’ traditional lifestyles, in opposition to civilzation, modernity and capitalism among other things.

Vikernes also practices what he preaches. He lives with his family on a property in rural France, where he tries to live off the grid and outside of capitalism as much as possible via things such as solar panels and permaculture on his land.

All in all, I would define Odalism as a strange mix of Blood and Soil nationalism and green anarchism, with some racism and anti-Semitism thrown in because why not. So, given his abhorrent views and homicidal past, why did I dedicate an entire post to him?

Conclusion

I don’t know. I have no idea why I’m so fascinated with Varg Vikernes. I only started watching his videos to research for a podcast, and now I find myself drawn in. It could be that his ideology is more complicated and enigmatically communicated than the boring, generic bigotry my country’s fascists get up to. It could be that when I watch his videos, his gentle voice and musical accent relax me. It could be that he’s a firsthand treasure trove of the history of the black metal scene in Norway. Or it could be that he just never lost the mystique and charisma that probably made him so attractive to his peers in the black metal scene all those years ago.

This, in a way, is a commentary of the sexiness of fascism. The most effective fascist recruiters need to make an inherently irrational ideology seem mysterious and terrifying. Not so terrifying that it would scare people off, but just enough to make people think that the structure and guidance such a movement provides is what they need to feel like they belong somewhere.