Anders Ohlin Remembering His Big Brother Pelle
Finn Håkon Rødland: First of all, I want to thank you, Anders, for accepting to do this interview, to celebrate the memory of your brother, for this official release of “Live in Zeitz”, November 1990. I know I speak for fans of Mayhem, all over the world, that we really appreciate you sharing stories and memories about him. It’s always interesting to hear about which bands caught one’s interest in metal. Do you remember what Pelle liked in the very beginning of discovering metal?
Anders Ohlin: To be honest, it was in fact me who introducted KISS to him. What happened was that I listened to KISS over at a friend’s house, and I came home reborn as a hard rocker! Pelle had heard KISS before, and knew who they were, but at this moment, Pelle also decided to be a hard rocker!
Finn: I think you guys have that in common with many at our age, and looking at the black metal bands in Norway and Sweden, most of them have a KISS reference as well. Do you remember which KISS album you were listening to?
Anders: The first one was ‘Love Gun’. And I still think that this is the best KISS album. But the first record of KISS we got as an LP was ‘Creatures of the Night’. Years later he came upon a ‘Love Gun’ special edition. I’ve still got it.
Finn: How did he develop from here into more heavy metal, and even black metal?
Anders: He soon expanded into lots of other bands, like Iron Maiden, Ozzy, and AC/DC. ‘Number of the Beast’, ‘Piece of Mind’, ‘Speak of the Devil’ were all albums that he played a lot. He bought ‘No Sleep until Hammersmith’ in London ‘82. I was telling him over and over again that he should borrow Metallica from a friend, but he felt the lyrics to ‘Jump in the Fire’ were so stupid that he refused. Eventually, he started to appreciate even Metallica, but that was after he discovered Slayer. It might have been the year prior to Cliff Burton dying in the bus on crash tour in Sweden.
Our musical preferences went in different ways that Summer. At this time, he felt that everything except Venom and Mercyful Fate was crap. I had no liking to Venom. I remember when he bought an album by Bathory. He was all euphoric, and he thought it was so incredible that someone could follow up after Venom, and that it was a Swedish band! Looking back, I think that was a very inspiring moment for him.
There is a funny story about when we discovered Destruction. The summer of ‘83 or ‘84, I was with my first girlfriend, and she was living in another suburb called Jordbro. Home at her place, I saw an LP album that I just knew I had to show Pelle. I explained this to my girlfriend’s big sister, and even though she understood this, she said it was impossible, because she had borrowed the LP from a totally crazy dude, and she wouldn’t even think of what he would do if she borrowed the album to me. After explaining that she had no idea how much it would mean for me and my brother if I could borrow the album, she finally accepted. I promised to get back with it the very same evening. I cycled home at full speed, and Pelle’s eyes literally popped out when he saw the LP. We both ran to the record player, when suddenly our mother stopped us. We had been given a “no playing” penalty for something we had done, I really don’t remember what it was. After long deliberations, we were allowed to record the album to a tape without having the volume on. We both stood there listening to the needle making small noises. When the album was done, Pelle ran to his room with the tape and played it there, whilst I had to cycle back with the LP, in the rain.
Finn: That is a very cool story! What was it about the cover art that made both of you so enthusiastic (which album was it?), and what did you think of the album, when you finally got to listen to it?
Anders: It was ‘Sentence of Death’. They were setting the standard of how to look if you are in to the darker type of metal. There was no way we could afford all that leather and spikes. But if you know the style you always know what to strive for. The band itself showed a new direction, away from the skate culture that was always connected to thrash metal. Both musically and by character.
Finn: We know that Pelle used to make drawings in his letters, and he would make drawings that he sent to fanzines and such around the world. You can see Pelle in pictures reading comic magazines, like Dracula, and he designed the Morbid logo inspired by that very Dracula logo. Can you tell us about his interest for making drawings?
Anders: Had he not been a musician, I would have hoped that he would have been an illustrator or an artist. He read and made his own comic strips ever since he was a little kid. He made drawings of animals in the beginning, later it was about war, and finally then horror. Often with a certain sense of humor.
But as you know, at that time, you weren’t really encouraged to become something that didn’t result in a blue working suit. Especially not a musician or an artist. My dad dreamed about being a photographer when he was young, so there was some understanding for Pelle’s artistic fascination. But the normal thing to do was to become a construction worker or mechanic or something like that. But that didn’t stop him from making drawings all the time, on everything that passed in his way. He eventually made drawings on the inside of his drawer!
Finn: Was Pelle a vocalist from the start, or did he play an instruments?
Anders: He shocked the whole family when he one day said that he was in a band. I think it was in ninth grade at the time, he was maybe 14 or 15 years old. He had never played an instrument, and bought his first guitar after he started with the band. I think he spent more time drawing on it than playing it.
Finn: Do you remember what his first band was called? And do you still have that guitar he made those drawings on?
Anders: The very first band was called “Ohlin Metal” then he started “Scapegoat” and then “Morbid”. The guitar should be at my mother’s place.
