I'm going pretty good. A bit tired right now but it's always up and down you know... I'm used to that when I'm on tour. Sometimes you just catch some hours to sleep especially when you're touring around the world: it's always a different timing and I'm used to this, to have less sleep. But things are gonna be OK and the shows are always OK. Vibes at our last show, yesterday in Rennes, were pretty good. But there was some fuck up with our flights and the organization so our guitarist and I were forgotten and not picked up at the airport so we had to take the TGV (fast french train). At 6 pm I was still in the middle of nowhere 50 kms away from Paris. Then I gave a phone call and I was like: "Are you sure it's going to happen tonight because it's 6 pm and I'm 400 kms away from the venue?". But luckily you guys have the TGV. So we catched that train that was pretty fast and we could eventually make it. Then we came to the venue and almost went on stage straight. That was really stressful and exhausting and I even didn't sleep the day before so whatever...

Maybe... Also I'm apparently tour manager now. So that' an extra job to take care of all that shit. I didn't know that I was tour manager actually!

Exactly! That's interesting (laughs)! But apparently it's like that but it's not our mistake at least. But I'm happy with the band. Now I think we are challenging every fucking thing that we can. We just don't care. I don't care anymore. we don't care anymore about anything. The whole idea is just to make ourselves happier, more excited and more into the thing to come up with new ideas. And as the old slogan tells, Mayhem has always been "no trend". And apparently black metal turns almost to a new religion. More than a trend... Like you have to do this, follow that, bullshit like this... But myself at least, as a kind of musician (may I call myslef an artist?), I like changes, I like to make a step forward. I can't keep myself always on the same thing, you know: it's boring for me. Because we still do traditional black metal shows sometimes, but to have all the time these pikes, these pig heads which have been invented actually 15-16 years ago already... And actually when I did my first make up, I hadn't seen any metal band doing some make up before! I can tell you now: I saw some Alien Sex Fiend video. It's an old acid goth band... Dark fucked up band... And they only had this white make up. And I was thinking: "Fuck! That's pretty cool!". Because I saw Destruction and some guys doing only some black make up. But when I saw during the Tormentor years (1986-1987) this Alien Sex Fiend video, I was like: "Fuck! That guys look fucking insane with that white shit". So we started to use the white base and stuff. That's how the make up started... At least in my life (laughs)! But we were already doing some theatrical things at that time, like acting: I think you're giving a bit more information this way than just playing music. But now it's always a different show. Only 2 or 3 shows out of 12 or 13 have a similar color. I started with a mommy. That's how it started in Norway. And the mommy was building a kind of fucked up time machine or whatever on the stage. That was the beginning and there was no way back you know (laughs). So I've been from the mommy to the dictator in Israël, then this guy in Norway again with this psychedelic broken mirror outfit (I like th symbol of the broken mirror). I've also been a pimp in Finland with this pimp hat and all the crap... With 2 girls around and this brown sofa on stage with a table. But in a way, on the other hand, it always has some point or meaning. For instance I was Santa Claus in Finland and Santa Claus came from Finland. Then in Russia I was Raspoutine, this dictature figure in Moscow looking almost like Chaplin or Hitler with this fucked moustache... But it's a hard damm because people can still come up with political bullshit, you know what I mean... But if you look at the whole thing, if you notice that this show before, I was Santa Claus, you will understand that it's not that! It's just playing with negative human characters. I don't want to come to politics or whatever: it's bullshit! I just follow no rules. I want to create negative vibes in one million ways. If you watch a horror movies, you can explain emotions and feelings in a lot of ways. And I love to go into abstract and bizarre ways so for me it's always a step forward. Every show is a challenge. We are not a rock 'n roll band. We don't play the same thing at all, you know...

