Turning on to Bradshawgate I’m greeted by the sight of a full-blown fun fair, which leads me to think one of three things to be true: a) Grind Before Death has gone all Download Festival and put on extra-musical entertainment for the kids; b) that I’ve walked into a sort of Something Wicked This Way Comes type thing; or, and bear in mind it’s still February at this point, c) the good people of Bolton are nuttier than squirrel poop and will do anything not to have to endure Saturday night television.
As the warm-up to May’s Grind After Death, this curtain-raiser to the 2026 festival season takes place inside the almost two-hundred-year-old Grade 2 listed Alma Inn, with half the room given over to the stage and the other to punters. The reason for the Grade 2 listing is due to a large and historic fireplace and range, which just so happens to be in the area allocated to the audience. Heritage England may well be having an aneurism later when the pit gets feisty.
The carnival is in full swing across the road when Nottingham trio, Drēor take to the stage with their unsettling fascination with both cooking and death metal. It’s a recipe – pardon the pun – for disaster combining those two, I’m sure. Early on the band create some brooding atmospherics with groove and melody on openers, Living Cadaver and Three-Man Roast, the latter indulging itself in some serious cymbal abuse. Newbie, The Portal comes with some virtuoso bass tapping and a crawling creepy a feeling of dread, while older tune, 2023’s Buried, from The Terror Rises EP, is surprisingly sedate for such an evening as this.
Blood & Bourbon has some serious old school death metal energy and inspires the evening’s first participation in the form of a jaunty jig from a solitary attendee. Primitive Beatings hits with a blast of punk vigour, and set closer, Pan-Fried Man rumbles low and has a progressive vibe. Grind Before Death is up and running.
Photo Credit: Rich Price Photography
Fellow east-Midlanders, Nagasaki Birth Defect, have a more direct grinding approach, but the presence of Tom Reynolds of Foul Body Autopsy – sporting a guitar so complex looking that you’d be best off trying to suss out the workings of a fusion reactor – means there’s a fair amount of technicality to be found. Boasting just a single full-length, the 2015 self-titled, you may think NBD would base their set largely around that material, but no! Early on we get a host of tunes not on the debut: State Enforced Euthanasia, Victim Mentality, and Fuck Off with Your Witchy Bullshit blast and rage as good old-fashioned grind should. A small room in a pub and a bunch of rabid maniacs is just what the Dr ordered.
Just Stop Being a Cunt pretty much says everything it needs to in its title; Take Your Stupid Gimmick and Kindly Fuck Off and an untitled new tune tease another record, though the leaking of a previous recording seems to have soured that idea. Shotgun Blast Castration and the idea of feeding wrong ‘uns through a woodchipper on Woodchipper Death Sentence seems to get tacit approval around the Alma; Cycle Paths are to Blame and Spin Kicks Are For Cunts are big ticks from me. Tom’s “Thar she blows” intro to A Day at the Beach is the first of just three songs from 2015, the other two arriving at the close: Oxygen Thief and Fuck! end the set of blitzkrieg grinders played at a rip-roaring pace. Someone calls for Deicide’s Lunatic of God’s Creation, but the guitars have been unstrapped by that point.
Photo Credit: Rich Price Photography
Not to be confused with the US Black Metal band of the same name, Scarborough’s Mordhau find themselves in the usual position of replacing Dychosis, who themselves were replacements for Repel. All that really matters is Mordhau is here and ready to take on Bolton. You can tell before a note had been struck that this is going to be a trip down Memory Lane with the strapping on of a Flying-V guitar. It’s a gothic sounding build up then straight into Bereft of Rotting Flesh from the band’s sole album, 2020’s Immaculate Massacre. Machine gun riffing fires the crowd into life and puts that fireplace in mortal danger. Matty Andrews’ choppy barks go directly into the faces of the front row, Temporal Insanity comes with the incessant toiling of a bell, and it appears the band have their very own cheerleader, who’s perched on the lip of the stage for the duration.
It’s rapidly becoming a full-contact environment in the pit, bodies slamming into each other with reckless abandon, yet it’s safe as houses in there; good friendly violent fun, as Exodus once said and the ladies are certainly holding their own in this battle of the sexes. Through Religion Denied, Duty Be Done and set closer, Pig Society, the floor is a mass of colliding figures, with not a single person willing to quit before the band run out of time and the curtain is drawn on the show. ‘Tis but a temporary ceasefire, with hostilities to be resumed upon the arrival of the next band.
