Interviews

Necrobutcher – MAYHEM ‘On the 50 Year Anniversary We’ll Play the Sydney Opera House’

Duane James

Dec 19, 2024

7 min read

MAYHEM are celebrating 40 years of destruction and they’re bring the celebration down under. The ultimate pioneers of Norwegian Black Metal are kicking off 2025 in style by making the trek up and down the east coast of Australia – with special guests HOST – and it promises to be a career spanning monstrosity that is shaping up to be one for the ages.

Wall Of Sound’s resident bogan Duane James was joined by Higher Ground Tattoos and Records owner (and uber MAYHEM fan) Paulie Surridge to sit down with founding member and bass player Necrobutcher to talk about past tours, the 40th celebrations, a potentially HUGE 50th anniversary Australian venue and what to expect when they hit these shores early next year.

Watch the video or read on for the transcribed chat!

We started proceedings by making a firm suggestion on what he could do in his time off down under…

Duane: If you’re doing nothing, you want to go for a hike and you want to have a look at our records and maybe get a tattoo, you’re more than welcome.

Necrobutcher: Yeah, well thanks for the offer. I’ve only got two tattoos, so I’m probably going to head down to Bondi Beach if I got the time.

Paulie: It’s going to be hot when you get here, so that’s what I would do too.

Necrobutcher: It’s getting freezing here now. We’re heading into the winter time here, so I’m super stoked to get down to some warmer weather.

Duane: Well you’re celebrating 40 years of MAYHEM and we’re lucky that you’re bringing the celebration here.

Necrobutcher: I’m very fucking stoked. Very stoked that you guys were able to bring us all the way down under for these three shows. It’s a hell of a logistic thing to put together. It’s a big production as well and I’m amazed, every time I get there I’m just like, fuck, to pull it off. Now we’re coming down under there again for the sixth time, I think altogether, since we came down first time 20 some years ago.

Duane: I’m wondering what your first impressions were of Australia and how they’ve changed over time?

Necrobutcher: Well, the first time we came down under there was with Modern Invasion and Daniel Janecka from Melbourne. He set up some shows, that was in 2003 I think. Also some part of the tour, we were travelling down the Gold Coast from Brisbane to Sydney with the car so we can get some of the scenery. We went to the Banana Coastline. We even went to the Australian Zoo. Total touristic. But that was Daniel Janecka’s way of doing tour managing. He also is a lover of food. So he had these special places that he showed us, restaurants, his favourite restaurants in different cities and stuff. That’s how it started for us to get the grasp of the country and what’s good and stuff like that. It’s spilled over since the Soundworks [tours] Brad and Dyson took over after him and has been doing also the last 15 years I think.

I don’t think it changed that much actually. It’s still the same. It is still the same old friends. I have pen pals from Brisbane area that are still coming down to our shows from the eighties.

The Opera House is still there. What can I say? I don’t think things have changed that much drastically. The only thing that’s changed is that we got more fans over the years. We kept the old fans and we gained some new ones. We come down and we pack the houses. So if anything, it changed from good to even better.

Duane: Do you think one day maybe you could even play the Opera House?

Necrobutcher: I mean, do they have rock shows there or do they have concerts there?

Duane: Opeth have just booked shows there for next year.

Necrobutcher: Okay. I mean, wait a minute. Yes. Okay, so never say never. I mean, we had a brand new opera house here built in Norway. It was this prestige project, costed shitloads, and I know that Satyricon played there. So I mean anything goes these days. Never say never. Maybe on the 50 year anniversary we’ll play the Opera House. That would be neat.

Let’s do that. That’s a fucking good idea. Let’s set it up. Start working against that now.

Duane: We’ll start campaigning on your behalf.

Necrobutcher: Getting ready for the Opera House already. It’s only nine more years left then we’ll do it. Not a joke actually. I think that could be happening actually. If we come back for a fifty year anniversary, It will be only fitting.

If you look at music in general. You have all kinds of music comes in, it’s trendy, it gets big and then disappears. This kind of metal music, extreme metal music has had a rise since it came around in the early eighties. And it’s still going up. It’s steady climb, more festivals, more fans, more bands. It’s still developing into different things that you would never think.

Like for example, when this band SHINING came up with this black jazz album 10 years ago. I thought it kind of stagnated a little bit [in] the extreme metal world. Everything was exploited. But that showed me that no, there is still going on and there’s still people mixing in things. It’s alive still. It’s not just sentimental.

Paulie: I’m a big fan. When you were talking about the evolution of music, especially extreme music. I was always a big fan of heavy music. I’ve just turned 50, so I’m quite old these days. But someone handed me a cassette with ‘Freezing Moon’ on it, and I was getting quite depressed with the way heavy music was going, and that changed my life. I just listened purely to the music. It was all about the music and how extreme and dark and beautiful it was. It wasn’t until later on that I got the whole Mayhem story and all the controversy that surrounds it. The stuff you’re putting out, your Esoteric Warfare album was incredible, but do you find that the controversy surrounding your band overshadows that, or do you embrace it? I was always curious.

Necrobutcher: Yeah, I think it’s a little bit mix of both because you can’t run from your past, so you have to kind of find a way to embrace it. And since people are still interested in talking about stuff from the past then, I mean, yeah, it’s a part of the thing.