It was a great year to me! I will mention this new album we made. For me it was a great challenge again and a real nice musical step forward. I was very happy about this and I think Mayhem itself is still progressing. If you look at the albums: they are all very different. In 1985-1986, it was a very simple pure old school almost death metal thing and the whole thing goes shifting into black metal and then I came to the picture and it went dark, then I came back and it went experimental. In my way I was experimental too. The whole thing was just put together. I think it's cool. I like this music and I like what we create. I like to be unique. If it's necessary I also like to be alone against the whole fucking world creating a negative field around myself too. It's a nice experience. Everything is about experiences. And music is the most important activity in my life. But it's still just a sheetwork that brings me ahead. Its' not like I am music, it's not like I feel completely as a musician. I do this but to me, it's a fantastic spaceship or something (laughs) to fullfill my existence. But it's the most important thing that I do in life, you know... To me, the existence can be anything but it's the most important. And I'm very happy that I can play music. When I was a kid, I was not mad of music yet but I was already mad of stereoes. When I was 4-5 years old, I was rather into the sound actually. I was crazy of the high fidelity systems, collecting all the catalogs from every company like Sony, Panasonic, etc. I think music is a great entertainment if it's a good quality. To me it's like psychedelic. When you create a good quality vibration, it goes through your body. It's an extra enjoyment. I was still into this lately but I stopped. But I still have my hand made expensive stuff... Sound and music is my life. I know that a lot of people complain about the new album sound. Of course it's not a mistake: we wanted it rough, dirty, like a beyond dimension sound with the new album. At the same time, it's very rusty, it's like a post-atomic sound. Like everything is over in a way. I like to challenge every kind of trend. I think trends are always bullshit because people start to follow each other instead of themselves. It's not healthy when you just follow someone because it's cool. You lose the meaning. It's OK to be inspired by someone but this is not a trend. So you have to be always yourself, pure and unique. Your life is yours, only yours! What you had seen yesterday at 4 pm, no one knows about it: only you do! That's your life and life talks to you but we lost the connexion. It's always like there is God, there is bullshit... We're programmed to think and it blocks people. I don't care anymore because I think we have the right and the freedom to define what is around us. Today science is the new religion that people believe in. Science is tlking about what happened million years ago! Come on! You are fucking piece of shit living sixty or eighty years. Even if you talk about the thousands of years of knowledge we have, who knows what happened before? No one actually. Can you believe that science claims that the closest star is 6 light year away? This is fucking bullshit! How can we say such stupid things?! It's hilarious! The fucking universe has other dimensions and levels we don't know shit about! The story of Jesus Christ is also interesting. Of course I read the Bible and not only one time. Unfortunately I had to because I was interested. I was not forced. I was interested and I realized it is bullshit but of course I ate the crap for a while. But now I know that Jesus Christ never existed and that it's only a fucking story. Nevertheless, I prove you that it's a lie: in this fucking Evangelium, it's written that He arrives to a place. There is a crowd. He enters the house and there is a dead. It's not a coma, it's not someone who plays that: it's written it's a DEAD. This guy goes there doing some hocus pocus and the dead wakes up. It's the biggest blasphemy I've ever heard in my life! It's like you know... You challenge the existence itself! Just like this 0-1 logical law: it's life or death. You can't touch this deep! This is too far, man! This is a fucking lie! I realized that no one picked up this thing. I mean you can cure millions of people, I don't give a fucking shit but you never raise the dead, come on!! That's over the top. That's too much over the top. That's christian: even the other religions say it's bullshit! I mean... I hate all religions but Christianism is one the worst. All these one God religions suck ass actually. It's funny people who get serious enough about that to kick each other on the battle field... It's funny but I don't want to hear about this bullshit crap. It's so sad that mankind is suffering from religions, especially the one man God ones. One MAN God exactly! That's always this gay man energy. These religions suppressed the female energy for thousands of years so what the fuck do you expect now? Of course, famillies broke up an everything is fucked up now! That femal energy a big huge moral and social problems. Of course now girls are feminist or whatver: they try to find a way. But it's been thousands of years. I'm not saying that all girls have to be lawyers or all that fucking thing but they should be females, pure and proud. Every one came from a pussy. No fucking Virgin Mary. No bullshit like this! And females should be respected like themselves. It's one sickness of the religions. It's always a nice issue to fuck around but I would like to go further with Mayhem. It's not only about religions anymore. It's just about everything.