Photo Credit: Rich Price Photography
That next band is Norwich grinders, Vast Slug, whose thirty-track debut album, Driving Music, was one of the finest slabs of extremity in musica from last year, in my humble opinion. Former Nervewrecker vocalist, Ed Bell, compares the Slug’s set with the perfect amount of confrontation, both to the music and the crowd. Early tunes include the minute-long Flat Earth Fuckwit, You Don’t Believe in the Theory of Evolution So I Hope the Theory, and You Act Like Butter Wouldn’t Melt, Bitch. Ed calls Bolton, Bristol, much to the chagrin of the locals, dedicates Your Boyfriend has a Micro-Penis to the Annotations of an Autopsy guitarist, Sean Mason – maybe beef, maybe an East Anglia thing…
Further colourful subject areas getting the Vast Slug treatment today come in the form of Chris Beniot’s Family Values, Phillip Schofield is a Fucking Nonce, and Harold Fish N’ Chipman; and Lolita Express: Under 16’s Fly Free couldn’t be more current if it tried. The crowd are strangely subdued early on, but that changes after a cajoling from Mr Bell, which seems to whip them back into the Mordhau frenzy of earlier. You’re a Fucking Cunt is dedicated to Dani Filth, there’s a cover of Napalm Death’s You Suffer and the set closes with a ride with the Vengaboys.
The pit gets fierce, putting the blood pressure of any English Heritage officer through the roof; there’s the smallest of circle pits and it all ends with Ed recommending we check out the band on “MySpace, or wherever.” The Slug play the role as special guest to perfection, cranking the enjoyment level to the maximum, yet leaving the crowd with just enough energy for the headliner.
Photo Credit: Rich Price Photography
Italian three-piece, Golem of Gore, is the epitome of the goregrind ethos. Playing tonight without a bassist gives the set a raw and uncultivated sound, meaning Grumo, Logic of Denial and Psychostasy guitarist, Marco Carboni, is covering both bases. Making a swift return to English shores after their British debut at last year’s Chimpyfest, these goremeisters ensure things get real spicy, real quickly with the opening salvos of Supportive Necro-Parotitis In my Dying Little Girlfriend and Esophagus Obstructed by Loneliness and Purulent Fecal Matter, both taken from the 2021 debut, Madness Is the Beginning: Beyond the Darkness of the Brightest Gore. Interspersed are tracks from last year’s Ultimo Mondo Cane full-length: Withdrawal Crisis – Through the Keyhole of Madness and the insanely titled, In the Cold Room of my Restaurant, You are Dog Food.
Vocalist Riki barks and snarls his way through such delightful ditties as Sucking the Abscess and Savouring the Necrotic Material, Chronic Obstructive Vomit and A Prayer from the Filthy Creatures of the Deep. Brutal slams and ruthlessly effective grinding wring the last drops of energy out of the Saturday night crowd; someone waves a shoe at the band as the Golems turn their attention to their vast number of splits. The 2022 record with US goremerchants, Lipoma provides An Open Wounded Corpse and Secreting Sperm into…; Septic Shock Factor, Ripped By Fury and closer Crippling Vomit Hydrocephalus come from the disc shared with pathology obsessed Texans, Ischemic Necrosis.
Photo Credit: Rich Price Photography
Italian three-piece, Golem of Gore, is the epitome of the goregrind ethos. Playing tonight without a bassist gives the set a raw and uncultivated sound, meaning Grumo, Logic of Denial and Psychostasy guitarist, Marco Carboni, is covering both bases. Making a swift return to English shores after their British debut at last year’s Chimpyfest, these goremeisters ensure things get real spicy, real quickly with the opening salvos of Supportive Necro-Parotitis In my Dying Little Girlfriend and Esophagus Obstructed by Loneliness and Purulent Fecal Matter, both taken from the 2021 debut, Madness Is the Beginning: Beyond the Darkness of the Brightest Gore. Interspersed are tracks from last year’s Ultimo Mondo Cane full-length: Withdrawal Crisis – Through the Keyhole of Madness and the insanely titled, In the Cold Room of my Restaurant, You are Dog Food.
Vocalist Riki barks and snarls his way through such delightful ditties as Sucking the Abscess and Savouring the Necrotic Material, Chronic Obstructive Vomit and A Prayer from the Filthy Creatures of the Deep. Brutal slams and ruthlessly effective grinding wring the last drops of energy out of the Saturday night crowd; someone waves a shoe at the band as the Golems turn their attention to their vast number of splits. The 2022 record with US goremerchants, Lipoma provides An Open Wounded Corpse and Secreting Sperm into…; Septic Shock Factor, Ripped By Fury and closer Crippling Vomit Hydrocephalus come from the disc shared with pathology obsessed Texans, Ischemic Necrosis.
Photo Credit: Rich Price Photography
As the final notes fade, so too does the opening shots of the 2026 festival season. The main Grind After Death event takes place on 30 May 2026, out in the main arena – aka, the beer garden – which will play host to Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition, DeathCollector, Berenice and many more. Celebrating the festival’s fifth anniversary, if this warm-up show – and last year’s event – is anything to go by, then that is one not to miss.