I actually feel like a lot of people say, oh, you must be tired of all these questions, about these old same questions. But actually, but I’m not tired of it. I must say I’m surprised, but positively surprised, that a lot of people have still a lot of interest in Per (Yngve Ohlin – “Dead”) and Øystein (Aarseth – “Euronymous”), our too late brothers that passed away 33 and 31 years ago now. That people still want to talk about ’em and are still interested and have questions and stuff. I think it is incredible.

These people were cool, good friends of mine and I’m glad that people still remember them. I answer gladly any questions people have about that. No problem.

But of course, since we are talking about the past and stuff and since we are limited of time, we should talk about the show.

Duane: Bloody Oath

Necrobutcher: We decided that the best way to do the forty year anniversary was to put together a show that took every part of our career into it. We ended up having two songs from every album because the time was like two and a half hour in the end. We just had to cut it kind of to the bone and then to present everything, which was only fitting. So we are presenting, for the first time, something from every part, from the first demos we released in 85/86 until the latest Daemon album that came out. Is it five years ago?

Paulie: Are you going to play them in chronological order??

Necrobutcher: Yes. I don’t know if we start with the beginning, end with the end, because in Europe last time, we started with the end and worked ourself down. So we ended up doing the Daemon songs first, the full production, everything we are standing for now, and then build it down and strip it down to 1986. Then we made also a movie that is together with the songs. So some of the movie parts are into the music, so we play on click, so it’s on time. The coolest thing, a couple of cool things. First of all, the coolest thing is that we separated out Dead’s vocal from the famous Live in Leipzig gig from 1990. Separated out his vocal and I’m now playing the song ‘Funeral Fog’ with him on vocal. So we just brought him back and we play.

First time I heard it, it blew my mind.

Paulie: Did you have memories flooding back? Did it give you chills?

Necrobutcher: Absolutely. And I thought to myself like, wow. I couldn’t wait to bring this out to the fans because it came out great. To pick songs for this 40th anniversary, we invited Maniac (Sven Erik Kristiansen) to come and he said okay. But he had particularly picked out some songs that he insisted on playing. If he was going to go with the anniversary, he needed these songs to be played. And I thought to myself like, shit man, you’re picking those songs because you are hoping that we are not going be able to play them. We never played. Basically that was the song ‘Chimera’. We Never Played. It’s a great song from the Chimaera album, the title track, but we never played it before. So we’re like, okay, let’s try it. We rehearsed it a couple times and that is now turning out to be my favourite song on the forty year anniversary, probably because we never played it before. But I always loved that song. And he backed out himself. We learned the song and he backed out.

Duane and Paulie: HAHAHAHA

Necrobutcher: But then again, he kicked our butts.

Paulie: He probably thought you weren’t going to do it

Necrobutcher: I don’t know why he pulled out. So I wouldn’t actually speculate on that. He came to rehearsal place a couple of times. We are getting ready for the first show, which was in May in Oslo, and he just backed out just before that. But yeah, we have something for everything and we have rented a big ass led screen for best possible, how to say, projection of the video. I’m looking forward to bringing it to Australia. We had some shows around in Europe. People went fucking nuts and everybody loved it. You could go and look at some of it. And I know that the Wacken show is out there. It’s the same screen.

Paulie: In Sydney you’re playing the Metro Theatre, which is my favourite venue here. It’s like a great size, it has an amazing stage. So I think it’ll work really with the video.

Necrobutcher: I think so too. I love the Metro too. It’s a great venue. Can’t wait to get down under again and enjoy the weather, enjoy playing shows, and it’s going to be Ace

Duane: We’ve got one more question we ask everyone. It’s a scenario, so the planet’s about to blow up. We’ve all got to get on a great big spaceship and get off the planet. You’re only allowed to take one Black Sabbath album with you. Which Black Sabbath album will you take and why?

Necrobutcher: Oooooo-kay. Shit.

Duane and Paulie: HAHAHAHA

Duane: That’s a common response.

Necrobutcher: Born Again. Yeah.

Duane: Wow. You are the second bloke to say that album.

Necrobutcher: Actually, I saw them [on] that tour, the Born Again Tour. I believe that was the first concert on the tour. Aka was the first concert with Gillan, Ian Gillan on vocals. It was in a place called Drummond, just outside of Oslo. And I remember that they played so loud that the intestines was shaking around in my body. I’m thinking, what the fuck? Never experienced anything like that. Not even after, actually. I mean, I was at the front, but still.

And something really cool, Gillan, he had his hair over his face and the microphone was coming into his hair, so you can just see half of the microphone and you know that album, he’s just screaming his fucking head off the whole fucking time. I just couldn’t fucking believe it. Wow. Blew me completely away. Especially since Dio previously played those two records, which was like this more, very fine, almost a more classic way to sing, let’s say. It’s hard to pick.

Duane: Born Again.

Necrobutcher: Yeah, I guess Born Again. Fuck it, why not?

Duane: Patrick [Mameli] from Pestilence said the same. A genuine honour to get to talk to you, man. You’ll definitely see us when you come here in January.

Necrobutcher: Well, I hope to see you guys. Maybe I’ll send some of my other guys, they’re more into ink, to your shop.

Duane: Absolutely. Thank you. Have a great day.

Necrobutcher: Cheers, man. Bye. See you down there in January.

Interview by Duane James & Paulie Surridge of Higher Ground Kurrajong

MAYHEM celebrate 40 years up the East Coast in January.

Get your tickets now via Soundworks Direct Presents