Book Relics: “To Hell and Back Again : Part I: My Black Metal Story” by Varg Vikernes

You may or you may not be aware that Varg has published a couple of very personal book series, called “To Hell and Back Again”, where he talks about a lot of topics regarding his black metal career in the 90’s, at the beginning of 2024. There are five books in total –  “Part I: My Black Metal Story”, “Part II: My Childhood Story”, “Part III:My Prison Story”, “Part IV: My Burzum Story” and “Part V: My Survival Story”. You might be able to find them at his website or at  his Amazon store here: https://amzn.to/3O6w3wO.

I’m going to share with you  few words about the first of the two parts that are connected to black metal and made quite an impression on me. Althought I do not agree with some of his views and agree with him on others, I think that not a single soul can deny the Thulean Sorcerer’s influence on black metal and music in general. Damn, you’d be a sick hypocrate if you read this website frequently and say that you never heard or liked his music…

So let’s begin.

“To Hell and Back Again: Part I: My Black Metal Story” is a small book with 150 pages of raw thoughts with a nice pencil sketch on the cover. It was released on January 6 as a special blasphemy for yet  another christian holiday, so I give him some extra points for  that (as you know, I created The Void on January 5 , the previous “special” church holiday, in order to spread blasphemy on January 6, so we kind of  both share the same hatred towards religion).

It is a nice book to read after sword practice or when you rest at some tombstone. So when I got it in my hands, I was pretty excited and the content ended up to be a pure pleasure to read. I  finished the book in a couple of hours between all the work and other appointments. It felt like you are around the camp fire with Vikernes and listen to his story, receiving answers to your questions. It is almost all there, he is answering to some of the most wanted and controversial topics about his early music career in black metal and even about his story with Mayhem. In my opinion – this book is better than any interview you can get. It is not written exactly in a chronological order, but he talks about various topics that concern him and about questions that he has been asked frequently over the years.

“I don’t care what people think of me. As long as they have the opportunity to make up their opinion based on the facts rather than lies,slanders, myths and non-sense.”

Kristian Vikernes (nowadays Louis Cachet) bought his first guitar at age 14 – his brother ordered it, actually.
The story begins with Varg, aged 17, losing one of his picks and going to borrow one from the brother of one of his classmates because he used to  play on  guitar a lot like him. There he met Harold and two of the members of Old Funeral and discovered death metal. That’s how he started playing with Old Funeral and this is where his actual music path and first chapter in the book unfolds…

Through his contacts with Harold he met Euronymous. In the book, you can find Varg’s true opinion on the events surrounding 1991 and the Mayhem gang at that time.  In the same year, he left Old Funeral, and later wrote ‘Dunkelheit’ and other songs that did not fit the death metal genre, so it was all  aligning in the perfect timing.

He talks a lot about Euronymous,  including  the situation where Øystein  explained one day at Helvette how Dead killed himself because of the mediocrity of death metal posers, also telling how he gave out pieces of Dead’s skull to his close friends in the circle. Around that same time the Mayhem founder  shared  with the folks in the basement that a Dutch photographer revealed the photos of Dead’s corpse – because he was actually afraid of problems with the law enforcement  if he handed them to a Norwegian photographer…

Vikernes also shares his insight on the black metal scene in the 90’s in Norway in general. According to him, there is no first wave of black metal – he shares the opinion that black metal began with the second wave. He talks about his Burzum demo and the relationship with the label Deathlike Silence Productions , about the way he got scammed with the second print run of the album. Seems like Euronymous never paid anything to Varg, but the Count  still helped him at the store. Depending on his words, Varg really wanted Euronymous to get back on his feet so he could release new copies of Burzum’s albums. He even did the famous interview in 1993 to promote black metal and help him, but it turns out the journalist was a christian dude and called the police before publishing the material… And as you probably know, the reaction of Euronymos was priceless – he publicly apologized on behalf of the black metal community for the caused discomfort. No one in Bergen respected Mayhem in 1993 because of this act. Especially when this apology came after Varg’s three-week stint in prison after being accused of burning churches – accusations without any basis and facts, because they actually  had no evidence. When you read it in the words of Varg, you’d be seriously annoyed by these events.

In the next chapter,  it’s even more pleasurable. Euronymous begins to envy Varg for the attention he receives. He is also annoyed that when Varg talks about his wrongdoings openly, more and more people follow him and the Helvette owner  slowly started to look like a joke… Hm. Reminds me of another situation and the possible outcomes if it remains unresolved, but let’s go back to the point – Vikernes explains everything sincerely, including the part when Euronymous starts telling a number of people how he wants to kill Varg and all kinds of ways he’s going to do it. He shares more information about this and why he felt threatened – some facts he didn’t share completely in public before, I think. Especially about the role their friend Snorre played in the whole situation, the explanation about Euronymous’ murder and a lot of details that were available primarly to the justice system until now. For an instance, his knife was a little stiletto, completely blunt, which he carried with him everywhere. It was impossible for him to cut the Euronymous’ throat with it, as the police had claimed, and therefore he had no intention of going and killing him at all that night. The eponymous 23 stabs are also explained – the musician claims that the cut wounds were from broken glass when Euronymous fell. Huh, I don’t know… Interesting, to say the least.

Varg also talks about the whole legal process, the lies that were told about him, about the way he was framed by a corrupt policeman – a policeman who had previous accusations of getting people to testify falsely (in chapter seven, Varg recounts one of his other cases). In the book, Varg also talks about the tactics of the communists to discredit their opponents by portraying them as inadequate and mentally unstable – he shares this in relation to what happened to him and to other individuals. He shared about the general situation in Norway at the time and how for the crime he committed anyone else would have spent much less time in prison and that his case served as a political show off.

In reality, Vikernes neither denies nor confirms that he ever burned down a church – the rumor was spread by Euronymous for promotional purposes. No real evidence was ever produced of his direct accusation. He was also charged for the crimes of others – the ones in which someone else set fire to a church, confessed and said that Varg was there, on the basis of which he was convicted. He was ordered to pay the equivalent of $1,000,000 to the church – but he refused to pay and that was actually one of the reasons he had to emigrate – he couldn’t have a legal income, own property and so on.

In the book, the musician also talks about his hatred for religion and christianity, the roots of his racism and other interesting topics. He also shares some know-how and advice for people who want to make black metal and shares my opinion that being an outsider in the black metal scene is exactly what you should be. To be sincere, true, with pure intentions. Being a “friend of all” and “liked by all” isn’t exactly the meaning of the genre, right?

Also, you’ll read his story about chasing policemen with a knife, and a lot more…

I believe that this is Varg’s true opinion and this is the way he feels about everything he talks about in his book – feels genuine. As I said at the beginning – this book is written by him to everyone that cares about black metal, him or Burzum. Honest words not to make you feel bad for him or clear his name (he never denies his crime and knows exactly what he did), but to share his point of view on some topics that were little overlooked by all through the years. His motives to share all these books now? I don’t really know. It may be because of the “Lords of Chaos” movie, it may be because of the 30 years anniversary of Euronymous’ death, it may be just because he wants to earn something from the whole situation or it may be just because he just wants to talk and share his truth out there. Probably all of these reasons or none of them – this is something only Varg knows for sure. But no matter what his motives are, “Part I-My Black Metal Story” is a refreshing reading and I think there’s no better time to bring some more black metal blasphemy into your library… especially written by the guy who, in many ways, co-invented it.