Fenriz Presents… The Best of Old School Black Metal had a Sarcófago track?
That kind of very chaotic sound was the most extreme at the time. Sodom had already done that some years before with
In The Sign of Evil. It’s a sound that comes from the chaos derived from the fact that they couldn’t play that well. Which
also means that it is totally original, and no one can do a cover of those songs, because the whole configuration of the
band and the lack of skill with the instruments is the most important element, more important than any musical structure.
I would never be able to create something as chaotic as that. And I really like listening to bands like that because I can’t
play like them, it’s annoying listening to bands that sound like Darkthrone. It’s hellish stuff, they wanted to create a
satanic, necrotic vibe and I think they managed to do just that with INRI. It’s a classic, and in the 80s there weren’t many
records that you could actually label as Black Metal like this one is. All Black Metal albums from the 80s are classics and
are 95% of my inspiration for Darkthrone, because there were so few of them until the 90s when we started playing.
When did you first listen to Sarcófago? What record was it?
It was INRI. I bought it from USA’s Wild Rags mail-order in ’89. Cogumelo Records had no distribution in Norway. I got
a demo before that, by trading tapes around ’88, so I knew I could expect something truly abyssal and chaotic. A record
that was totally right and wrong at the same time. Exactly the type of sound becoming cult and then a classic.
People say Sarcófago was a huge influence for the first Norwegian BM bands. If so, how did they influence you?
Not musically. None of the Norwegian bands sounded anything like Sarcófago, Sodom or Blasphemy. But everyone
listened to it! Sarcófago gave a truly Black Metal feel to it, but the chaotic and rugged style wasn’t copied here in Norway.
Beherit from Finland sounded like Sarcófago at first. I consider it the best way to play Black Metal, the chaotic 80s style.
Something kinda like Teitanblood nowadays. Or like Sinoath did in the 90s in Italy. I could never play like that, not a
chance. Darkthrone always had a well-defined 4/4 structure. I started liking Sarcófago early on, but not right away. I
bought the vinyl in 1989 and loved that necro satanic vibe. It was one of those bands that made us believe in Black Metal.
But like I said previously, their style wasn’t copied here in Norway. Sarcófago was one of the bands that gave emphasis
on corpse paint, which was already spreading out in the 80s. In Norway, it was the Swedish Pelle (Dead) that used it in
the beginning. I used it for the first time in 1990 in a video, but it was meant to look like the first Slayer record, from 1983.
What about other bands from Belo Horizonte: Mutilator, Holocausto, Chakal, Sepultura…?
In 1986, there was a half-page feature in Kerrang magazine dedicated to underground bands. The feature was called
Deathvine and it was written by Don Kaye. He did a review on Bestial Devastation, saying: “Sepultura has a sound that
makes flowers turn black”. That sounded interesting to a kid like me at the time, and it made me send some money to the
address they gave, asking not only for the split with Overdose but also for Morbid Visions, which was about to come out.
A year later I receive a package from Brazil. It was from Max, apologizing for the delay. He explained that the guy
responsible for the mail took the money and ran off, throwing away a bunch of letters. But he managed to recover some of
them. One of those was mine. To make up for it, he also threw in their new album, Schizophrenia, one of the best Thrash
Metal records ever made. So, we in Darkthrone were some of the first kids in the world to own Schizophrenia. We went
crazy over it! And that record even inspired some riffs in our first two demos. I still play Antichrist from Bestial Devastation
on some radio programs. Euronymous, from Mayhem, was a fan of Mutilator and Holocausto I think. Later I started to
get into those bands as well. I kept in touch with several Brazilian zines during the 80s. I also traded mail with the band
Mystifier, I own their first compilation. But I feel like they think I tried to pull the rug on them or something. It’s a shame.
In your opinion, can Sepultura’s Bestial Devastation be labelled as Black Metal?
Yes, the song Antichrist for sure. Possesion, from Belgium, did a cover of a track on that record recently, so you can see
how Black Metal that material was. But you must remember, the 80s are the primordial soup of Death, Black, Thrash… A
lot of releases had all those styles at the same time. I like it better that way. Nothing is 100%, but Metal is a genre based on
exaggeration. Many times we say, “that’s totally Black Metal” for example, but nothing is ever 100% something.