Will the fun fair be there? Who knows… if Michael McIntyre or Ant & Dec are on the telly that night, it could be a real possibility.
In writing this article, I was more than a little surprised at just how many Heavy Metal bands have done cover versions over the years. Then I was even more surprised at the sheer breadth of songs that have been re-imagined. The hardest thing was actually narrowing the list down to twenty, and the second hardest thing was putting them into some kind of order of preference.
It certainly was not an exact science, and as I was writing this piece, the pecking order changed repeatedly. By no means exhaustive and definitely not authoritative, here is my best pick for the Top 20 Heavy Metal Cover Versions.
20. Take On Me – Vision Divine – Send Me An Angel (2002).
Italian rockers Vision Divine took A-ha’s ’80s pop classic and turned it into a very credible Metal track. It’s still got a poppy feel, and yes, keyboards as well, but the galloping guitars and drums announce this version’s genre trip, and Fabio Lione’s vocals absolutely nail this.
19. Live And Let Die – Guns N’ Roses – Use Your Illusion Part 1 (1991).
There are stranger songs for a Metal band to cover than a Bond theme performed by Wings, but maybe not many. Guns N’ Roses really go for it with their version of this song, much less restrained than the original, and with a fabulous pre-grunge over-the-top-ness that made the late ’80s and early ’90s a great place to be for Metalheads.
18. Black Sheep of the Family – Rainbow – Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow (1975).
This is a cover of the Quatermass original version, which actually gave the original artists a shot in the arm and shifted an extra twenty thousand copies of their album. Anyway, Rainbow really let rip with their version of this song, with lots of nice bluesy licks from Blackmore, and on-point vocals from Ronnie James Dio.
17. Something ‘Bout You Baby I Like – Status Quo – Never Too Late (1981).
Much like the Quo themselves, this is a song that’s been around the block, and then some. Previously recorded by Tom Jones, and then as a duet by Glen Campbell and Rita Coolidge, the Frantic Four’s incarnation is by far the most, well, frantic. This song really sits well with Status Quo’s signature sound, and it’s no surprise that A: it was released as a single, and B: it did rather well in the charts.
16. Tantric – The Chain – After We Go (2004).
Tantric really updated and beefed up this Fleetwood Mac classic from the ’70s. Deeper, more threatening vocals, dirty guitar and tight, encircling drumming keep this song intense and an absolute pleasure to listen to. And while the original always seemed to me to be two songs stitched together, this version effortlessly combines both acts into one awesome whole.
15. Set Me Free – Saxon – Crusader (1984).
Biff and the boys from Barnsley crank up the volume and do what they do best with this reworking of an old Sweet song. And that’s not to say the original wasn’t chock-full of jumping beans. It was. And sure, I may be showing my bias here, but Saxon took that hot rocking powderkeg that is this song, gave it an added kick in the guts, and sent it into orbit, in a very good way.
14. Born To Be Wild – The Cult – Electric (1987).
The Cult went right back to Heavy Metal basics with this album, and especially so with this song, with the riffs even more pared down than the original, although the solo is immense. Covering a bona fide Metal classic is always taking a risk, but The Cult hit gold with this one, combining respect for the original with a twist all of their own.
13. Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) – Marilyn Manson – Smells Like Children (1995).
The Eurythmics original was an edgy, synthy ’80s song that showed that pop music could still have real depth. Marilyn Manson took that canvas and gave us a truly terrifying, slime-soaked, gruesome version in a way that only he can. Combine that with the visuals of the video, and you’ve got a truly phenomenal musical statement.
12. Saturday Night’s All Right For Fighting – Nickelback – The Long Road (2003).
Elton John playing the original was a real curveball, but in a good way, and so Nickelback’s galloping Metal version is, in some ways, more predictable. The foursome from Hanna really let rip on their version, playing it in their very familiar style. Nickelback are truly, really awesome, and turning their talents to this song proves why.
11. Evil Woman – Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath (1970).
Black Sabbath covered this on their debut album, and it sits perfectly alongside their own songs. It’s doomy, it’s stark and dark. It’s an ideal complement to the Sabbath sound, and in 1970, it allowed the band to make their mark in a truly original way.
10. Ride Like The Wind – Saxon – Destiny (1988).
Saxon took this Christopher Cross song and gave it one almighty injection of late-’80s Metal. In fact, it was so damn catchy it was released as a single, and jolly good it was too. A lot heavier than the original, it really fitted in with Saxon’s style, and unusually for our down-to-earth Yorkshire lads, even their music video was, well, pretty cool for its time.
