Earlier this month, our friends over at Terrorizer magazine released ‘The Secret History of Black Metal’ – promising fresh insights to metal’s evilist offshoot. Hugh Platt cornered Louise Brown, Editor of Terrorizer, to get the inside scoop.

Surely Black Metal’s “been done” by now?
Louise Brown: “Not by me! [laughs] It’s has been done but the last book that was written on it in any depth that had a lot of press, that was printed a lot of times, was the Lords of Chaos book. And that was years ago now, and some people say it’s less than truthful.”

“Terrorizer’s been around now for fifteen years – we celebrated our fifteenth anniversary last year – so we’ve got reems of coverages. We actually started the magazine – by coincidence – just after Euronymous died, so it was at the pinnacle of Black Metal’s second wave; it was when Black Metal was in the news, it was when Black Metal was everywhere. So to start an extreme metal magazine at that time was probably a good time to start Terrorizer. So fifteen years later we were going through the archives and we notice we had a lot of great material on Black Metal bands, and we also had the relationships with Black Metal bands and labels, so why not put it together? Terrorizer will always be a monthly magazine, but we’ve got this material to put out these genre specials, so why not?”

You’ve put murderer and nutjob, Varg Vikernes, on the cover. Controversial, no?
“It’s an iconic image. Whether you’re into Black Metal, or if you’ve just dallied with Black Metal, or hate Black Metal, or don’t know anything about it, that image is ingrained in you. Because Varg Vikernes, at the height of the second wave, at the height of all the arsons and murders, he was on the front cover of Kerrang! Magazine. And it’s that image, him with the mace, it’s just so iconic. I’ve had that image on my wall for years. Every time you think of Black Metal, especially the worst bit so Black Metal that unfortunately became the most famous bits of Black Metal, you think of that image.

“It wasn’t our first choice – we went through lots of different decisions. We toyed with putting Emperor on the cover, but we didn’t have quite the right image. We toyed with doing a montage of lots of different characters from Black Metal through the ages. We tried a really great legendary picture of Quorthon from Bathory breathing fire, but when we settled on that iconic image of Varg Vikernes it just worked. And of course, it’s going to get us talked about….”

And he has just come out of prison recently….
“He’s in people’s minds. Is he/isn’t he going to get back together and do some more Burzum material, or is he just gonna disappear into the night, never to be seen again? A lot of people are talking again about his policies and his politics, some of the really ridiculous and outlandish statements he’s made over the years. People are talking about him.”

Black Metal has a long-standing association with some of the more unsavoury aspects of Right-Wing poltical ideology. But with Gaahl coming out, and others in the scene confronting traditional Black Metal ideologies, can you see Black Metal as a whole shaping up its act?
“I think Black Metal will always be talked about, and it will always be controversial, because that’s what it is. It’s a genre born out of hate, almost. Terrorizer has a policy of not covering any band that’s got a propaganda of hate; bands that have been set up to be hateful against any race, sex, lifestyle…we don’t cover bands with those sorts of agendas. We try to steer away from it, although a lot of the bands sadly do have elements of that within their music.

“With the Black Metal special, I chose to not cast them out, to not deny them their place in Black Metal history, but to cover it with a very….I don’t know if “scathing” is the right word….but while bands like [Polish neo-Nazi black metal band] Graveland are in the magazine, we’ve been careful to talk about their politics without hiding anything. It’s still out there.

“I do think it’s really sad that Black Metal has been tarnished with those policies and ideologies, that whole ‘might is right’ bullshit. But it is an integral part of their music. As a very liberal, female metal fan, I have definitely found some bands that suit me, that I can listen to without walking away.”

Watch something a little lighter….Black Metal gardening

While the Second Wave of Black Metal was a very Scandinavian thing, recently some of the more interesting Black Metal acts have come from outside the region. Is Scandanavian Black Metal on the back foot?
“They’re all tr00 false! They’re not tr00 kvlt unless they come from Norway. [laughs] No, that’s bullshit. Some of the early Black Metal bands that bands like Beherit and Mayhem took their cues from were South American – Volcano and Sarcófago, things like that. South America has always had that great Black Metal movement. So it made sense for it to cross the border – you’ve got bands like Possessed in North America, paving the way. So it is an international scene, but it just so happens that Mayhem were the ones that burnt the churches and got the publicity.

“With the Black Metal Special, we’ve made sure to highlight that, so we’ve got scene reports from South America, France…the Finnish scene, which you could argue pre-dates the Norwegian explosion, there’s the Swedish bands like Dissection….we could’ve done reports on Asia, Australasia, Canada, – we’ve got a small bit on Quebec…”

Although Venom coined the term ‘Black Metal’, the UK’s never really done much in the way of Black Metal, has it?
“It’s the same with all genres of metal in the UK. If you think about Thrash, we had a few bands like Onslaught, but then the rest of the world was doing Thrash bigger and better than us. Black Metal – we coined the term, but the rest of the world just do it bigger and better than us. One of the arguments that came up time and time again on our feature on British Black Metal is that no-one really supports the UKBM scene over here. British Metallers are the best in the world, but they love the Finnish bands, or the Norwegian bands, or the Swedish bands, or the American bands – they don’t really go all out for the British bands. Look at Cradle of Filth – they got bottled off at Bloodstock. We should be proud of Cradle Of Filth!”

Watch Black Metal Baking….cookies ist krieg!

One other aspect of Black Metal – not intentionally – is that it’s inherently funny.
“It is ridiculous, isn’t it? You can take the mickey out of anyone who takes anything too seriously. And Black Metallers take it so seriously – when they’re putting on that corpse-paint, they’re not just putting on make-up; it’s a ritual to them. And it’s just so inherently serious to them, that sometime you can’t help but think ‘oh, get a life! You’re in a metal band!’ It’s very easy to take the piss out of something that is so tr00!”

Who is the funniest Black Metal band (other than Immortal, of course)?
“I laughed my arse off at the whole Gorgoroth/God Seed debacle. They should’ve gone out into a forest, swords at dawn, to sort that one out, but no, they had to go through the courts…”

That’s just not kvlt!
“There should’ve been some blood and guts there, but they went and got the lawyers involved. They should’ve had a massive big ruck. Gaahl and Infernus should’ve settled it with an arm-wrestle. They’re all so funny in their own little gorgeous ways.”

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Terrorizer’s Secret History of Black Metal is out now in all grim newsagents. If your local WH Smiths isn’t kvlt enough though, you can always purchase it directly from Terrorizer’s website.