Exactly! And I have to take care of myself too in this life because if you look around, it looks like the world is almost completely fucked up apart from a few people and I don't want to go down straight to the cemetarry, as a loser with the masses. I don't care about what people think: I want to define my own dimensions and life and I have the right for that so fuck it! But at the same time, it's really sad to see what mistakes are going on in the world. Now I think life itself is a positive thing. I'm not against life anymore. I was self destructive mostly but it's also coming from this fucking brain wash you know... You have to really clean up yourself. Now I support existence. I think if you die, you are a kind of loser in this world. You are already not here anymore? Well that doesn't matter anymore in a way... It's just history from now. The reality is fucking cruel. But until I'm here I care about this existence and all the religions deal with death. What's gonna happen later? Mmmmhhh... Of course nobody knows so the religions tell people what to do: "if you do this, that will happen after that... If you do that bla bla bla". And they fuck with the dead: it's blasphemy in my eyes! You can't fuck with the dead. It's like the existence. You can't fuck with time, space, life or death. And they also fuck with birth (the story of the Virgin Mary). About the death, if there is one, it's not necessarily a wrong thing actually but we shouldn't think about that: we should think about this existence. If you look at animals: why aren't they depressed or fucked up? Because they don't have these stupid thoughts. They don't realize, they don't know about that. When a cruel animal kills another one, i's not aware of that. The point is that we should focus on our existence and realize what the fuck is going on. I will do my way whatever it brings me. And in the case of the band, most of the people agree about this. That's why we try things. If we go down, we go down... If we go up, we go up... But if you're not doing it, you will never see what could have happened. If you do it the safe way, OK, maybe you're gonna sell a lot of albums, you will have a happy life but I don't need a happy life. I don't need a comfortable happy life. Because I can be happy when I fullfill my inner desires too you know... And not selling my ass for some crappy trend expectations. That's how I watch Mayhem now. And tonight is gonna be one of the most extreme shows to me because we have some several options and plans but probably I will have this bunny outfit. That will probably be worse than ever... But that's nice! Why shouldn't we be bad? I like to be wrong sometimes. It's not like when you're forcing the same bullshit for ten years and then suddenly it doesn't work anymore.You are just trying to figure out how far you can go...

What's the limit? I would not be surprised if people are totally pissed off tonight. But we'll see. I have a meaning of the bunny of course. But I don't want to talk about that because I prefer to let the people find out. I'm pretty stressed out in a way because it's a fucking challenge but I'm also pretty used to that now. You feel like in a war though. It's not like going on a comfortable fucking stage. I like to feel that anything can happen at that moment. I'm very patient but not enough to keep the same shit for a long time though. And of course, the most important thing is that we play music, man!

