Varg Vikernes is one of the rare musicians in death/black metal that won’t sell his soul for the dollar. In a new video posted to his Thulean Perspective YouTube channel, Varg has revealed that some scumbag promoter has at one point offered over £ 300,000 for him to do a live Burzum show in London. While many in black metal swore never to play live, almost everyone ranging from Darkthrone to Graveland has given in at some point. But with the most notorious metal musician in the genre’s history, blood is thicker than water and that’s never been more prevalent than now.



This news is beyond refreshing in an era where every 80’s and 90’s black/death metal musician has tried to cash in on their past success. An era where retirements are fake and reunions pay the bills. An era where the uber-underground Von rerecorded their entire “evil kvlt” 1989 demo and toured as 3 bands. In an industry dominated by narcissists, primadonnas, and theater dorks Varg has successfully shed the ugly stigmas of the metal musician.

Varg’s reasoning is 100% acurate as well- a live performance would directly contradict the entire aesthetic of a band like Burzum. Furthermore playing live sucks, going to metal shows is usually lame, and, for people who have an actual identity, publicly interacting with metal fans is often fucking embarrassing. Of course, it’s easy for Varg to walk away from a sum of money like that- his family is quite well off- but he truly has found happiness in a simpler life target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow external” as many are collectively awakening to in these times. His thoughts about the diva nature of musicians is dead on (as anyone who has been in a band with a metal vocalist can tell you) and his words on finding peace and happiness in home and family are of great wisdom as such bliss has never been found in the life of a fame-chasing musician. Finally, there should be no doubt that that sum of money was in fact offered as one could easily triple that with $50-100 tickets to the first live Burzum show.

Although Varg and I have stark theological differences (as he still can’t get over the fact that his petty gods were mercilessly annihilated by my one true God), I cannot properly articulate just how greatly I respect him for rejecting that payout and sticking true to his music and his beliefs. Varg is one of few (e.g. Fenriz) who have succeeded as a new kind of musician who puts ideology and culture over popularity and attention. They have created a blueprint for tomorrow’s metal musician- one that finds purpose in life, work, and culture outside of metal and uses it to produce top quality metal music.

See the video below:

Tags: Black Metal, blood, burzum, cash grab, culture, divas, ideology, live Burzum, metal, money, purpose, varg vikernes