9. Lollipop – Framing Hanley – The Moment (2007).
Framing Hanley covered this Lil Wayne rap song and played like it was only ever a rock song. It appears as a bonus track on their debut album, The Moment. It’s a great, thoroughly entertaining song, and the video will raise a smile to every under-thirty who watches it, and remind everyone over thirty just what it meant to be young.
8. Helter Skelter – Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson – Twins Of Evil (2018).
This song has long been regarded as proto-Metal, one of the first Heavy Metal songs ever, recorded by none other than The Beatles. Then, after fifty years of Heavy Metal, Misters Zombie and Manson gave us their own take on it.
The end result is deeper, slower, and oh so much heavier. Take nothing away from the original, but the revamped version remains something very special.
7. The Real Me – W.A.S.P. – The Headless Children (1989).
The Headless Children was most definitely W.A.S.P.’s first grown-up album, showing a depth and maturity that remains a pleasure to hear. None more so than this, their cover of The Who’s classic from Quadrophenia.
You can feel Blackie Lawless’ paranoia and desperation as he sings the tortured lyrics. Overall, it’s not that much heavier than the original, but it’s a whole lot darker.
6. Stairway to Heaven – Far Corporation – Division One (1985).
I’ll hold my hands up and say that this was the first version of Stairway that I heard. Yes, I also heard all of the outrage from my mates, many of whom were Led Zep fans, who, like quite a few Prem League footie fans, probably took things a bit too seriously.
Let’s face it, Far Corporation treated this song with respect and delivered it in the mid-’80s style. In and of itself, it’s a really good version of the song, and I loved the video, which, if I remember rightly, had two drummers. Rock on!
5. Cats In The Cradle – Ugly Kid Joe – America’s Most Wanted (1992).
Ugly Kid Joe went very deep with this cover of Harry Chapin’s song. It’s a heartbreaking song about a boy who resents not being able to spend time with his father, and then turns out to be the very same father himself when he grows up.
You can’t help but be hit between the eyes by this song, and Ugly Kid Joe gave it a whole load of feeling with their version. Excellent stuff!
4. Whiskey In The Jar – Thin Lizzy, (1973).
Not so much a cover of a specific band’s song, more of a traditional Irish folk song that had been sung by The Dubliners and then The Highwaymen before Phil Lynott’s legendary band took hold of it, way back in the ’70s.
This version is electrifying, and simultaneously takes you back in time to the Cork and Kerry mountains, and also front and centre at a rock concert.
3. Mony Mony – Billy Idol – Vital Idol (1985).
This is a reworking of the Shondells’ song from way back in ’68 (a very good year). Billy Idol recorded a studio version and then released a live version, which absolutely cleaned up in ’87.
Complete with some corrosive Steve Stevens guitaring, Mr Idol absolutely took this song into another dimension, and all of it was Metal.
2. I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll – Joan Jett And The Blackhearts – I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll (1981).
This was one of the first Heavy Metal songs I ever heard, and I was sold from that moment on. This song was first recorded by The Arrows, with whom Joan Jett toured during her time in The Runaways. Joan Jett’s version is one hundred per cent Heavy Metal.
It’s dirty, it’s sleazy, it’s truly addictive. It’s got a riff that will stay with you forever, and if you get to see the video, there’s a bona fide neck bend on the guitar.
1. Still I’m Sad – Rainbow – Rainbow On Stage (1977).
Rainbow did an instrumental cover of the Yardbirds’ song on their debut album, but they absolutely owned it with their live album. Literally everything about this version is on point, from the soaring vocals to the sublime guitar attack, and just when you think it’s all over, the drum reprise at the end is just absolute Heavy Metal heaven.
And there we have it, a short, very short list of the many excellent Heavy Metal cover versions that are out there. You could so easily have a top 40, and you would still just be scratching the surface.
Of course, a list like this will only ever be subjective. Any one of us could have a whole different 20 songs as their pick, and that’s always something to celebrate.
Book of Churches, the solo project from the breakthrough alt-country band Divorce’s co-vocalist and guitarist Felix Mackenzie-Barrow, today releases its self-titled debut album via Gravity / Capitol Records.
When Book of Churches was announced at the top of the year with lead single ‘Song By A Stranger’ – a song that Felix describes “as the blueprint for how I wanted to make the album” – a candid, and profoundly raw body of work began to come into view. While touring extensively with Divorce through the last few years, Felix was snatching moments away in isolation, pressing forward with a writing process that describes as “incredibly DIY” and “kind of naïve.” Each song was written in one day, recorded the next, and left largely untouched until the album was handed over to Richie Kennedy (Interpol, The Last Dinner Party) for mixing. Charting lost love, dread, grief and anger, ‘Book of Churches’ was about breaking some of his own creative rules, trusting his own singular voice, and committing to “the raw contents of my brain.” The result is a timeless minimalism in the tradition of folk singer-songwriters like Nick Drake and Fionn Regan, or Leonard Cohen.
