"Euronymous was pissed as hell when I decided to leave, he was really mad."
As announced, here is the second part of the interview with Kjetil Manheim of Order (read part one HERE), in which we talked about his further musical playgrounds in the field of noise music. We also talked about the transfiguration of Norwegian black metal and the film "Lords of chaos", among other things, we talked about his farewell to Mayhem, about the former singer Dead, people's preference for stories and myths, exorcisms as well as Kjetil's love for Berlin.
Did you watch the „Lords of Chaos“- movie and if so, did you like it, didn't you like it? How about the actor who played your role?
Well, first of all, I haven't watched it. I can't see any reason I should see it. It's not a great movie if I understood it right from people, it's not an "Oscar". So, I can't see why I should have watched the movie because it has nothing to do with reality. So far as what I've heard from people who have seen the movie, it has nothing to do with me whatsoever. But of course, they have put it in the context where they got some aspects ot pieces like they have our names, but it has nothing to do with my life. I don't understand why they made that movie.
The director is the early drummer of Bathory.
Yeah, I know that. I can't understand why Jonas did this. It's like 99,9 percent fictional, why didn't he just call it something else and put these people in a fantasy universe and he could have done a great job? Maybe I even have enjoyed the movie, because it wouldn't have tried to be something it is not.
"Norwegian black metal has become a national pride, and it certainly didn't start that way."
"I try to be as honest as I can be about myself"
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I don't know if that has affected anything in my life, but I have always been honest. My name is unique as well. So there's just one, you know, so there's nowhere to hide and I have never tried to hide. I do things with confidence, I always have done. I try to be as honest as I can be about myself, and I think that one of the things that are really important is that you are all the different parts that your personality consists of, because no human being is just one thing. Society wants you to be one thing, they want you to fit in and say, if you're a lawyer, you look like this and you talk like that and you do these things, and that's it. You don't do other things. But that's not how the world is, isn't it? So we have all all these different facets of our personality, which combined is who we are. And if you need to hide that, that's just sad. So I decided early on that I'm not going to do that. Of course, I met people who react when they hear about my past, but that was more common in the nineties. It never affected me in my professional life. I have done the things that I wanted to do. And these days, people are just excited about it, it's strange. You know, this is this scary part of culture, Norway is giving away awards now for that. You know that the Norwegian black metal has become a national pride, and it certainly didn't start that way.
Yes, I read that Mayhem won some weeks ago a national music award and Darkthrone´s „A blaze in the northern sky“ was declared as cultural heritage and taken in the National Library.
Many, many of these albums have been put into the National Library and are considered as worthwhile. Yes, this summer Mayhem got an award, a really honorable one (it's the "Spellemanprisen", the Norwegian equivalent of the Grammy-note from the author), that was given for the appreciation of the band's long-standing contribution to music history, so it was for the whole spectrum of Mayhem and everyone who has been involved.
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"There's a lot of arts and literature and music who gets acknowledged just much much later because it's so strange."
"When you see a wolf for the first time, you are certainly scared, aren't you? But then you notice little by little that he leaves you alone."
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It seems a bit ironic, decades before these long-haired young men were public enemy number one, just in terms of the particular incidents in Norway, and today the bands are receiving awards. Another example is Satyricon who already performed years ago their songs together with the National Norwegian Opera Chorus at the Oslo Opera.
I often say that we we went from being "folkefiende", which is the enemy of the people to being "folk music", which is the music of the people, the traditional music, so it's just the playing of words. But of course, it's a bit strange. Tom from Celtic Frost was given an honorable award in Switzerland as well. So I guess what's happening around is that the music scene that we are part of is getting acknowledgement late because it's not part of the mainstream culture, it's not part of the pop culture. And I think it's not unique in that sense, there's a lot of arts and literature and music who gets acknowledged just much later because it's so strange and so different. In the case of black metal, it was especially this aggressiveness and mysticism, and of course all the incidents around Mayhem didn't make it better. But I think it's just about the society around us getting used to it. When you see a wolf for the first time, you are certainly scared, aren't you? But then you gradually notice that he leaves you alone. So it's kind of you get used to something.
