History Music / Mayhem

* TookALevelInJerkass: ''Euronymous.'' By all accounts, he was a decent, fun-loving person to start with, but after Dead joined the band, Euronymous started bullying him for no real reason, and after Dead killed himself, he took freaking pictures of his corpse to exploit his death as part of Mayhem's image and generally abusing everyone's trust, even encouraging church burnings.

* KnightOfCerebus: While it would be unfair to call Dead a villain, Mayhem got a lot darker once he joined. After his suicide, many other bands followed suit.

Forming in the mid-1980's and taking their name from a song by the band Music/{{Venom}} (who also coined the term BlackMetal), the Norwegian band's original line-up consisted of guitarist Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth), bassist Necrobutcher [[note]] Not to be confused with the pro wrestler. That Wrestling/NecroButcher is two words, Mayhem's Necrobutcher is just one. Know the difference, it could save your life. Seriously, black metal fans can be scary, especially some of the ones whose favorite band is Mayhem. [[/note]] (Jørn Stubberud) and drummer Kjetil Manheim. When the group was originally formed, Euronymous also sang, before being replaced by [[MeaningfulName Maniac]] (Sven Erik Kristiansen) on vocals (who was [[HilariousInHindsight placed in a mental institution]] after the recording of the infamous ''Deathcrush'' EP) [[note]] No word on whether the two events were at all connected [[/note]]. Manheim also left the band that time. The band found replacements in drummer Hellhammer (Jan Axel Blomberg) and the Swedish vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin, nicknamed "[[PropheticName Dead]]" (previously of obscure cult-act "Morbid"), for his love of, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin surprise, surprise, death]]: He would wear clothes people had been buried in months before, cut himself on stage (one point he cut himself so much on stage he had to be sent to the hospital in bad need of a transfusion), and kept a dead crow in a jar because he liked "the stench of death". Despite these amusing quirks, [[SarcasmMode for some reason]] everyone who met him had ill feelings about him and always said that he looked like he hated being alive. These folks would ultimately be proven correct when one day, Euronymous entered the house that Dead was staying in and found him, appropriately enough, dead, a [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill shotgun round through his head (and brain lying on the floor) and his wrists cut open]] (Dead just wanted to be sure).

** ''Necrobutcher''. In comparison to Euronymous, Dead, Maniac and Hellhammer, Jørn is the '''only''' member of the original lineup who seems fairly normal (aside from swearing like a maniac) and didn't engage in any criminal acts. Though more recently, he claimed that he had plans to kill Euronymous himself.

During that time, they were associated with Gaahl, Music/{{Gorgoroth}}'s then-vocalist. While a cultured, soft-spoken and polite man who had a homosexual tryst with a Norwegian fashion stylist and modeling agent named Dan [=DeVero=], Gaahl nonetheless had a long history of violence. Gaahl is still being held responsible for kidnapping and torturing a man who walked on his property uninvited, cutting him and making him bleed into a cup, and threatening to make him drink it. They take trespassing pretty seriously in the Black Metal community.

During that time, they were associated with Gaahl, Music/{{Gorgoroth}}'s then-vocalist. While a cultured, soft-spoken and polite man who had a homosexual tryst with a Norwegian fashion stylist and modeling agent named Dan [=DeVero=], Gaahl nonetheless had a long history of violence. Gaahl is still being held responsible for kidnapping and torturing a man who walked on his property uninvited, cutting him and making him bleed into a cup, and threatening to use him as a sacrifice. They take trespassing pretty seriously in the Black Metal community.

* '''ContemptibleCover''': ''[[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/59/DawnOfTheBlackHearts.jpg Dawn of the Black Hearts]]''. ('''{{NSFW}}''')
* DrivenToSuicide: Dead. Who'da thunk it?

Blasphemer has since left the band, owing to his various other projects (such as Ava Inferi and Aura Noir), and was replaced by a succession of live guitarists (among them Morfeus and Teloch). The band released the album ''Esoteric Warfare'' in 2014.

TL;DR version: One singer was legitimately insane, another singer committed suicide, the guitarist was murdered, the first bassist walked out in disgust, the second bassist spent a decade and a half in prison ''for'' the murder, and the band's still going because of the drummer. Don't you love black metal?

* OnlySaneMan: ''Necrobutcher''. In comparison to Euronymous, Dead, Maniac and Hellhammer, Jørn is the '''only''' member of the original lineup who seems fairly normal (aside from swearing like a maniac) and didn't engage in any criminal acts.

Forming in the mid-1980's and taking their name from a song by the band Music/{{Venom}} (who also coined the term BlackMetal), the Norwegian band's original line-up consisted of guitarist Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth), bassist Necrobutcher [[note]] Not to be confused with the pro wrestler. That Necro Butcher is two words, Mayhem's Necrobutcher is just one. Know the difference, it could save your life. Seriously, black metal fans can be scary, especially some of the ones whose favorite band is Mayhem. [[/note]] (Jørn Stubberud) and drummer Kjetil Manheim. When the group was originally formed, Euronymous also sang, before being replaced by [[MeaningfulName Maniac]] (Sven Erik Kristiansen) on vocals (who was [[HilariousInHindsight placed in a mental institution]] after the recording of the infamous ''Deathcrush'' EP) [[note]] No word on whether the two events were at all connected [[/note]]. Manheim also left the band that time. The band found replacements in drummer Hellhammer (Jan Axel Blomberg) and the Swedish vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin, nicknamed "[[PropheticName Dead]]" (previously of obscure cult-act "Morbid"), for his love of, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin surprise, surprise, death]]: He would wear clothes people had been buried in months before, cut himself on stage (one point he cut himself so much on stage he had to be sent to the hospital in bad need of a transfusion), and kept a dead crow in a jar because he liked "the stench of death". Despite these amusing quirks, [[SarcasmMode for some reason]] everyone who met him had ill feelings about him and always said that he looked like he hated being alive. These folks would ultimately be proven correct when one day, Euronymous entered the house that Dead was staying in and found him, appropriately enough, dead, a [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill shotgun round through his head (and brain lying on the floor) and his wrists cut open]] (Dead just wanted to be sure).