As the album is released, so is a video for new song ‘All The Good Things’, which Felix comments on “All The Good Things was written shortly after a break up. It recounts memories that resurfaced at that time and was an attempt to find peace in myself and in the shared experiences I had been through with that person. I recorded and mixed it in a few hours in the room I was staying in at my parents’ house about eighteen months after I had written it. This was by far the longest gap between writing and recording on the album.”
Continuing about the album he says: “It feels a bit like a travelogue. In some ways, when I wrote these songs, I was talking to the person I was no longer in a relationship with – just saying hello. Sometimes, the songs were attempts at looking for a North Star that I could speak to. It’s this idea of how big the world is, and how precious those few connections that you have with people are, and how you can feel those so acutely across vast spaces and times. Book of Churches is basically a metaphor for how I felt making these songs. These songs are like my version of whatever church is.”
23 April – The Hope & Ruin, Brighton, UK 25 April – The Castle, Manchester, UK 26 April – The Hug & Pint, Glasgow, UK 28 April – Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds, UK 29 April – The Cube, Bristol, UK 30 April – St Pancras Old Church, London, UK 01 May – Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
*****
More about Book of Churches
“It started out as a way of staying sane, then it began to form its own identity,” Felix Mackenzie-Barrow says of his new solo venture, Book of Churches. The co-vocalist and guitarist of Nottingham alt-country quartet Divorce has spent most of the last few years either building up to the band’s acclaimed full-length debut Drive to Goldenhammer, released in March 2025, or touring Europe and North America in support of it. In rare snatches of downtime, he began working on his own material – initially as a way to hold on to his sense of self while travelling and spending so much time in a group, but partly to scratch an itch that sat outside the Divorce world.
Book of Churches is intimate at every level. With Felix squirrelling away on the songs in isolation, its self-titled debut is a collection of campfire songs laid out in the order in which they were written and produced at home on GarageBand. The arrangements are warm but stripped back; the kind that lend themselves to being played impromptu while travelling with just a guitar case and a tank of petrol.
Each song was written in one day, recorded the next, and left largely untouched until the album was handed over to Richie Kennedy (Divorce, Interpol, The Last Dinner Party) for mixing. Overthinking and perfectionism were abandoned in favour of intuition and looseness. “Because no one was teaching me, I invented this school of production for myself,” he chuckles. “But what’s amazing is [Richie] is really amplifying that and allowing for the idiosyncrasies of the way I’ve worked on it to come through and be celebrated.”
The lyrics were pulled from notes he kept on his phone while on the road, and in the aftermath of a breakup. Caught between people and places, there is a transitional feel to Book of Churches; a meditative acceptance to the snapshots, impressions, and memories that are part personal diary entry, part letter to a former flame. “It feels a bit like a travelogue,” says Felix. “In some ways, when I wrote these songs, I was talking to the person I was no longer in a relationship with – just saying hello.
“Sometimes, the songs were attempts at looking for a North Star that I could speak to,” he continues. “It’s this idea of how big the world is, and how precious those few connections that you have with people are, and how you can feel those so acutely across vast spaces and times.”
The moniker crystalised when Felix noticed that he had been repeatedly drawing tiny churches in bleak settings and couldn’t quite explain why – though he suspects he was longing for a feeling of safety, and making that place for himself using the materials of a place where he was never able to find it. Book of Churches, then, turns the idea of a place of worship – a presence that bears down on you, rather than a presence you bring to it – on its head. There is an almost spiritual sense of peace in these songs about memory, loss, and gratitude even in sadness.
“Book of Churches is basically a metaphor for how I felt making these songs,” he says. “These songs are like my version of whatever church is.”
It has taken a little while, but the crew behind Wildfire Festival 2026 have just dropped what should be the penultimate announcement for this year’s bash. We know you’ve been waiting patiently for more news on the lineup, and this latest update brings us closer to a final schedule for the weekend. The festival returns … Continue reading Wildfire Festival 2026 adds more names to the bill
Massachusetts-based slam n’ roll duo Frog Mallet have premiered a brand-new single, entitled “Snack Time”, which is available to stream below. Read more…
Review: The Gems – Year of the Snake Napalm Records (March 13th, 2026) Reviewer – Jason Hopper Having risen from the ashes of their group departure from Thundermother, The Gems are back with their sophomore release, ‘Year of the Snake‘. Their debut album ‘Pheonix‘ (review here) was terrific and adhered close to the sound of their […]
“I’m in my late 30s, again,” grins Nocturno Culto. As the Scandinavian sun shines through the window over a still-snowy tundra outside, he says he’s looking forward to spring taking proper hold, so that, “I can mow my lawn.”