During the preparation for this interview it became more and more apparent to me that you have always been a bit off the ordinary path, or to put it more simply, you have never been the usual black metal guy. Even looking at the back cover of the "Deathcrush"- EP, you fall out of character there purely visually. Maybe coincidence, but maybe also a first hint? After leaving Mayhem, you first made music exclusively in noise projects for years. Then I found a blog of yours, which hasn't been updated for a while, but in which you also comment on political topics. Well, somehow I get the impression, when I look at the overall picture, that you wouldn't fit into a band like Mayhem nowadays, into the image that Mayhem, who have a really strong image. You seem to be somehow too thoughtful, that's what comes to my mind spontaneously.
What do you think, how many copies of „Deathcrush“ were sold including all the bootlegs and unofficial releases all over the years?
Well, I don't know. I know that we made thousand copies. But I think without bootlegging, without people copying and distributing and sharing, Mayhem hadn't become as big as it has become, so I think it's just a product of the time. I didn't do this to become a rich man, on the contrary, we decided that all the money around that record should be routed to Mayhem, so I has never taking any money out from that record. Money has never been the drive and it still isn't, of course, Listenable records don't want to hear that. But I hope they earn some money with „The Gospel“. Of course, you have to pay the bills and you need to have a living, but it's not because of the money you do this, it's a need that comes from within. I see it as impossible to do something like "The Gospel" because of the money.
Okay, let's get to the stuff you've done away from Mayhem and Order. L.E.G.O., this very experimental stuff, you did in 1986 with Euronymous. During the concert you also play the flute and violin, among other things. Especially the violin is a very learning-intensive instrument, you really need a while to get a good sound out of it. Did you have lessons or did you teach yourself?
No, actually, that recording is the first time I hold a violin in my hands. The concept was that we were going to play things that we haven't played before, and we were going to do it in a concert. We had the concept ready. So we knew what we were going to do. We had the passages, but we improvise there. So that has been the first time.
It sounds great. Against The Grain was another project you once did. I've seen something on YouTube.
Yeah, I love that project.
That was the mixture of music, architecture and light, how all these levels merge and influence perception.
Yes, right. What do you think of it?
I liked the video on YouTube. If we now come to other projects, you also worked with Conrad Schnitzler later on. I read somewhere that you never met him personally during this project and never told him who you were, that you played drums on "Deathcrush". I guess, what you did with Maranata, another noise project, was more along the lines of Merzbow. And I just don't find the access to such things. I tried Merzbow years ago because I thought it could be my thing, but it simply doesn't work.
