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Sarpsborg, Norway, is a metropolis of paper factories. It was there that Jon “Metalion” Kristiansen was born on Could 20, 1967. As a baby, Metalion feared Ozzy Osbourne’s voice, and but he would develop as much as develop into one of the vital important figures within the historical past of steel. In Kristiansen’s stunningly lovely 2011 guide Metalion: The Slayer Magazine Diaries, which incorporates each challenge of his influential underground zine Slayer Magazine, in addition to Metalion’s reflections as recorded by his American associate in crime, Tara G. Warrior, one can see why Kristiansent would without end be remembered as considered one of steel’s biggest publishers. Not solely did he promote steel’s booming underground, however he additionally inspired individuals everywhere in the world to arm themselves with pens and microphones, and reside in a musical Hell of their very own design.
Right here’s a short timeline of Kristiansen’s work and the way it affected steel: in 1983, Metalion co-founded a zine known as Stay Wire, a challenge that went to hell after two of his co-workers discovered Christ. Undaunted, he began Slayer Magazine in 1984 with the assistance of his older brother (as is so typically the way in which in steel). The primary version of Slayer got here out on February 1985. By Vol. X, Slayer had totally transitioned into an English-language publication. Nifelheim and Sadistik Exekution, two of the bands whose careers Slayer helped launch, launched Tribute to Slayer Journal in 2006. In 2010, Slayer’s remaining chapter, Vol. XX, was launched with the vinyl Historical Morbidity. This 12” consists of three tracks by the band Morbid, which was fronted by Metalion’s buddy and late Mayhem vocalist Per Yngve “Pelle” Ohlin, higher referred to as Useless. You possibly can see Useless’s sketches all through problems with Slayer alongside Arne Babb, a kangaroo sporting a reindeer’s head who Kristiansen created to be the grim zine’s mascot.
Slayer Magazine printed interviews with a variety of artists: Beherit, Youngsters of Bodom, Arch Enemy, Candlemass, and even a younger Marilyn Manson. However Metalion is most acknowledged for his involvement with the “True Norwegian Black Metallic” motion, identified to most because the second wave of black steel. Metalion is distinguished in his foresight and uncanny skill to identify expertise, and the exceptionally informative pages of Slayer reveal his penchant for particular musicians with a spark of greatness.
Though Slayer Magazine acquired materials from contributors, Metalion all the time remained the zine’s chief voice. As he recalled in The Slayer Magazine Diaries, “I wished to create every thing from the primary web page to the final on my lounge flooring.” The journal was a labor of affection; Metalion gave many copies away at no cost, although he normally paid for printing. He spent most of his remaining cash on postage, tape buying and selling, and journeys to festivals like Wacken.
Metalion all the time gave the impression to be on the middle of vital developments throughout the underground. When Bathory’s Quorthon knowledgeable Metalion in a letter that his subsequent file could be known as Music from Beneath the Signal of the Black Mark, Metalion steered that he shorten it. Was it a coincidence that this groundbreaking 1987 album turned referred to as Beneath the Signal of the Black Mark? Two days earlier than Cliff Burton handed away, Metalion spoke together with his Metallica bandmates. When Mayhem’s Euronymous determined to open a store that has since morphed right into a vacationer website for metalheads visiting Norway, Metalion brainstormed a terrific title — “[Velkommen til] Helvete!” When Darkthrone launched their debut album, Soulside Journey (1991), Peaceville Information’ founder Paul Halmshaw included the shout-out: “Hey Metalion, just like the pipe?”
Earlier than there was social media, Metalion was an influencer of the primary order. Zines like Slayer had been the first supply of data for underground steel musicians and their followers within the ’80s. In line with Therion’s Christofer Johnsson in Daniel Eskeroth’s 2006 guide Swedish Dying Metallic: “Slayer Magazine from Norway was with out a shadow of a doubt the ’zine you revered essentially the most again then…” The publication has been likened to the Bible by Darkthrone’s Fenriz and Tiamat’s Johan Edlund. Metalion wrote a cruel evaluate of the previous’s sophomore demo, Black Dying’s Black Is Lovely (1987), but Fenriz has since admitted that this public evisceration truly helped him.
Kristiansen met Mayhem’s Euronymous and Necrobutcher whereas peddling Slayer Magazine Vol. 2 at Motörhead live performance. In his 2018 guide The Dying Archives, Necrobutcher recalled: “We had been stunned that there was {a magazine} for excessive steel in Norway.” Mayhem had been featured for the primary time in Slayer Vol. 3/4; apart from the Norwegian punk journal Panic, Kristiansen was uncertain whether or not anybody else had beforehand written about Mayhem. He speculated that his interview might have impressed the band to show themselves with their debut demo, Pure Fucking Armageddon (1986).
The band and the zine editor quickly developed an in depth bond. The pair expanded each other’s musical horizons and developed the 2 largest tape-trading networks in Norway. Metalion stated of Euronymous, “He was my closest buddy for a very long time…”
He was additionally not directly liable for connecting Mayhem with their former frontman Maniac. Earlier than Metalion was arrested exterior a Mötley Crüe live performance for promoting Vol. 3/4, he managed to promote a duplicate to the eccentric musician. After studying of Mayhem by means of Slayer, Maniac recorded the Septic Cunts tape that earned him a spot throughout the band. Maniac’s companion Nella would design logos for each Mayhem and Slayer Magazine, and Mayhem devoted the extremely influential 1987 file Deathcrush to Metalion (it most likely helped that he gave them $1,000 for urgent the album). Kristiansen accompanied Mayhem after they drunkenly recorded this traditional; the author might be heard singing alongside on Deathcrush’s outro, which is a perverse cowl of The Younger Ones’ “(All of the Little Flowers Are) Glad.”