It just came naturally. When I came back to the band, I'm sorry to say that, but it was a bit ruined. I mean the guys were optimistic and it sounded cool but the audience was ruined. The band was also pretty tired of touring and it still affects the band that they didn't have good life experiences apparently at the end. So it was pretty difficult to play. And you know, before, there were these great performances of Maniac who had this fucked up extreme shit, cut himself, etc. He just did everything actually on stage. And when I came back, I just had my voice. So I went on stage and it was nice, people liked it but they expected something more... Like it's MAYHEM you know. It's always been fucked up. At least some pig heads had to be there so we played with the pig heads and there was this more traditional black metal stuff going but then I felt it's not enough... I don't know... I had never felt like this with the couple of bands I played with. But that was very strong and strange with Mayhem so I was thinking: "What the fuck!". And then we had better shows. But still that was OK but not so exciting... And I'll tell you what happen. We played in Sicilia in South Italy like 2 years ago and I lost my bag with my stage clothes. And the next day we had to play in Milano. The thing is that I couldn't imagine myself going on stage with my street clothes on. So I asked my friends: "What the fuck do we have??". So they came with some kind of bad spikes and shit but they managed to get butcher clothes. So I said "Fuck!". I had this white doctor kind of robe so I could make myself look like a mad butcher with a chop in my hand. I just put together some things out of nothing. But you know what? Before the show we had some much extra fun and excitement backstage. Everybody was like... Not just laughing but putting a lot of shit on me, like blood and all this craps. I looked like really crazy! But suddenly I felt that the whole band kind of shaked a bit. Like: "Fuck! There's something going on!". I felt this extra energy. We were happier suddenly. And first of all, we need to have fun on stage I think. If we enjoy, nothing can be wrong. People like this or not, it's up them I mean but we have to enjoy. I mean you have to be sure that you want to do this but you must have your goal, your point. And since that, this shit is going on... Then in Sweden, I've had this pig skin on my face. I was a kind of crazy doctor turning himself into a pig, praying and worshipping a pig God on a cross and the pig was exploding and all this shit. It was a big show! But it turned into a scandal... Next day we were on the daily paper because of animal protectors and all this bullshit. Anyway it's like going on like that. I don't care. I don't know how long. Until we think it's cool and funny. I mean funny for us. That doesn't necessarily mean funny for the people (laughs). But we have our point there. If we realize our goal, that is worth doing it, that's what I'm saying...

Of course, I'm proud! But I'm not sure... From which point of view is it the best album? It could be for some people because of music: so then it tastes exactly the way it should sound according to them. But I remember when we recorded the album, I was thinking to scream like Dead did, the traditional way and of course I did something else. And the guys really liked that: that's why I did this dark voice. But when the album came out, at least for the first year, people were really confused about the voice, like "What the fuck is that?!". So it shows that time changes people opinion about music... But let's put another point of view now: I think that a lot of people think it's our best album not just because of music but also because of all that shit that happened around. All this crap: the church burnings, the murders, the chaos ... Kids love that crap (and we were kids too actually at that time...)! So of course that helps a lot there. But musically, honestly, I think Mayhem evolved since this alubm. So I think musically it's not necessarily the best album of Mayhem. And I think that people actually love that album because suddenly, after it, every black metal band had a ground, a soil to put their seed.... A base! And of course every one mentions that album because every one used the basement it created. But look the other way: what happened with Mayhem? Mayhem shouldn't be that much happy about that album because it actually ruined the whole band! It caused the blood of the band you know... It's just like... The band was over! So why should be so happy about that album in which we all put our whole life, working on it like crazy? And after that it was even very difficult to release it, without any royalties: I haven't had any money from that album... And you see all the small bands around just grow and start to tour around the world!

Yeah (pretty pissed off)!! That's why people love that album. But for us actually the only good thing was that it made the name of Mayhem established like forever. And the other bad thing that people maybe not always understand is that after that album, everybody was comparing each new album to De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. And not just the music but also all the things around it I told you about! So that was very painful for us. But anyway... Mayhem managed to reach another level of playing music and go further... Even if I wasn't in the band anymore, I knew what was going on...

I was in contact again from 1998. We lost contact before because I only had the phone numbers of Euronymous and Varg Vikernes but the first one was dead and the second one was in prison. Suddenly I couldn't call anyone. I didn't know what the fuck was going on at that time. I learnt from the hungarian Metal Hammer about Euronymous murder one or two months after. I couldn't go to the funeral or whatever...