Finn: How did he start to create his style of singing black metal, the grim voice?
Anders: I have never been a black metal fan, so I really don’t know. But I think his idea was to create music that would reflect how he experienced a horror movie. One of his bigger passions was to watch horror movies and to read old ‘shock series’ from the 70′s. So I would imagine that he wanted to capture the same feeling you get watching the horror movies, and transfer it to the music. An interesting parallel is that many horror movies are budget quality, but you still get that creepy feeling watching them. That probably attracted him, you know, that it should be possible to create the same feeling in music as well, on a budget, so to say.
Finn: In the book “Blod, Eld, Dod” it says that “the combination of avantgardistic new thinking and extreme aggression gave Mayhem a tough reputation that impressed Pelle”. Can you tell me some more about when Pelle discovered Mayhem? What was it that caught his interest?
Anders: Pelle was impressed by the raw and horror like style that Mayhem had. I guess he felt that Mayhem was like a Norwegian equivalent to Bathory, that was in need of a vocalist, and he absolutely didn’t want to miss that opportunity.
When he showed me a Mayhem album for the first time, I remember I was getting scared just by looking at the band logo, I had never seen anything like it.
Finn: What did he say to you and the family when he left for Norway?
Anders: We had a sense of desperation in Morbid, and that people had left the band and such. So we probably understood that something was going to happen, but nobody in the family knew about his plans with Mayhem at the time. Not before he showed us their LP. It was a big thing that he was going to join a band that already had an album out. Norway isn’t far away, considering he wrote letters to people all around the world, so in that respect, it was alright. My guess is that out parents disagreed with his choice to move, and were quite concerned, but at the same time found some trust in the band just because they had an LP released.
Finn: Did you ever get to listen to Mayhem from Pelle’s time in the band, at the time? Did he send you any rehearsal tapes or recordings from the concerts in Jessheim, Sarpsborg, Zeitz, or Leipzig? Looking back, what is your favorite Mayhem song with Pelle on vocals?
Anders: I can’t remember he ever sent anything over. My guess is he didn’t want to spend his tapes on us, and rather send them to their network of tape traders. I always had, and still have a hard time listening to Mayhem. It’s the same thing with Bathory. So I couldn’t tell really.
Finn: What did Pelle report from Norway when you guys talked? How was he doing?
Anders: He always complained there was no money and nowhere to live and stuff like that. But there was always something going on. Talks about a gig, a tour, an album. Those things didn’t pan out like it was planned, but some things did in fact happen. He said that everybody in the band was kind of short.
My dad was over there and visited the same year that he left. Later he gave them his old car that they came over to get. That was the first and only time I met Øystein. It was poor times for the boys in Norway, and it must have been fucking lonely in the end there.
Finn: Pelle is probably the biggest icon in the world of black metal. He called himself Dead, he was a pioneer with corpse makeup, his black metal vocal and the fascination for death. But how was he really, how will you remember him as your big brother, and how will his friends remember him as their buddy?
Anders: He was both social and not social. He and I could talk for hours about everything between heaven and earth. So I find it difficult to recognize when people are saying that he was a quiet person. He talked with everybody and everything! He was not afraid to show what he stood for, and he didn’t take shit for what he believed in and thought was right. I guess that probably irritated quite a few.
His friends remember him as a fantastic and fun buddy to be around, but also being full of secrets. For us in the family, the secret thing was not on our radar. We used to say that Pelle couldn’t lie. He was totally hopeless when you told him something secret, because five minutes later he would sit and tell it to our mother. That was a worthless feature as a big brother.
Finn: Black metal has some pretty strong views about religion. Had Pelle any specific thoughts about religion at the time of Morbid and later Mayhem? Or was it all about the horror feeling for Pelle?
Anders: In the 80′s religion was a big joke in Sweden, the socialist party had torn it down to nothing and it wasn’t a big thing to turn crosses. With one exception of some free religious people that got upset. It was more radical to be against the government, as an anarchist punk rocker. But I guess that the church was, and still are, more established in Norway.
He wasn’t the religious type, even if it was to worship Satan. But he could lose himself in old legends and ancient history. For some years after his death we would get phone calls from book stores with packages to deliver. All of them were books about strange legends and witchcraft.
Finn: Would you like to share some thoughts about Pelle, that you feel people should know?
Anders: Pelle was convinced about his feelings and gave all his energy to being able to practice his art. It is admirable, but it cost him his life. I want to encourage you to believe in yourselves and dare to do your own thing. But it is not worth sacrificing your life for the art.
Finn: Will you please share some last remarks for the fans of Pelle and Mayhem? How can we best honour the memory of your brother?
Anders: Everybody who appreciates Pelle can honour him by not showing the “post mortem” pictures publicly, and also help his family to get others to stop displaying them as well. My children will soon be old enough to eventually come across these pictures, sooner or later. I try to prepare them for that moment. I don’t want to expose them to the shock that I had to go through when I saw the pictures myself.
Finn: Thanks a lot for this, Anders. We will let this important message be the last. Honour Pelle. Stop spreading the picture.
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