The jolly, friendly man born Ted Skjellum is actually celebrating his 54th birthday on the day that Kerrang! speaks to him. The thing that is in its late 30s is his tenure as the singer and guitarist with Norwegian black metal legends Darkthrone, which began in 1988. The real anniversary here, though is Darkthrone themselves. To celebrate their 40th year, Ted and drummer Fenriz (the band’s two members since the departure of guitarist Ivar ‘Zephyrous’ Enger in 1993, and bassist Dag Nilsen in 1991), have overseen the release of a massive commemorative boxset, The Fist In The Face Of God.
Exploring ‘the black metal years’, and running from 1992’s genre-defining second album A Blaze In The Northern Sky to 2004’s Sardonic Wrath, the nine albums contained within are a chronicle of some of the finest works ever to bear the name Norwegian black metal. It also shows quite what a creative force Darkthrone are. The shift from the haunting death metal of their 1991 Soulside Journey debut (not included here) to …Blaze’s raw, slashing black metal may have been profound and noticeable, but even as they became rawer and more primitive, colder and more atmospheric, each album stands as its own waymarker of just where Darkthrone were at any given time.
Mysterious, even by Norwegian black metal standards, the band’s lack of involvement in the acts of their peers in the early ’90s – church arson, murder – in some way only added to the mystique of the music. Likewise with the fact that they stopped playing live very early on, to the extent that the boxset includes a video of their final live show in Oslo in 1996 (itself coming after a long gap).
As he celebrates his own birthday, Ted looks back on a life as Nocturno Culto, and the history of one of the most important bands ever, black metal or otherwise…
What was it like, growing up as a young rock and metal fan in Norway? “It was kind of lonely. At school there was, like, one other guy into it. KISS was always popular, but when it came to metal, that was a bit more of a lonely affair as a kid, because people didn’t understand the music. This was exactly the same mentality we had with Darkthrone as well, because we never considered Norway as some kind of an epicentre of interest in metal.”
How did you discover more dark, extreme stuff? “I think it was in ’85 or something. There was something called Monsters Of Rock on Sky [TV], which was hosted by [legendary Kerrang! writer] Mick Wall. He played a live video for Hell Awaits by Slayer, and I couldn’t understand what the hell just happened. I had listened to Metallica and Black Sabbath and stuff like that, but Slayer was like this big train of sound just running over you. I sat there afterwards and thought, ‘What the hell happens now?’ I understood that my life would take a bit more of a sinister turn after that video. So, we can blame all of this on Slayer…”
You joined Darkthrone in 1988, a couple of years after they started. How did you find them, and what was it like meeting Fenriz for the first time? “I had a band before that, with some of my cousins. But they didn’t have the same kind of, I don’t want to say ‘ambitions’, but I really wanted to play, and do something else once in a while apart from rehearse. So, when I got the opportunity to join them, someone I knew gave me a phone number for Fenriz. We talked on the phone for an hour, mainly about music – particularly Orion by Metallica. We arranged to meet at Kolbotn station, and I asked Fenriz how I would find him. He said he had this kind of bowl-cut, and at the back there was a rat tail hanging down, and some Palestinian scarf or whatever. It was not very hard to spot him, to say the least! In early May 1988 I went to see them play at a rock competition in a nearby county to decide if I wanted to join or not, and then I got into the band after that.”
What were you hoping to do as a band? “It’s at least 80 per cent truth that when I joined and we started to make serious music, our one ambition was to record an album. That was it. We did three demos, and actually had offers from 10 or 11 places. We went with Peaceville, because they seemed the most serious, and they had signed Autopsy, who we liked. After we signed, they would send us test presses and advance tapes of Autopsy and stuff like that. I remember at one of our rehearsals getting the test press for the first My Dying BrideEP in the mail. So we were happy campers.”
Why did you go for the name Nocturno Culto? “I am a person that starts to get alive after 11pm. I work really well in the night time – that’s when my mind is sharp. And I think the name has some Spanish origins, which is cool. But it’s basically because I like the night time.”
What was it like going to Sweden to record Soulside Journey at Sunlight Studios? You were very young lads still. “That was great. I think we were 18, and we took the train from Oslo to Stockholm. The Entombed guys hosted us, and they were great because they had been in that studio and knew it a bit more well than we did. They came in a couple of times and helped out with some stuff. I remember I got the task of calling the studio to ask about stuff that we could bring with us, especially on the drum kit. I was nagging about having our own toms, and they said that was okay. But when I phoned one more time and asked about having our bass drums with us, that was a hard no! “Ivar was late one day to studio. He had actually fallen asleep on the subway in Stockholm, which ran for 24 hours, so he was just sleeping all night on the train going back and forth!But we took it seriously, and it was a really proud moment. CDs were pretty new then, and I remember putting it in my CD player when it came out, and it said ‘Track 1’. I thought, ‘This is my track.’”
