Varg Vikernes

Louis Cachet (born Kristian Vikernes; 11 February 1973), better known as Varg Vikernes , is a Norwegian musician, neo-Nazi, and convicted murderer. He released five albums under the name Burzum between 1992 and 1996, making him one of the most influential figures in the early Norwegian black metal scene and its offshoot National Socialist black metal (NSBM). In May 1994, Vikernes was convicted of first-degree murder for the fatal stabbing of guitarist Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth. He was also convicted of arson for the burning of four Christian churches in Norway. Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison, and was released after having served 15 years. In 2009, he was released on parole.

Described by Sam Dunn as "the most notorious metal musician of all time",

Biography

Background and childhood Vikernes was born on 11 February 1973 in Bergen. In the interviews printed in the 1998 book Lords of Chaos, Vikernes discusses his background and childhood. Lords of Chaos also includes an interview with his mother, Helene Bore (the book and a newspaper depicted there refer to her with the given name Lene ). In a 2004 interview, Vikernes said his mother was "working in a large oil company". His father is an electronics engineer, and his older brother is a civil engineer. Since there were no places available in the English school in Baghdad, the young Vikernes went to an Iraqi elementary school during this time. According to his interview, Vikernes here became "aware of racial matters". Corporal punishment was very common in the school, and on one occasion, Vikernes had a "quarrel" with a teacher and called him "a monkey" – but, as Vikernes perceived it, the teachers "didn't dare to hit me because I was white". She mentions that this created problems, but generally she "has no good explanation" of how Varg developed his views.

When asked about his father, Vikernes states that he was hysterical that his son "had a swastika flag at home". At the time of the 1995 Lords of Chaos interview, Vikernes still had a positive relationship with his mother but "very little contact" with his father. Although Venom are widely considered the primary influence on black metal, Vikernes has always denied to be influenced by them, as well as defining the band as "a joke". He once wore a T-shirt of Venom's Black Metal to promote the genre but stated he later regretted doing that.

Early musical career

Vikernes started playing guitar at the age of 14. When he was 17, Vikernes came into contact with members of Old Funeral. He played guitar with them during 1990–1991 and performed on their Devoured Carcass EP before he began his solo musical project, Burzum, and quickly became involved with the early Norwegian black metal scene. During 1992–1993, he recorded four albums as Burzum.

On Hvis lyset tar oss, he also borrowed Hellhammer's drum kit, the same one Hellhammer used to record De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas by Mayhem. In 1992, Vikernes joined the black metal band Mayhem, a year after band member Dead committed suicide on 8 April 1991. On 6 June 1992, the Fantoft Stave Church, dating from the 12th century and considered architecturally significant, was burned to the ground by arson. The cover of Burzum's EP Aske ("ashes") is a photograph of the destroyed church. In later interviews Vikernes, while not accepting responsibility for the arsons, said that they were not Satanic, but instead "revenge" for the Christian desecration of Viking graves and temples. According to Vikernes, the arsons were on the anniversary of the Lindisfarne Viking raid. Vikernes claimed that all the burnings, except for the one at Stavanger, were done by one person. His arsons inspired similar attacks on churches in other countries over many years.

Bergens Tidende article In January 1993, an article in one of Norway's biggest newspapers, Bergens Tidende, brought the black metal scene into the media spotlight. Two friends of Vikernes interviewed him and brought the interview to the newspaper, hoping they would print it.

Norwegian magazine Rock Furore published an interview with Vikernes in February 1993. In it, he said of the prison system: "It's much too nice here. It's not hell at all. In this country prisoners get a bed, toilet and shower. It's completely ridiculous. I asked the police to throw me in a real dungeon, and also encouraged them to use violence". He was released in March for lack of evidence. After the Bergens Tidende episode, Euronymous decided to shut Helvete down as it began to draw the attention of the police and media.

On the night of 10 August 1993, Vikernes stabbed Euronymous to death at his apartment in Oslo. The murder was initially blamed on Swedish black metallers by the media. Vikernes claims that he killed Euronymous in self-defense. He says that Euronymous had plotted to stun him with an electroshock weapon, tie him up, and torture him to death while videotaping the event. Vikernes explains: "If he was talking about it to everybody and anybody I wouldn't have taken it seriously. But he just told a select group of friends, and one of them told me". He said Euronymous planned to use a meeting about an unsigned contract to ambush him. Blackthorn allegedly stood in the stairwell smoking while Vikernes went to Euronymous' apartment on the fourth floor. Vikernes contended that most of Euronymous' wounds were caused by broken glass he had fallen on during the struggle. but Mayhem bassist Necrobutcher believed Vikernes did kill Euronymous due to the aforementioned death threats.

Blackthorn claimed Vikernes planned to murder Euronymous and pressured him into coming along. He claimed that, in the summer of 1993, he was almost committed to a mental hospital but fled to Bergen and stayed with Vikernes. Blackthorn said of the murder, "I was neither for nor against it. I didn't give a shit about Øystein". Vikernes, however, claims that he had not planned the killing and that Blackthorn came along to show Euronymous some new guitar riffs.

