Cradle Of Filth frontman Dani Filth used to be pen-pals with late Norwegian black metal mastermind Euronymous.
Talking exclusively to Metal Hammer, the Cradle singer reveals that he has “three or four letters” from the original guitarist of Mayhem, who was stabbed to death by his then-bandmate Varg Vikernes in 1993, aged 25.
He adds that Euronymous, real name Øystein Aarseth, expressed admiration for the notorious dictators Pol Pot and Nicolae Ceaușescu during one of their correspondences.
“I became pen-pals with Euronymous after sending our demo tape to him with loads of flyers and stuff,” Filth (real name Daniel Lloyd Davey) remembers. “He sent me a really nice little letter, nothing overtly weird.
“I think he mentioned in the second letter to me how much he admired Pol Pot and Nicolae Ceaușescu for the way they could control the populace, but that’s about as misanthropic as it got.”
Filth also says that he used to keep his Euronymous letters in an original pressing of Mayhem’s 1987 debut EP Deathcrush, until the EP was stolen by “a wily character that I thought was a friend”.
“I still have an original copy of the EP from 1987,” he continues, “but me and my friends just regarded it as a crappy thrash metal, death metal thing. Not once did we consider it black metal, other than it having a spiky logo with inverted crosses.”
The Norwegian black metal scene, which centred around Euronymous’ Oslo record store Helvete (Norwegian for “Hell”), committed numerous heinous, infamous acts in the early 1990s.
Mayhem vocalist Per “Dead” Ohlin committed suicide at the band’s cabin in 1991, and Euronymous photographed the corpse upon discovering it. One of the pictures he took became the cover of a Mayhem bootleg several years later.
Other musicians, including Vikernes and Emperor guitarist Tomas “Samoth” Haugen, burned churches down in anti-Christian acts of arson. In 1992, Emperor drummer Bård “Faust” Eithun murdered a gay man in Lillehammer.
In 1994, Haugen was sentenced to 16 months in prison for burning down Skjold church. The same year, Eithun was sentenced to 14 years in prison for murder and arson, and Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years (the maximum sentence in Norway at the time) for murder and arson.
Filth isn’t the only famed metal singer to have been pen-pals with Euronymous. In 2022, Soulfly, Cavalera Conspiracy and ex-Sepultura singer/guitarist Max Cavalera said that he exchanged letters with the controversial figure.
He wrote in his autobiography, My Bloody Roots: “[Euronymous] loved the Brazilian underground with us, Mutilator and Sarcófago. There was something about Brazilian black metal that felt different to him, I think. There was an element of danger. It was more fucked-up than European black metal because it had the Third World influence.”
Cradle released their new album, The Screaming Of The Valkyries, in March via Napalm. The band are currently touring North America and will hit the European festival circuit in June. They also have headline dates scheduled across the continent. See all details via their website.