There a lot of difference between that album and A Blaze In The Northern Sky… “I’ve been discussing this with Fenriz for the last five years. We understand why people think that’s a big change, but for us in the band, the change wasn’t that big, really. For us in Darkthrone at the time, we weren’t really a death metal band from the beginning. I don’t want to get stuck in one track or whatever. We would just sit in the basement at Ivar’s place, having a good time, listening to things that we liked, like Bathory and Motörhead. Soulside Journey is basically a result of how we were teenagers, and we just wanted to be good at our instruments. The budget for Soulside Journey wasn’t that big, so the only place we got a shot at was Sunlight Studios, and we got what we got. “For A Blaze In The Northern Sky, and Under A Funeral Moon after, we wanted it to be cold. The sound was something we tried to plan as best as we could, because we didn’t want to end up not having control over it. We did some research and tried stuff out at the rehearsal space, especially Ivar and me with the guitars. We wanted it to be cold, and luckily we got an engineer that was hired into that studio who was a real professional. Even though it’s kind of extreme, I think that the guy really did a good job in all that chaos. He had never worked with stuff like this before, but he understood the basics, and he was a professional who understood the sound, so he managed to balance the madness somehow. “I started doing a different type of vocals as well. On Soulside Journey, I was only doing death metal vocals, so I think Fenriz was really, really curious about how I was going to do the vocals this time. I wanted to be alone with the engineer in the studio to do it, and we had some candles and stuff. The other guys in the band left, but Fenriz was really slow out of the door. I could see him as I started recording, and he was like (nods in approval).”
The label were pretty surprised with the end result, right? “Yeah, and no wonder! I can understand it from their point of view, listening to Kathaarian Life Code, the first song, and going, ‘What the hell is this? Are we supposed to promote this and sell this kind of shit?’ We had a little back and forth. They wanted us to remix everything, but we said, ‘No, this is how it’s supposed to sound.’ There was a bit of arguing, but we got what we wanted, and I would say that after it had been out for a year I think they must have sold a lot of records, because it went kind of quiet. They didn’t hassle us much after that!”
The visuals got really different as well. The albums started having stark, black and white covers, and you were wearing corpsepaint in the pictures. What was your inspiration for that? “That’s a good question. Really, it’s difficult to answer. Bands before that had painted their faces, like King Diamond in Mercyful Fate, and Morbid from Sweden, but I think we used the corpsepaint for our own… let’s call it ‘band rituals’. It’s hard to explain. “Actually, I remember very well the time that we decided not to use corpsepaint anymore. Ivar was coming to rehearsal one day in the middle of the summer, walking down the main street in Oslo, and he saw three guys coming towards him with corpsepaint, who were all sweating. When he told us that, we were kind of in shock. It had become kind of a commercial thing, and we decided, ‘Okay, no more!’”
This was when the Norwegian black metal scene was starting to become active. What was it like going into Euronymous’ shop, Helvete, and having somewhere like that as a record store and a place to meet? “Yeah, people forget maybe that it was actually a functional record store. Euronymous had the whole floor of the shop that he rented, so it was a kind of a big record store with few records. We got to know people from other parts of Norway that were hanging around there, and it was good times, really. I remember a couple of months after A Blaze In The Northern Sky came out, I was walking in there, and these two guys were in there, with the album in their hands, listening to it on the speakers. One guy was looking at me in some kind of awe. He said to me, ‘Do you know what you have done?’ And I was like, ‘What have you done?’ “Something had happened, and I understood it was the album. We got that vision out, and I’m happy that it turned out to be that good. But it took a year at least before I did catch what kind of impact that album had, because we didn’t read magazines or anything. But I realise now what we were part of, and luckily we brought something to the table.”
What do you remember about the attention and infamy black metal started gaining for the stuff people in the scene were doing? “Well, I am born and raised in Oslo, and I moved away from Oslo in December ’91, before all those things happened, because I knew that something was going to happen. It was a bit more, let’s say, serious times. Everybody was young and [into] crazy stuff. But I took the first opportunity I got to move out, and I moved far away from Oslo. When I saw all these things on the news, I wasn’t surprised.”
How come? “I could write a long book, which I’m not going to do, about having been there, and it’s something I will take with me. I learned a lot about a lot of things. But it was a very sinister way to view things. It was almost like a competition of how to be most extreme. I think, for myself and Darkthrone, our interest was music, so for us, it was a bit strange. But, yeah, I moved from Oslo early on. I like peace and quiet. “I think we always thought, ‘We don’t need the personal attention.’ Our philosophy has always been to let the music do the talking. We are trying to push the music in front of us instead of all the other things, even playing live.”