The Blitz House, which Vikernes allegedly planned to blow up in 1993. Vikernes was arrested on 19 August 1993 in Bergen. According to the Encyclopedia of White Power, Vikernes "intended to blow up Blitz House, the radical leftist and anarchist enclave in Oslo", Many other members of the scene, including Blackthorn and Faust, were put on trial around the same time. Some of them confessed to their crimes and implicated others. According to Lords of Chaos, "Vikernes is disgusted by the fact that, while he held fast to a code of silence, others confessed."

During the trial, the media made Vikernes "the nation's first real bogeyman in fifty years". At the trial it was claimed that he, Blackthorn, and another friend had planned the murder. The court alleged that this third person stayed at the apartment in Bergen as an alibi; to make it look like they never left Bergen, he was to rent films, play them in the apartment, and withdraw money from Vikernes' credit card.

On 16 May 1994, Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison (Norway's maximum penalty) for the murder of Euronymous, the arson of three churches, the attempted arson of a fourth church, and for the theft and storage of 150 kg of explosives. Though Vikernes only confessed to the theft and storage of the explosives, two churches were set on fire the day he was sentenced, "presumably as a statement of symbolic support". Before the release, Euronymous' family had asked Mayhem's drummer, Hellhammer, to remove the bass tracks recorded by Vikernes. Hellhammer said "I thought it was appropriate that the murderer and victim were on the same record. I put word out that I was re-recording the bass parts, but I never did." This was a neo-pagan, neo-Nazi group that grew into the or 'Pan-Germanic Heathen Front' (AHF) describing himself as "Chieftain" of the Norwegian Heathen Front in his self-published manifesto, Vargsmål ('Wolf Speak').

The Heathen Front officially denied that Vikernes was in charge, despite having the same postal address as Vikernes' in prison. According to Lords of Chaos, this may have been to protect him, as Norwegian prisoners were prohibited from leading political groups. The book states it would have been "very hard for [Vikernes] to do an effective job" at leading the organization, as all letters would have been screened by the prison personnel. Vikernes said "I have never formed or been a member of such organizations. The only organization I am a member of is Riksmålsforbundet" (The Society for the Preservation of Traditional Standard Norwegian). One of the group's leading members, esotericist Jan Erik Kvamsdahl, helped Vikernes publish Vargsmål and set up the Heathen Front according to the Monitor organization. The group "had all the trappings of a paramilitary unit", including guns, explosives, bulletproof vests, steel helmets and balaclavas.

During his time in prison, Vikernes recorded two albums made up wholly of ambient and neofolk music. The first, Dauði Baldrs, was recorded in 1994–1995 and released in October 1997. The second, Hliðskjálf, was recorded in 1998 and released in April 1999. In the early 2000s Vikernes regularly wrote articles in the magazine of the neopagan neo-Nazi group Vigrid.

In August 2003, Vikernes was transferred from a maximum-security prison in Bergen to the low-security prison in Tønsberg. On 15 October, the local paper, Tønsbergs Blad, published an article that criticised Vikernes. On 26 October, Vikernes went on the run after being granted a short leave. He stopped a car in Numedal. Inside it was a family of three, who said that he hijacked the car at gunpoint. About 19 hours later, police stopped the car in Romerike and arrested him. They concluded that his escape "was well planned and involved assistance from several people on the outside". In March 2009, however, his parole was announced. He had then served nearly 15 years of his 21-year sentence. On 22 May 2009, he confirmed that he had been released from prison on probation.

Life after prison Vikernes was one of the recipients of far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik's manifesto, which Breivik sent out before launching the 2011 Norway attacks, killing 77 people. Although Vikernes condemned Breivik's actions, this drew the attention of the French authorities.

On 16 July 2013, Vikernes and his wife, a French national, were arrested at their home in Corrèze, France, on suspicion of planning acts of terrorism after his wife bought four rifles. Officials later stated that Vikernes' wife had a legal firearms permit to buy the rifles. Vikernes was instead charged by French authorities with inciting racial hatred against Jews and Muslims. This was due to posts on his blog, "Thulean Perspective", which included antisemitic posts that were taken down following the charges. Vikernes claimed he had not written the posts, although the blog attributed all posts to him. On 8 July 2014, Vikernes was convicted of inciting racial hatred and sentenced to six months of probation and a fine of .

In June 2018, Vikernes made comments that he had "moved on" from Burzum on his YouTube channel, saying "bye bye" to the project.

YouTube removed Vikernes's channel from the platform in June 2019. This coincided with an announcement from YouTube that it would be more aggressive in removing "videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion".

Writing

In late 1994, while in prison, Vikernes wrote a Norwegian-language book called Vargsmål ('Varg's Speech'). Vikernes has said he wrote Vargsmål to defend himself against the media. According to Lords of Chaos, Vargsmål became available on the Internet for some time in 1996 but not in a printed form. In 1997, a Norwegian publisher released a paperback edition of the book; its publication was financed by Vikernes's mother, Helene Bore. As of 1999, Vargsmål was being sold by the Nazi organization Heathen Front via its website.