In 1986 and 1987, Metalion launched into Interrail journeys with members of Mayhem by means of Europe. The boys met musicians from bands like Sodom, Kreator, and Napalm Dying. Throughout the first journey, Euronymous compelled his acquaintance upon Conrad Schnitzler, who supplied the “Silvester Anfag” intro for Deathcrush. Euronymous, Necrobutcher, and three musicians from Murderer fashioned a challenge known as Checker Patrol, who later recorded a demo known as Metalion within the Park. Metalion remembers singing backing vocals on the title monitor.
Necrobutcher has said that Useless initially contacted Mayhem as a result of Metalion knowledgeable him that they had been on the lookout for a brand new vocalist. The very fact is that Kristiansen first wrote to Useless after Euronymous performed him a cassette that Useless had despatched from Sweden. And but Metalion additionally instructed Full Moon Productions that he was the one who alerted Useless of Mayhem’s opening. We are able to solely assume that he broke the information by cellphone that future-opera singer Torben Grue was not understanding.
In 1990, Useless wrote from Norway to his Italian pen-pal “The Outdated Nick:” “If one thing in any respect occurs on this nation it’s there [where] Metalion lives… in Sarpsborg.” Kristiansen booze-fueled 1989 New 12 months’s Eve get together supplied a gathering floor for Useless and Grotesque’s Tomas Lindberg (later the frontman of melodeath game-changers At The Gates); Useless later turned such a raving, knife-wielding lunatic that his friends handcuffed him. Afterward, rumors circulated that Metalion had died. On February 28, 1990, Mayhem got here to Sarpsborg to play a live performance that Kristiansen organized. This efficiency has been immortalized on the band’s The Daybreak of the Black Hearts (1995) and Stay in Sarpsborg (2017).
In a world of asinine opportunists, Kristiansen’s phrases about Useless are a very touching actuality test after the Mayhem frontman’s 1991 suicide. Metalion had endured brutal scrutiny in Norway, withstanding police interrogations for crimes such because the burning of the Sarpsborg Church on Christmas Eve 1992. He by no means betrayed anybody’s confidence, and had good intentions when he opened as much as the authors of the 1997 guide Lords of Chaos, which might develop into the defining chronicle of black steel’s second wave — exterior of Slayer Magazine, that’s.
Earlier than Euronymous’ loss of life by the hands of Burzum’s Varg Vikernes in 1993, the guitarist had impressed Metalion to begin his personal label, Head Not Discovered. The title, which comes from an Post-mortem tune, was supplied through a sketch from Entombed drummer Nicke Andersson. After Varg’s arrest, Metalion offered the remaining copies of Burzum’s 1993 album Aske and paid the musician’s mom, later revealing that the album was imagined to have been launched by Head Not Discovered, versus Euronymous’ Deathlike Silence Productions. Head Not Discovered later labored with Gehanna, Ulver, Windir, Emperor, Fenriz’s Valhall, and extra. Relating to Trelldom’s debut album, Til evighet… (1995), Gaahl instructed writer Dayal Patterson, “I didn’t wish to launch something however [Metalion] managed to persuade me to take action.” Amazingly, Varg wished to present Metalion the rights to Hvis lyset tar oss (1994) and Filosofem (1996). However in 1995, he started slicing off contact with Varg, and finally stop his label in 2001.
Like Useless and Euronymous, Metalion finally got here to undertake the assumption that steel and politics don’t combine. He expressed this view when talking with Nihilistic Webzine: “… what I discover attention-grabbing is that so a lot of these Nazi-oriented bands actually do suck. The music will not be attention-grabbing in any respect; I feel the explanation for that is that these guys are extra interested by selling political concepts as an alternative of correct music. So for me, that is very uninteresting…I by no means choose anybody by the colour of his or her pores and skin; I selected to evaluate an individual on how he acts.” That stated, Slayer Vol. 7 made some extent of outlining Kristiansen’s private politics, containing declarations of “Nazi scum fuck off!” and “No Nazis featured!”
Later in his profession, Kristiansen turned a photographer. His early work has been used for albums like Darkthrone’s The Cult is Alive (2006), Gorgoroth’s Stay in Grieghallen (2008), and Watain’s Lawless Darkish (2010). He contributed an introduction to Peter Beste’s much-loved images guide True Norwegian Blacok Metallic (2008). Quickly after finishing his research in 2007, he exhibited his work at a Manhattan gallery.
Curiously sufficient, in later problems with Slayer, you’ll typically discover Metalion waging conflict in opposition to the Norwegian black steel mania that he helped construct up. In Slayer Vol. XX, Metalion clarified: “I’m not actually interested by being part of a scene…” A comparability could also be drawn to Darkthrone’s determination to experiment with numerous musical kinds through the years as they deconstructed their picture. The motive for change in each instances was partially to return to “old-school” roots. As Per Ohlin wrote in “Pagan Fears,” “The previous is alive.” And amongst these of us who grew up poring over the pages of steel rags and hastily-copied zines, Slayer Magazine deserves our everlasting worship.
Jon Kristiansen’s Metalion: The Slayer Magazine Diaries is out now on Bazillion Factors and out there for buy.
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