There was always a real mystique around Darkthrone for stuff like that, being a bit more in the shadows. You quit playing live early on… “We were eager in the earlier days to play live. I think we thought that this is what bands are supposed to do. But I noticed that Fenriz was getting more and more nervous about it, and he didn’t like it. We did play some shows, though, in Norway, in Denmark, in Finland. The last show we did was at the Rockefeller Music Hall in Oslo in ’96. But I’m happy, because we can use all our energy on being creative, instead of seeing each other’s faces every day and playing live.”
There’s the big question at this point of what the live experience would be like as well. At Wacken in 2004, when you sang Darkthrone songs with Satyricon, there was a simple genius to just having flaming crosses onstage. But you’re like Bathory now – there’s so many ideas of what it could be, all right and wrong as well… “Yeah. If we were to do it, it would take a year to figure out, get good musicians, there’s the question of how we should do it, which is very complicated. Sometimes my head is in a cartoon world, so I’ll think, ‘Okay, I imagine headlining Wacken, and we’re going to give them some real evil.’ And by that, I mean the evil part is to only play [more death metal albums] Soulside Journey and Goatlord. That’s pure evil! We’ve had plenty of great offers, and we’ve turned them all down. Really, you can come up with all kind of excuses and things, but the bottom line is that we don’t want to play live. It’s not for us.”
That suits an album like Transilvanian Hunger, though. And that in itself feels like a complete expression – it sounds really cold because it was done on a portable studio, the cover is a photocopy of a picture. But you stick it on, and you’re right there with it. It doesn’t need playing live to be understood, almost. “Absolutely. That was the expression we wanted to have. Transilvanian Hunger was very appropriate album for its time. Things are a bit more… let’s call it sad. The cover picture was actually done for Under A Funeral Moon, and photocopied. It wouldn’t look the same if it was just the real picture. It’s just a matter of making it a bit crappier. We used the same portable studio for [next album] Panzerfaust. I did the vocals on that album back at Fenriz’s place. It was a really warm summer day, and we were slightly drunk. I was screaming like there was no tomorrow, using my whole body. We looked out the window and there was somebody in the garden doing flowers.”
Do you regret the slogan that got put on the back of the first press of Transilvanian Hunger? “I didn’t do it. I was living in the forest. I had nothing to do with it. But it’s stupid. I’ve been talking to Fenriz about it, and he said it’s the dumbest thing he ever did, and he has been punishing himself ever since. It’s a silly thing. It’s stupid.”
The later albums in the boxset, particularly Plaguewielder, are a really great example of how Darkthrone have done different things over the years, but it all just sounds like Darkthrone… “Thank you for saying that. I haven’t listened to that albumin about 20 years! I don’t know how the standing is amongst people, but Plaguewielder and Ravishing Grimness were mostly my albums. Fenriz was a bit – how should I put it? – occupied at that time. We went to a place called Studio Studio, which was owned by a hard rock band from Norway called TNT. I remember Fenriz was very minimalistic. He had a small drum kit, one tom, one crash cymbal, and that was cracked. I saw this engineer walking past him several times, looking more and more strangely at him, and then actually said, ‘Are you really going to use that drum kit?’ And Fenriz was like, ‘Yeah.’ I guess that kind of suited those albums in the end, restricting himself on the drums.”
How do you feel about black metal’s legacy in Norway? Like punk in Britain, it’s gone from being this thing of outrage to something that’s noted now for its cultural significance. “It can’t really be ignored, the impact that some of the Norwegian bands have had abroad, you know? From 1990 to 2000, just to take a number, there was a lot of creativity, every band sounded different. And from the official Norway standpoint, you can’t really ignore the impact that Norwegian metal has had in other countries. “For us in all this, we said very early to our record company, Peaceville, that they are not allowed to send our albums into award things, because we don’t want to be a part of it, because we don’t see the point. That’s kind of our hardcore attitude. But we did get a recognition from The National Library in Oslo. They have this permanent exhibition that lasts for, like, 20 years. They had 300 people that decided 30 items that were going in this permanent exhibition that started in 2020 – I think the theme was Norwegian cultural export. There’s scrolls from the old kings and things, and then you have A Blaze In The Northern Sky representing the ’90s. So that’s cool.”
Black metal is a very different thing now to when that album came out. Bands can have big success, even the underground has the facility for touring, there’s full-on festivals for it, none of which existed back then. How connected do you still feel to it? “I feel somehow connected. It’s always been a part of my life. Everything is slowly changing, but I feel a part of it anyway. It’s like, we are here, you know, and every the other band is there as well. We are just growing into old men, so someone else has to take over the ship. But for now, we’re still here.”
Darkthrone’s The Fist In The Face Of Godboxset is out now via Peaceville.