No, that's totally fine, I totally understand this. I love Merzbow, I think he is probably one of the the most talented within that scene. I don't know if that's the part of me that doesn't get that much attention. You know, you play for small audiences, you do more like an art installation. So we do all all these projects and it fitted my life well, because then I could go in and out of projects and I could still follow my creativity and try to find something within. Maranata is the one you refer to, we actually gave it out as a CD, it's the "Total repair". It's the intensity that we work on there, I just love that space when you go into that space. I mean we have done several concerts, we're doing variations of that and it's just so intense and you just stay there. And just let yourself go into this sound space, it's great. And other times when you do this stuff, you go from this intensity to almost nothingness, you know, because that's where everything takes you. I really enjoy that, I really enjoy following the intuition that you have inside and see what will happen. Regarding the collaboration with Conrad Schnitzler, I never met the guy, but we have a lot of things in common. But I think he knew who I was, because the guys who brought us together again, they were worried about that reference, they cross-referenced us. And I'm really interested in '80s krautrock and all the German tradition, of course, early Tangerine Dream and Can was very important. We spent hours and hours trying to figure out Conrad Schnitzler, with his cassette tapes and his albums and everything, and that was really a passion that Euronymous and I shared. So doing a collaboration with him in this extension that I did 20 years ago was really great. He's also on this Against the grain project, he never left Berlin. So what he did was to give you some stuff that he had made, his philosophy around music was that it's kind of "do what you want with it." You know, it's yours, see what you can do with it. It's still part of me - now it's your turn, do something with it. What we did with the stuff that he sent us for that project, we played everything backwards. So he's there, but it's all backwards, but you can't hear that it's backwards, it turned out to be really cool, we followed his spirit to really experiment with things, just don't think that things should be the way they are. You can use it in different ways, if I want you to to collaborate with me I would give you as much freedom as I could and hardly give any directions because I'm inviting you to contribute with your things. I want you to be part of the creation, right? That's great about that space. You get this freedom to do whatever you want to, of course within the concept that you have agreed upon. And I just love that. So when Anders, asked if I could be interested in starting this band, which is now Order, if he had asked me this ten years ago, I wouldn't have time to do that, because being in a band is time consuming and you need always to be in line with the calendar and the progress and everything because the band needs everyone. You can't just progress alone. It was in 2013, I guess, my oldest child, she's born in 2001, so she has been twelve years then. So they're getting more independent and independent enough so I could actually afford to go into band projects. So but the noise part, I love it. I understand that you don't get the same connection, but that's music, isn't it? It's about feelings. So if it doesn't resonate with you, fine, but simply accept it and don't be a fascist. And you know, one day they want to destroy everything they don't like, right? That's bring us back to the other discussion we had before concerning religion. That's the difference between people like us who wants people to explore and thrive and people who want to destroy everything they don't understand, right?
If I have understood you correctly, you often preferred to work on a project basis. You can be creative, but you know you won't be doing this in five or ten years-projects have a clear beginning and a clear end. The other aspect is that especially in the noise scene, the process of creation is often more important than the final result, right?
Yeah, absolutely true. So it's kind of similar to art in that way, because it's what it represents, that's also important, it's not just the experience when you're actually listening to it, so it's all about the history around it, absolutely true. The process is very important, for me, it definitely is.
In the Against the Grain project, someone is even called Stockhausen, as a Cologne resident, this came directly to my mind, he was very well known here in Cologne, he studied here and also did a lot in Cologne. But the first name of the mentioned person doesn't match those of Karl-Heinz Stockhausen's children, maybe it's just a pseudonym or a coincidence?
It could be because there's a lot of people involved in that project. The Against the grain project has its roots in something that we call Sonisk Blodbad (means "Sonic Bloodbath"). It was born at the architectural university in Bergen who wanted to explore the combination between architecture, sound, lightning and everything. So it's actually I'm not sure if it's a school project that they do on the university, but it's certainly part of someone's educational process. But for us, it was this one project and there's a lot of people involved there. So maybe that's where you maybe have seen his name, I don't recall who that is, I'm afraid.
Cologne became one of the European centers for electronic music in the '60s. Have you ever been here in Cologne?
Well, I wouldn't call been. I've been close, I think. I've been around the area, but I haven't been there, I haven't gone to Cologne to visit. But I have a strong relationship to Germany's musical past and culture. I especially like, of course, the Cluster period, and of course Amon Düül, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and of course Kraftwerk as well. You know, this is a great tradition , there were lots of talented and experimental people who wanted to try to do something that was a bit on the side of everything. And to me, it's very strange thing that a band like Amon Düül, for instance, wasn't a bigger success, you know? But I think it was this awkwardness that made it difficult. So you have much worse bands from from the UK and they became big rock stars. So why not Amon Düül, do you know they're just fantastic? So, so but it's probably because they they do things a bit different. I like Coil, you know, I like the musical tradition of experimental and trying to do something different. I love that part of Germany. So that would be the answer to that. And it wouldn't surprise me that Cologne has many artists who have done a lot of things. Now I'm not German, I can't speak for you, but I think that there's something or some parts of the German culture that love going into poetry, to love to go in experiment with thoughts and to love to see how art can develop. There's that part of Germany, I really love it. I like to go to Berlin. I'm sorry, it's not Cologne, but I love to be in Berlin. In your captol you can sense it, somehow there's always someone who's trying something different. If it's architectural, it's art, there's always something there and that your nation has this room for this craziness and experimental things just shows that you're a cultural country, right?
