Varg Vikernes Quotes

Starting in junior high school, through high school, I was very into metal or black metal and death metal specifically.

I was a big fan of hardcore music growing up, black metal.

I was such a weird kid. The really hardcore stuff like Venom - I was totally aware of them, and I listened to some of it - but they actually frightened me.

I like thrash metal and black metal, stuff like that.

When I first got involved in the underground metal scene in '82, '83, there were only about five or six major Death or Black Metal bands around. There were so many other bands that were inspirational, that really helped.

To some people heavy metal is Motorhead and to others it's Judas Priest.

I am no friend of the modern so-called 'black metal' culture. It is a tasteless, lowbrow parody of Norwegian black metal circa 1991-92, and if it was up to me, it would meet its dishonorable end as soon as possible.

Black-metal is my favourite. Mayhem are one of my favourite bands. But whenever Slayer comes to town, I am going to that show.

When we first started out, we had no idea what metal music was all about. But now we listen to everything from cute songs to all sorts of metal music.

Death metal has now become exclusively about being evil, Satanic and playing full speed ahead. It's not what I'm into at all.

The first 'Charlemagne' album is metal, of course, but what I sang was more symphonic.

Hard rock for me is AC/DC, Def Leppard, Tesla, Kiss. Metal tends to be louder, ruder, darker, like Judas Priest, Slayer, Iron Maiden.

When I was in high school, I listened to a lot of death metal bands.

I'm completely open about the fact that I don't love every genre of metal. I like what I like. It's got to have some vocal quality and some semblance of melody.

Death metal uses a lot of white face paint and black hair dye to make its point. I quite enjoy this genre for its intensity, extremism and underlying irony: You have to be alive to play it and listen to it.

Hellhammer is the best drummer ever, and Euronymous is a musical genius.

The most metal? Some would say Slayer, but I think they're a dreadful band. Unbelievably boring. Terrible. Apparently it's not metal to say that, but it's a personal opinion.

Even when metal was on the radio, it was always the watered down stuff. There were only a couple real metal bands - Metallica is one - that broke through.

I think there's a lot of death metal or doom metal dudes that somehow or another find a groove in it.

I was listening to a lot of Norwegian black metal and death metal. There's a great history to Norwegian black metal. That music is very dark and violent, but it's also beautiful.

I am a closet metal fan.

Black Sabbath invented heavy metal, in my opinion.

I definitely talk about my love of metal to audiences, and I sort of realized it was always natural and never, 'Well, I'm going to be the heavy-metal comedian.'

Slayer is one of my favorite bands of all time, and to be on a tour with them is absolutely a dream come true.

What we're doing is special and unique in its own way but still keeping it heavy. For me as a listener, part of the journey I'm on with Metallica, there's just a certain edge that needs to be there.