Øystein Aarseth

From Freepedia

Øystein Aarseth (March 22 1968–August 10 1993) was a guitarist for the infamous Norwegian black metal band Mayhem who went by the stage name Euronymous. He was also the founder and owner of Deathlike Silence, his own record label for underground black metal bands.

Career

Aarseth joined Mayhem in 1984. At the time he went by the stage name "Destructor". When he joined the band (which then consisted of Jorn Stubberud on bass and Kjetil Manheim on drums) he changed his name to Euronymous, which he claimed means "Prince Of Death" in Greek, but in fact derived from a reference to the Greek demon Eurynomous in the Satanic Bible. Aarseth's presence in the band had a profound effect on all of its members, and on the Norwegian black metal scene as a whole. Aarseth became the single man at the hub of all the black metal goings-on. He opened a record store called Helvete (Norwegian for "Hell") and started his own record label and mailorder, which he named "Deathlike Silence". When Mayhem's vocalist, Dead, committed suicide, Euronymous discovered the corpse and took pictures for use as a future album cover. It is also widely thought that Euronymous consumed portions of Dead's brain and made a necklace using fragments of Dead's skull.

Death

In 1993, Øystein Aarseth was stabbed to death by Kristian "Varg" Vikernes (who at the time went by the name "Count Grishnackh"). According to the official report, he was stabbed a total of twenty-three times: two to the head, five to the neck, and sixteen to the back. However, Vikernes disputes this, saying instead that Aarseth fell on some broken glass as he was fleeing, which would explain high number of back punctures. There is much speculation with regards to the motive for the murder, but Vikernes has stated that the stabbing was motivated mostly by self-defence (see: A Burzum Story).

After Aarseth's death, Mayhem continued recording their upcoming album, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. However, Euronymous's mother told Hellhammer, Mayhem's drummer, to remove basslines that had been recorded by Varg. He said to her that he would personally re-record the bass himself, but the truth is that he had no idea how to, so the album remained the same, featuring Varg on it. Other rumours about Occultus, Mayhem's former vocalist, playing the new bass lines are thought to be false as well.