From Oz to Ragnarok
The Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal
Underground Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind
In the novel and film “A Clockwork Orange”, a brave
New World was predicted, where all of people’s material
needs are met while true liberty has been destroyed. In response,
gangs of nihilistic youths engage in violent and destructive
acts, partly because it gives them their sole sense of
independence and liberation. By the end of the story, the ruling
class has used the youth’s ill behavior as propaganda for
more restrictions on personal liberty and more control of the
people.
In the United States, the urban street gangs have more than
lived up to the grim warnings of Burgess and Kubrick, being used
as a racial code word and officially sanctioned demon to pass
legislation that violates basic constitutional rights. Less has
been made here of the mainly (so far) European phenomenon of the
Satanic Metal Underground, who fit the Clockwork Orange role so
well it should be assumed to be an imitation of sorts. Nearly 100
churches have been torched and desecrated by the head-banging
minions of the Black Metal scene, all with barely a word from the
korporate media as we head to the end of the millennium. In
“The Lords of Chaos”, Michael Moynihan and Didrik
Soderlind try to shine some light on the black hole of rock
music, a light that is long overdue.
As the reviewer is a big fan of the now-discredited musical
form known as Heavy Metal - albeit the more pop-flavored brand of
the 80’s - the book was certainly of interest in seeing
where metal has been going since its return to the gutters it
came from. Apparently, the reviewer is not alone in his interest:
the book has been the hot seller for beastly publisher Feral
House since its release, with substantial aid provided by
small-penised shock jock Howard Stern (who promoted the tome on
his radio show) and his apparently
more-literate-than-given-credit-for fans. The appeal is obvious:
Satan sells, a fact than Anton LaVey exploited shamelessly until
his recent death (an interview with the Church of Satan founder
is included in the book.) Add some gasoline and matches, as well
as an ugly subculture of a music form that glorifies hedonism and
rebellion, and a recipe for a delicious use of paper is the
result.
To their credit, Moynihan and Soderlind manage to guide the
book through the dark muck wisely. Very easily, this story could
be told in a lurid exploitative fashion - “I’m a Metal
Satanist and I Burn Down Churches!!!” is a Jerry Springer
episode just waiting to happen. (In fact, the book includes
articles and pictures from Heavy Metal magazine Kerrang! that
revel in such hysteria-mongering.) The other possibility is that
the book could have been a dry, scholarly read, reporting the
events without catching the flavor of that which is being
reported. Avoiding the mistakes of Icarus, the duo present the
material in an intelligent and entertaining style that is as fun
as it is informative. This reviewer, for one, couldn’t put
the book down.
Still, reading the book is a frustrating experience. This is
not because of the writing, but because of the unfocused anger
that the story’s protagonist are filled with, anger that
fuels their ultimately destructive behavior. It’d be one
thing if the Black Metalers were a group of morons. Far from it:
Varg Vikernes, the charismatic leader of Burzum and perhaps the
central character of this book, clearly is an intelligent guy and
has a clue to what’s up. So was Euronymous, the late
guitarist of Mayhem who was killed by Vikernes, a death that
becomes the meat of the book. Even Mayhem’s drummer
Hellhammer shows himself to be a sharp guy in interviews, no
small feat considering most drummers are on par with Tommy Lee in
the IQ department. So what the hell is their problem?
A clue is given in the book with the background history
behind the sonic attack. Among the more important figures in the
evolution tree of Black Metal are blues singer Robert Johnson, as
well as Rock gods The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. The key
figure, however, appears to be Ozzy Osbourne, the seminal icon of
the Metal Milieu due to his ground-breaking band Black Sabbath
and his just as impressive latter solo work. Osbourne and Sabbath
came out of the hallucinogenic 60’s, an LSD-nightmare of
gloom and doom that trampled on the flower children’s
fantasies of peace and harmony with such songs as
“Paranoid” and “Iron Man”. As their name
implies, Ozzy and Sabbath were the shadow of the 60’s in
full bloom, the dark side that Jagger and Jim Morrison could only
hint at in comparison.