Yes, of course. Mortiis told me that he listened yesterday to Eloy.
I think, that's probably the saddest thing about pop culture, that it consumes all the oxygen in the room, so there's very little oxygen left to anything who is not in the mainstream and it's become worse. We thought that it maybe could be become better with the internet, and in many ways it has. We can talk now and you have your blog and you can write whatever you want to and so on. But the pop culture is still consuming more and more of everything. So it's really hard today to be an artist. I believe it's tough, I read somewhere that it's up to 40.000 songs that's been uploaded every day on Spotify or was it 60.000? You know, so being a musician, being a young musician, and if you're not into the mainstream, how to how to break through it, you know, it's very difficult. And I'm sure that's cause for the same with artists in other areas like like paintings or sculpturing or what have you if you don't do what everyone wants, it's very, very difficult.
Talking about noise, or maybe the combination about noise and black metal, I always liked Ildjarn very much.
I'm not that familiar with that, but I like that there are crossovers that take parts of black metal and put it into another noise. Or another extreme is, should we call it extreme expression and vice versa? I know that the people like Merzbow and others are huge fans of the extreme metal genre. And so it's not strange that we meet, it's natural that we meet. And I also listen to, you know, what's his name called again, this American young guy? It's quite popular, I think he's called Ghostemane.
In another interview with you that I read, you already talked about this. It's a young rapper who has a strong connection to extreme metal and bands like Mayhem and Bathory.
Yes, he even uses some really direct references. So he actually does some of the tunes from our music from the old ones. That's cool, I love that, you know? I really like some pieces of his work and I like that young people now take parts of different genres and make something completely new. What I like about him in specific is that he's also singing about his own life and feelings. If I understand him correct - not sure if I do - I like to believe that he's actually not trying to speak about someone else is speaking about how he lives, his slider and how he feels. Maybe that's what he takes from the rap thing. I don't like rap. I must admit that's not my cup of tea, but the fusion of things can be really, really cool.
In another interview with you that I read, you already talked about this. It's a young rapper who has a strong connection to extreme metal and bands like Mayhem and Bathory.
Yes, he even uses some really direct references. So he actually does some of the tunes from our music from the old ones. That's cool, I love that, you know? I really like some pieces of his work and I like that young people now take parts of different genres and make something completely new. What I like about him in specific is that he's also singing about his own life and feelings. If I understand him correct - not sure if I do - I like to believe that he's actually not trying to speak about someone else is speaking about how he lives, his slider and how he feels. Maybe that's what he takes from the rap thing. I don't like rap. I must admit that's not my cup of tea, but the fusion of things can be really, really cool.
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"It could be a poem that someone wrote on the way to work, but the poem becomes this huge, emotional, deep, thoughtful poem on the other side of the planet, right?"
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I want to get to one more thing. During an interview at a podcast, I noticed that the interviewer, who seemed to be a bit younger, also asked you for stories and anecdotes about other protagonists of the Norwegian black metal scene. And this is something I've often noticed, both on the topic of Norwegian black metal and other history-related topics: Not infrequently, significant things are made out of trifles or even inanities, every utterance, no matter how small, every band shirt worn, every sticker on the guitar or on the wall is often almost mystically transfigured. Banal explanations or even coincidences no longer seem to exist, the protagonists are transfigured into heroes. Do you agree with me, how do you see it?