* AltumVidetur: ''Ordo ad chao'' is grammatically incorrect Latin for "order to chaos" (an inverted version of the Freemasons' motto, ''Ordo ab chao'', or "order from chaos". A grammatically correct version would be ''Ordo ad chaos''). ''De mysteriis Dom Sathanas'' translates roughly as "Of Lord Satan's Secret Rites" or "About the Mystery of the Lord Satan". The band uses other Latin in its lyrics, though it is also not always grammatically correct.

** This ended up blowing up in his face after Vikernes' (first) arrest, where he closed down his metal shop to avoid bringing unwanted attention to him and his family, and then publicly ''apologized on behalf of the entire Black Metal community'', making himself the laughingstock of the entire scene.

* LargeHam: Attila is perhaps the most notorious example of this among BlackMetal vocalists, [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome not that anyone is complaining]]. His [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible unorthodox]] [[ManOfAThousandVoices amalgamation]] of [[GutturalGrowler guttural growls]] and operatic wailing is known for its theatrical qualities as well as being, well, [[{{Understatement}} highly emphatic]]. Maniac and Dead can also get pretty hammy; Maniac's spoken-word passages on ''Grand Declaration of War'' are particularly hammy.

* FriedrichNietzsche: Some of the lyrics on ''Grand Declaration of War'' are directly taken from his writings or inspired by him. The album's title is apparently his description of ''Twilight of the Idols'' („eine grosse Kriegserklärung“). While Nietzsche was the FormerTropeNamer for StrawNihilist, the lyrics of ''Grand Declaration'' generally avert the trope and suggest that someone in the band may have actually read him.

-> "There exist no death metal bands today, only "life metal" bands. If a band cultivates and worship death than it's death metal, no matter what kind of metal they play. And "cultivating" death doesn't mean to think it's funny or being into gore, but I mean being able to kill just because you hate life. It's people who enjoys to see wars because a lot of people get killed. And I know no "death" metal bands in this way. There's an abyss between us and the rest: Be careful and avoid being "open-minded". The HC pigs have correctly made themselves guardians of morality: We'll become guardians of anti-morality."
-->-- Euronymous, 1992

* GenrePopularizer: For black metal. Specifically speaking, Mayhem essentially started up second-wave black metal, but first-wave black metal covers a lot of bands that are totally dissimilar to Mayhem (Music/CelticFrost and [[Music/KingDiamond Mercyful Fate]], for example), and the actual black metal genre didn't really have a proper definition until Mayhem and co. came along. (It is worth noting, however, that many of the second wave's most important characteristics had already been established by Music/{{Bathory}}, particularly on ''Under the Sign of the Black Mark'').

Forming in the mid-1980's and taking their name from a song by the band Music/{{Venom}} (who also coined the term BlackMetal), the Norwegian band's original line-up consisted of guitarist Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth), bassist Necrobutcher [[note]] Not to be confused with the pro wrestler. That Necro Butcher is two words, Mayhem's Necrobutcher is just one. Know the difference, it could save your life. Seriously, black metal fans can be scary, especially some of the ones whose favorite band is Mayhem. [[/note]] (Jørn Stubberud) and drummer Kjetil Manheim. When the group was originally formed, Euronymous also sang, before being replaced by [[MeaningfulName Maniac]] (Sven Erik Kristiansen) on vocals (who was [[HilariousInHindsight placed in a mental institution]] after the recording of the infamous ''Deathcrush'' EP) [[note]] No word on whether the two events were at all connected [[/note]]. Manheim also left the band that time. The band found replacements in drummer Hellhammer (Jan Axel Blomberg) and the Swedish vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin, nicknamed "[[PropheticName Dead]]" (previously of obscure cult-act "Morbid"), for his love of, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin surprise, surprise, death]]: He would wear clothes people had been buried in months before, cut himself on stage (one point he cut himself so much on stage he had to be sent to the hospital in bad need of a transfusion), and kept a dead crow in a jar because he liked "the stench of death". Despite these amusing quirks, [[SarcasmMode for some reason]] everyone who met him had ill feelings about him and always said that he looked like he hated being alive. These folks would ultimately be proven correct when one day, Euronymous entered the house that Dead was staying in and found him, appropriately enough, dead, a [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill bullet wound in his head and his wrists cut open]] (Dead just wanted to be sure).

* UnpleasableFanbase: Of the band's post-''DMDS'' output, only ''Wolf's Lair Abyss'' seems to be largely free of detractors. It doesn't help that part of the fanbase regarded the reformation of the band in the wake of Euronymous' death as being inappropriate to begin with. One wonders whether albums like ''Grand Declaration of War'' would have been less divisive if they had been released under another name.

* AscendedExtra: Guitarist Teloch started out as one of a slew of sessional guitarists after Blasphemer's departure.