Contrary to popular belief (as the book emphasizes) Osbourne
and Sabbath were certainly not Nihilist themselves, nor were they
Satanists - not even in the LaVey “rational
selfishness” sense. His controversial “Suicide
Solution” song certainly doesn’t glorify killing
oneself (though it certainly is sympathetic to those that
contemplate it), and “Mr. Crowley” is more condemning
than celebratory of the Great Beast himself. The truth is, Ozzy
was (and is) a romantic idealist at heart, something which is
proven undoubtedly by any examination of his lyrics. It
wasn’t a rejection of the hippie value system that led to
the fury in the Sabbath sound: rather, it was a rejection of the
hippie naiveté. As Osbourne has since put it, “There was a
lot of bullshit going on.” Osbourne saw the future too
precisely: the military industrial komplex would stamp out any
real revolt (Abbie Hoffman, Timothy Leary, The Black Panthers,
etc.) and the 60’s generation would sell out, become part of
the korporate death machine they once supposedly fought against.
Foreseeing this bleak future, Oz and Sabbath blared songs that
copped an attitude that has since gone multi-platinum.
The problem, of course, is that Osbourne and company
weren’t trying to glorify nihilism, but to wake people up to
what they’re really going up against. Maybe something got
lost in the translation. Or maybe Vikernes and his ilk,
inheriting the future that Oz warned about, are left to senseless
violence and destruction as their only option to shock people
rather than getting with the program.
The necessity to shock is certainly understandable, but the
vehicles the Black Metal adherents use are certainly at fault.
Following the lead of Vikernes, the scene is loaded with
neo-Nazis, racists, and homophobes, echoing the ugly lyrics
whined by Axl Rose in “One in a Million”. Bard
“Faust” Eithun, a drummer for the band Emperor, is now
in prison for murdering a homosexual. His comment: “I have
to stand up for what I’ve done... there’s no
remorse.” Former Mayhem singer “Dead” apparently
blew his brains out in a fit of depression. And then there is the
Vikernes - Euronymous feud that ended with one dead and the other
jailed.
What is revelatory is the participant’s discussion of
all the deaths and church-burnings, done in a deadpan, nonchalant
manner. It’s almost as if the Black Metalheads, having
embraced a philosophy that life is pointless, have lost any
ability to feel emotion about dying or carnage. As Hendrik Mobus
puts it after murdering a student, “Every passing second a
human dies, so there’s no need to make a big fuss of this
one kill.” This is the real tragedy of this book, that a
group of kids who could be among the best and brightest have
instead given up caring about anything but shock, perhaps because
it is the only thing left that gives them any feeling.
For those looking for conspiracy, it has to be asked if this
is by design. After all, in the Burgess novel, it is apparent
that Alex and his partners in crimes are unwittingly serving the
powers-that-be with their ultraviolence. Likewise, the Crips and
Bloods have long been the best poster boys for the prison
buildup, higher law-enforcement budgets, and dubious gun-control
laws - which perhaps explains the evidence that the weapons and
drugs that fuel the gangs come from a higher source, i.e. the
CIA. Is someone jerking the Satanic Metal Underground’s
chain? Perhaps, but the book supplies no such arguments, probably
because the evidence is weak or non-existent. Quite the opposite
appears true, based on empty boasts of Vikernes on his own
importance. Most certainly if there was any deeper conspiracy,
he’d be the first to brag about it. An interview with a
former OTO leader (an occult organization founded by Aleister
Crowley) seems to confirm that the Black Metal isn’t run by
some larger institution, since these misfits hardly seem
particularly well- organized in the first place.
Sad to say the noise of the Black Metal scene - at least its
ugliest elements - is pretty pathetic. Faced with a system of
evil and hypocricy, they merely try to one up the system in being
diabolical, and fail miserably. These guys aren’t stupid,
but their anger is totally misdirected. I can’t help but
think of what a particularly anti-religious friend of mine said
when I started describing the book to her: “I want to see
churches burned to the ground too, but I want the church members
to do it themselves after they realize it’s all a
fraud.” Now there’s some real rabble-rousing.
Moynihan and Soderlind deserve at lot of credit for the
picture they paint in this investigative work, even if the
picture is quite ugly. In the end, the Black Metal scene is a
sorry-ass attempt by a group of angry young guys to be an
individual, and in the process they become all they detest.
Sorry, but pentagrams, swastikas, and loud music just don’t
cut it.
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