Fenriz (né Gylve Fenris Nagell) continues to be one of the most interesting characters in extreme music. Not only is he one-half of the revered Darkthrone, and not only is he a postal worker, but now he’s a member of his town council… a position to which he was elected despite his own attempt at self-sabotage.

From a new interview with CLRVYNT (via Metal Injection):

What is life like in Kolbotn these days?

Nowadays, I’m the neighbor that really takes care of the lawn. But now I’m in the local papers because I got voted in as a politician — involuntarily, I might add. So, I’ve got some support, I guess. But Kolbotn is a tiny place, maybe 9,000 people. You got voted in involuntarily? Couldn’t you just decline the position?

No, if you get voted in, you have to stay in that position for four years. And then you can pull out. But I’m used to these sort of long-term commitments. [Laughs] Basically, they called and asked if I wanted to be on the list [of backup representatives]. I said yeah, thinking I would be like 18th on the list and I wouldn’t really have to do anything. They just need a list to be able to … well, it’s hard to talk local politics in another language. My campaign was a picture of me holding my cat saying, “Please don’t vote for me.” But people just went nuts. After the election, the boss called me and told me I was a representative. I wasn’t too pleased, and I’m not too pleased about it. It’s boring. There’s not a lot of money in that, either, I can tell you! So, you’re on the town council, basically.

Yep, that’s it. I’m a local politician. But Norway is very small, so when you’re a local politician, you’re local, man. [Laughs] I’m a pillar of my community.

Although we don’t currently have any photos of the ad to which Fenriz refers, I imagine it looked something like this:

With all due respect to Fenriz, this approach to ensuring he wasn’t elected was ill-conceived and doomed to failure. How did Fenriz not know that everyone loves cute kitties? Of COURSE everyone who saw these ads voted for him. If he really wanted to make sure he lost the race, he should have made the ad look more like this:

I think that would have done the trick, don’t you?