I know what you mean. I think it's about that we love stories, right? That's a very human thing. It could be a TV series these days, you know, that drives us really into it, but anyway, take away the format. We always love these stories and we want to make these stories alive somehow and we imagine things. Even when we meet our lover, we imagine our lover in more than we know him or her. We need to be together with our partner, we need to be with the partner for a while before we know him or her, but we think we knew him or her before, right, because we have this story, this image. And it's all in our mind. I think that's what also happened on the phenomena that you are talking about here. People know that black metal is more than just music, and they are very interested in the story, where it comes from, why things happened, who did what. But there is so much that makes up this story. Mayhem was a tragedy in itself And of course, then the myth grows and grows and I think myths are, of course, always bigger than people, so that's just how it is. But on the other hand, I'm not the guy that wants to correct everything and take away the mysticism or the story about it. I think it's a good thing that people get their stories around what makes how they want to interpret things around. It could be a poem that someone wrote on the way to work, but the poem becomes this huge, emotional, deep, thoughtful poem on the other side of the planet, right? It wasn't intended to, but it ended up that way. So how people use what you have made and by living, you're making a life, right? You're making history as a human being, as you go. Some people make history that everyone knows about, other people doesn't, but it's still history, right? That story about you and your life and what you've done, it's important for your kids, if you have any, it could be important for people who heard about you in your village. It could be important for Cologne, right? This person, he had this blog and this is how he was? Isn't that interesting? Then you look at this image he has on the background? That's cool. You know, it's this painting (Manheim is referring to a painting in my living room that he saw during our Skype conversation-note from the author). What is it? You know, what made him be like this? You know, who was this guy? You know, it's interesting. We are always interested in stories.
You left Mayhem back then because you felt that everything relevant was said with the release of "Deathcrush" and you thought that nothing much would happen with the band anyway, right? So you left the band on your own decision. Nevertheless, constellations of other bands came to my mind first, where members left or had to leave the band, and some little time later came the success, the fame and the money. I'm thinking of ex-members from the first line-ups of bands like Metallica or Sepultura, for example. And even though Mayhem's status can't be compared to that, you left Mayhem before the band became big...
I understand the comparison, but it's not comparable, you know? And I think that a lot of people who has stories like that are also people who maybe didn't want to quit but Mayhem it's a different story, it's a story about friends. You know, we're still friends today. I was together with Necrobutcher this night, we stood on stage together, so there's no bitterness or quarrelling or anything of that. It was just that we were in the same space. Euronymous was pissed as hell when I decided to leave, he was really mad. I remember he said a lot of stupid things then as you do when you're 19 years old and angry. But a couple of months after that, it was back to normal. We were drinking beer and talking about music. "Deathcrush" seemed to me the end, I couldn't see that it would go any further, I was luckily proven wrong when later they released "De Mysteriis dom sathanas", which is a great album. But when I listened to it I wasn't feeling that I was left out of anything, it was more like "Wow, cool, it's great."
One week before Euronymous and I were going through "De mysteriis..." and he showed me with pride everything that he has done, you know, all the riffs and everything and it was a normal evening that you share with a friend, you know? And I think that makes my story about Mayhem different than maybe some of the stories you talked about. I never felt that this period that I have been part of Mayhem in any way is being put on the carpet or anything. It's just there and I talk about that period. If you ask me about the period after, you get Iess and less comments because I wasn't part of it.
Coming back to Order, are there any future plans maybe for playing live in Germany as well?
We're trying to get to Germany. The problem now is that 2022 is the postponed 2020. So there are a lot of clubs that have been forced to close down. There have been hard times, and we're no big name, so it's not that people were waiting to book us. I think this record needs to get out there and people need to listen to it and see how it goes. But we have a booking agent and he is trying to see if we can do Germany. We are going to do Poland next year. So it was planned for 2020, so it's just postponed. So I'm looking forward to that time and talking to him that maybe we could combine something, but I really hope that we get to go to Germany and play live.
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"I'm not sure how to put it, but I liked him, but the first time we met, I thought he was kind of draining all the energy."