Vikernes has self-published a tabletop role-playing game named MYFAROG (Mythic Fantasy Role-playing Game). In 2019, he announced that the upcoming ambient album of Burzum, Thulêan Mysteries, was also intended as background music for the game. The game has been criticized for its overcomplicated rule set as well as racist references; there are multiple nonplayable enemy races collectively referred to as Koparmenn ("copper men") who are described as filthy and animalistic, and presumably represent non-Europeans.

Views In Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, director Sam Dunn described Vikernes as "the most notorious metal musician of all time" due to his crimes as well as his political and religious views. While in prison, Vikernes promoted views which combined Odinism and Esoteric Nazism. He described himself as a Neo-Nazi following his 1994 conviction. Breivik has later in fact stated that he identifies as an Odinist, and that he wants Vikernes to be one of the leaders of a new Nazi party in Norway.

Rapper Kanye West has drawn scrutiny for his ties to Vikernes, which have included sampling Burzum's 1996 song "Rundgang um die transzendentale säule der singularität" in Gucci Mane's "Pussy Print", posing in a Burzum T-shirt, and allegedly modeling his Vultures album cover after one of Burzum's own albums. When asked about this, Vikernes expressed apathy toward West, writing "I know very little about him or what he says or does, and I kind of have very little incentive to 'find out'. it is better to spend time on something more fruitful." He later praised West for his support, saying, "I think it shows courage to publicly wear a Burzum shirt, like he has done. You risk the wrath (including boycott) of an entire music industry, completely under the control of… 'a certain group.' So kudos to him for that."

In August 2020, Vikernes posted a list on Twitter of countries he hates the most. The list is Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Thailand, Poland, Turkey, Brazil, Israel, United States and India. He also classified the Norwegian city of Oslo in 11th and declared he wanted to see Brazil depopulated. He suffered a vampetaço and as an answer called Brazilians Untermenschen. He received so many nudes of Vampeta that his profile was put on private afterwards. André Honorato, lead singer from Ossos Cruzados, created a political cartoon about the event that was reposted by João Gordo, lead singer from Ratos de Porão.

Personal life Vikernes and his French wife, Marie Cachet, have a son together who was born in 2007. The couple married the same year. In a 2008 interview, he said he and his wife were expecting a second child together (her second and his third). After his release from prison, he settled with his family on a small farm in Bø before they moved to Salon-la-Tour in France.

After his release from prison, he changed his legal name to Louis Cachet in order to avoid difficulties with the public, but still uses the Varg Vikernes name in his daily life.

Lords of Chaos The 1998 book Lords of Chaos covers the early Norwegian black metal scene. Michael Moynihan, one of the book's authors, was sympathetic with Vikernes and his extremist politics. Moynihan disputed being a Nazi or white supremacist. In the 2018 film adaptation, Vikernes was played by Emory Cohen, which he criticized for factual inaccuracies and casting a "fat Jewish actor" in his role.

Works

Discography As Burzum 1992 – Burzum (recorded January 1992) 1993 – Aske (recorded August 1992) 1993 – Det som engang var (recorded April 1992) 1994 – Hvis lyset tar oss (recorded September 1992) 1996 – Filosofem (recorded March 1993) 1997 – Dauði Baldrs (recorded in prison 1994–1995) 1999 – Hliðskjálf (recorded in prison 1998) 2010 – Belus (recorded in 2009) 2011 – Fallen (recorded November 2010) 2011 – From the Depths of Darkness (recorded March 2010) 2012 – Umskiptar (recorded September 2011) 2013 – Sôl austan, Mâni vestan (recorded throughout 2012) 2014 – The Ways of Yore (recorded throughout 2013) 2020 – Thulêan Mysteries (recorded 2015–2020) 2023 – The Reincarnation of Ódinn (non-album single) 2024 –

Other appearances 1994 – Darkthrone – Transilvanian Hunger (wrote lyrics for four songs) 1995 – Darkthrone – Panzerfaust (wrote lyrics for one song) 1994 – Mayhem – De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (performed bass guitar) 1993 – Mayhem – Life Eternal (EP, performed bass guitar) 1991 – Old Funeral – Devoured Carcass (EP, performed electric guitar) 1999 – Old Funeral – Join the Funeral Procession (compilation album, performed electric guitar) 1999 – Old Funeral – The Older Ones (compilation album, performed electric guitar) 2002 – Old Funeral – Grim Reaping Norway (live album, performed electric guitar) 2025 – Hyperborea Rising – Reconquest (AI album by Vikernes) 2026 – Hyperborea Rising – The Elf Queen (AI album by Vikernes) 2026 – Hyperborea Rising – The Elf Queen's Daughter (AI album by Vikernes) 2026 – Hyperborea Rising – Halls of Stone (AI album by Vikernes)