Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult

“When we started to see people like Eddie Van Halen doing guitar solos for Michael Jackson on the song ‘Beat It’—and then that song got into the Sounds ‘heavy metal chart’—we were just disgusted to tell you the truth,” concludes Cronos. “I mean I’ve got nothing against Jackson, but he’s not heavy metal. At that point it was like we are not heavy metal, if Jackson’s there we do not want to be in that chart… we are black metal, death metal, power metal, thrash metal, all of this, but not heavy metal. Coming up with a term like black metal or thrash metal, it was great when bands came along and used those titles. The Norwegians used the term black metal ten years later ’cos they knew they would automatically be put into a category they wanted to be in. They were like, ‘This is dirty, this is nasty, this is Satanic, we’re gonna put fucking corpsepaint on, sing about Satan’… they knew the black metal tag would give them an identity.”

We always had a very strong focus on and interest in the sound of things, because it does quite radically change what you’re hearing. Melody is given far too much credit I think sometimes.”

tradition… Approving the idea of existence of Satan implicates approving the Christian vision of world. And these are the things I do not believe in.”