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We were friends, but we weren't close friends because I didn't spend every day with him like Necrobutcher and Euroymous. Especially Necrobutcher and Dead were really close friends. But to me, he was a nice guy and I met him when I met the other guys at parties. But we weren´t that close.
From the distance of time and place, it always kind of occurred to me, there was this young depressed man leaving his home in Sweden and going to Norway, maybe he would have needed his family environment much more and a psychiatrist or psychotherapist probably as well to possibly prevent this tragedy.
It's very difficult to say how it would have gone. But of course, it's no secret that he had these issues, and if he hadn't had it, he wouldn't have done what he did. It had been dark times, without questions. I'm not sure how to express it, I liked him, but the first time we met, I thought he was kind of draining all the energy. So I even told him, I guess, I recall that, "Stop being so negative". But anyways, I didn't know him that much, so I wouldn't be able to give you a good answer to that, but there's a documentary which is actually good and that's from the Norwegian broadcaster NRK. I'm not sure if it's available in Germany, it's called "Helvete".
I'm not able to understand Norwegian...
It's not that different from German, but it's different, of course. So try to use Google Translate on this one. So this is the one on the internet movie database. It's quite good, at least the first episode, and this is the national broadcaster, so it's like the Norwegian BBC. I know that Necrobutcher likes it and I like it as well. And it's nothing in this documentary that's not true. Okay, it doesn't hold all truth, but there's nothing that's not true.
I don't remember that. I don't know. Regarding what Necrobutcher does, he has to give the answers but it sounds like a strange idea, and he said probably yes to it. But you know, he's not very religious, so maybe he agreed for the fun of it.
From the distance of time and place, it always kind of occurred to me, there was this young depressed man leaving his home in Sweden and going to Norway, maybe he would have needed his family environment much more and a psychiatrist or psychotherapist probably as well to possibly prevent this tragedy.
It's very difficult to say how it would have gone. But of course, it's no secret that he had these issues, and if he hadn't had it, he wouldn't have done what he did. It had been dark times, without questions. I'm not sure how to express it, I liked him, but the first time we met, I thought he was kind of draining all the energy. So I even told him, I guess, I recall that, "Stop being so negative". But anyways, I didn't know him that much, so I wouldn't be able to give you a good answer to that, but there's a documentary which is actually good and that's from the Norwegian broadcaster NRK. I'm not sure if it's available in Germany, it's called "Helvete".
I'm not able to understand Norwegian...
It's not that different from German, but it's different, of course. So try to use Google Translate on this one. So this is the one on the internet movie database. It's quite good, at least the first episode, and this is the national broadcaster, so it's like the Norwegian BBC. I know that Necrobutcher likes it and I like it as well. And it's nothing in this documentary that's not true. Okay, it doesn't hold all truth, but there's nothing that's not true.
In 2006 I read in a major German newspaper that Necrobutcher agreed to fly to the USA to undergo an exorcism by Bob Larson, the very well-known fundamentalist televangelist there. Do you know this story, can you say something about it ? I don't think that this report was a complete hoax, I can imagine that Bob Larson either believes in exorcism or needs it as a living example for his fanatical followers. Was the approval of Necrobutchers perhaps also meant as a promotional campaign for Mayhem?
-Addendum by the author: This "exorcism" actually took place in 2011, I have linked the corresponding YouTube video below. The Norwegian state television NRK accompanied the musician, in Germany the daily newspaper "Die Welt" reported on it.
Thank you. You obviously have done your preparations more than the most. I'm not a man of few words, so it can take time to go through.
Hopefully Order will give concerts in Germany soon. Maybe we will meet in person on such an occasion, here in Germany or somewhere else, who knows, the world is small.
This is a Bavarian speciality.
I know, I know. So but you have it available, don't you?
Yes of course.
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So, over wheat beer this long and detailed interview with Manheim comes to an end, I hope you enjoyed it!