Mayhem is a name: it's above us. It's always 4 strong personalities. And that's one of the unique thing with Mayhem: I mean most of the black metal bands are based on one or two people (Satyricon, Immortal, Emperor, etc.). And most of the people who have heard about Mayhem can tell who is who: Hellhammer is famous not only because he's playing in Mayhem but also because of his drumming and the other bands he's playing in. Necro is known. Blasphemer had some trouble though: he's the one who's suffering the worst from the past because he's always compared to the other guitarist. So people still have problems with understanding that he's been doing new Mayhem albums for more than a decade now. There should be something perhaps there! It's not just an accident guitarist to drop in you know... So it's causing a lot of difficulties in the band because of all this bullshit coming from outside, causing arguments amongst us. But it's still better to argue: in Mayhem, it's a rule to speak out loud all the bullshits because we learned that it's better than to hold it back. Anyway... I think we are good to play music together and I enjoy it. It's very challenging. It's a really fuking crazy band with crazy people. But it's interesting that we respect each other pretty much actually... Sometimes a bit too much of democracy in my eyes but that's how it is: we have to find a way to function...

Yeah of course. You know, we are playing for decades now. And it's a progressing band even though we always play songs from every album. We don't deny the past of course but it has always been going further and further I think. I think actually that you can achieve to play better live than in the studio. In the studio you are too much focused and people don't play together necessarily. But when you play live the spirit is there and you can speed it up and play faster.

Apparently and it's not ass kissing, I'm surprised I like it in France. I like the vibe basically. I like to play in Norway too but it's really different... People are more peaky there. And I like different cultures so when we were around the world I think Japan was the most interesting to me. I don't know because that was so far and so far speaking about the culture: no one God religion for instance. It's very spinning and at the same tim pretty peaceful in my eyes. Japan is like another planet actually.

Yeah people like us in the US. But we don't play too much in the US, I don't know... Somehow it's difficult to get there you know... Maybe in the future but I don't know... Because authorities put their nose in everything extreme and they are so peaky with it. When you are in it's alright I mean but in the case of Mayhem at least everything has to be so official to get there you know...

Actually I've always been an open person and in the early 90's I first went to an opera singing teacher. She was an old woman. And that was the first time I heard about breathings. You know these breathing techniques... I was surprised but the I had these breathing exercises. That was at that time when we recorded De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. I mean that was really early, I wasn't so good with the breathing yet but still that was working with my thing. And then around 2000, I went again to another teacher and she was still speaking about the breahting but in a slightly different way. But that time I was more interested and I went deeper. And now I'm just working on it myself. It's just like an instrument actually. The techniques help to make it more clean, wide and transparent.

Oh yeah! That's true! I started with metal because that was the first music that touched me really. I mean at that time I was already listening to other styles but I wasn't a fan of music yet. I was about 12 years old. First I was listening to Kiss and Mötorhead and then AC/DC, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. And then we were always looking for more extreme stuff. So came the punk. And when I was about 15 years old, I found this album called "Black Metal" from Venom and we started to play music at that time. And then I met people from different scenes like from dark experimental for instance. And my main influences came from the old industrial scene with bands like Current 93, Skinny Puppy, Frontline Assembly. Alien Sex Fiend. inspired me for the white make up. Psycho Billy also... A lot of shit I knew... Joy Division, Sisters of Mercy... But all the time I was also listening to other music like Pink Floyd for instance. Before I even used to listen to indian music with citare and everything actually. And that was amazing. The drummer was actually three times faster than the drummer of Slayer in those years. I realized with all these things that you can do occult and dark music in a million different ways actually. Of course it came from the metal first to me but there are so many aspects of it. I've listened also to classical russian music for a while: it can be also very dark. I'm speaking about Mussorgsky or Chostakovitch. But there are also some dark stuff from Greece to Norway. After Tormentor and before Mayhem, in the meanwhile, I also had this band called Plasma Pool playing this dark electronic ambient music. But it was occult and dark in a kind of natural way. I mean that wasn't about satanism or bullshit like that.

Yeah! Actually that was a kind of combination. I mean if you put together Plasma Pool and Mayhem, you will get something like Aborym I guess. The old Mayhem I mean. The most simple one. But I love industrial music and I still keep on listening a lot to this kind of music. I mean bands like Suicide Commando but I like the more extreme shit too.

Don't believe in God! Don't believe in anything because you don't have to believe! Focus on yourself. Focus on what is right for you and fuck the rest!