72 Facts About Varg Vikernes

Varg Vikernes was convicted of murder and arson in 1994 and sentenced to 21 years in prison, being released after serving 15 years.

Varg Vikernes went on to join the band Old Funeral, in which he played guitar from 1989 until his departure in 1991.

Varg Vikernes recorded multiple tracks with the band, which were featured on the Devoured Carcass EP, as well as various compilation albums released years later.

In May 1994, Varg Vikernes was convicted of first-degree murder, church arson and possession of explosives.

Varg Vikernes has always maintained the killing was self-defense, and unsuccessfully argued for the charge to be reduced to voluntary manslaughter.

Varg Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison, the maximum penalty under Norwegian law.

Varg Vikernes was an active video blogger on his YouTube channel ThuleanPerspective, before the channel was banned by the platform.

Varg Vikernes promoted views which combined Odinism and Esoteric Nazism, and openly embraced Nazism during the mid-to-late 1990s.

Varg Vikernes has since disavowed the ideology and its associated movements, although critics continue to label his views as far-right.

Varg Vikernes calls his beliefs "Odalism" and defends a "pre-industrial European pagan society" that opposes the Abrahamic religions and systems such as capitalism, communism, materialism, and socialism.

Varg Vikernes's father is an electronics engineer, and his older brother is a civil engineer.

Since there were no places available in the English school in Baghdad, the young Varg Vikernes went to an Iraqi elementary school during this time.

Corporal punishment was very common in the school, and on one occasion, Varg Vikernes had a "quarrel" with a teacher and called him "a monkey".

Varg Vikernes' mother recalls that "the other children in his class would get slapped by their teachers; he would not".

Varg Vikernes feels that his father was a hypocrite because he was worried about Varg Vikernes "being a Nazi", whereas he too was "pissed about all the colored people he saw in town".

Varg Vikernes stated that his parents are divorced; Vikernes' father is said to have "left about 10 years ago", which would have been 1985, when Vikernes was 11 or 12.

The Encyclopedia of White Power and historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke have both alleged that Varg Vikernes was part of the neo-Nazi skinhead culture as an adolescent.

Varg Vikernes once wore a T-shirt of Venom's Black Metal to promote the genre but stated he later regretted doing that.

From an early age, Vikernes was deeply fascinated with the fictional realm of Middle-earth created by JR R Tolkien.

When he was 17, Varg Vikernes came into contact with members of Old Funeral.

Varg Vikernes has stated that for the recording of these early albums he used an old Westone guitar, which he had bought in 1987 from an acquaintance.

Varg Vikernes used the cheapest bass guitar there was in his local shop and borrowed a drum kit from Old Funeral, the successor band Immortal, and "another musician living nearby".

Varg Vikernes used a Peavey amplifier, but for the recording of Filosofem, he used the amplifier on his brother's stereo and some old fuzz pedals.

In 1992, Varg Vikernes joined the black metal band Mayhem, a year after band member Dead committed suicide on 8 April 1991.

Varg Vikernes replaced bassist Necrobutcher, who quit the band because of Euronymous' treatment of Dead's suicide.

Varg Vikernes was found guilty of several of these cases: the arson and attempted arson of Asane Church and Storetveit Church in Bergen, the arson of Skjold Church in Vindafjord, and the arson of Holmenkollen Chapel in Oslo.

Varg Vikernes was charged with the arson of Fantoft Stave Church, although the jurors found him not guilty.

At the time, media outlets reported that Varg Vikernes was associated with theistic Satanism.

Varg Vikernes claimed that all the burnings, except for the one at Stavanger, were done by one person.

Two friends of Varg Vikernes interviewed him and brought the interview to the newspaper, hoping they would print it.

However, by the time the article was printed, Varg Vikernes had already been arrested.

Varg Vikernes added that they became "bloody angry" and he, Tunsberg, was "pissed off".

Varg Vikernes says that Euronymous had plotted to stun him with an electroshock weapon, tie him up, and torture him to death while videotaping the event.

Varg Vikernes said Euronymous planned to use a meeting about an unsigned contract to ambush him.

Blackthorn allegedly stood in the stairwell smoking while Varg Vikernes went to Euronymous' apartment on the fourth floor.

Varg Vikernes said he met Euronymous at the door to hand him the signed contract, but when he stepped forward and confronted Euronymous, Euronymous "panicked" and kicked him in the chest.

Varg Vikernes claimed his final stab to the skull was so powerful the knife remained stuck in Euronymous' skull, but no physical evidence or bodily injuries supported his claim.

Varg Vikernes contended that most of Euronymous' wounds were caused by broken glass he had fallen on during the struggle.

Blackthorn claimed Varg Vikernes planned to murder Euronymous and pressured him into coming along.

Varg Vikernes claimed that, in the summer of 1993, he was almost committed to a mental hospital but fled to Bergen and stayed with Vikernes.

Varg Vikernes' trial began on 2 May 1994; he was represented by the lawyer Stein-Erik Mattsson.

The Heathen Front officially denied that Varg Vikernes was in charge.

However, Varg Vikernes did come into contact with the neo-Nazi group Zorn 88, and wrote articles in its magazine Gjallarhorn.

Varg Vikernes confessed, but claimed she did not know they were "right-wing extremists" and said her son was being attacked by fellow inmates.

Lords of Chaos says that Varg Vikernes adopted a "skinhead" look and wore a belt buckle with SS insignia around this time.

Varg Vikernes was denied access to an electric guitar, bass guitar or drums, and instead used a synthesizer.

Varg Vikernes believed that his philosophy was constantly misinterpreted by an ignorant fan base that was too closely related to black metal and Satanism.

Police found a handgun and a G3 automatic rifle in a cabin in Rollag Municipality, where Varg Vikernes had hidden during his escape.

When Varg Vikernes was convicted, it was possible to be released on parole after serving 12 years of a 21-year sentence, but in 2002, before he became eligible, the Norwegian Parliament had extended this to 14 years.

In June 2006, after serving 12 years, Varg Vikernes was denied parole by the Department of Criminal Justice for this reason.

Varg Vikernes's lawyer, John Christian Elden, has complained that the policy change is a form of retroactive legislation.

Varg Vikernes had then served nearly 15 years of his 21-year sentence.

Varg Vikernes released a further three black metal albums: Belus, Fallen and Umskiptar and a compilation of re-recorded songs.

On 27 April 2013, Varg Vikernes posted a song on his official YouTube channel, titled "Back to the Shadows", which Varg Vikernes has stated to be the last metal track to be released by Burzum.

Varg Vikernes was one of the recipients of far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik's manifesto, which Breivik sent out before launching the 2011 Norway attacks, killing 77 people.

Varg Vikernes was instead charged by French authorities with inciting racial hatred against Jews and Muslims.

Varg Vikernes claimed he had not written the posts, although the blog attributed all posts to him.

In June 2018, Varg Vikernes made comments that he had "moved on" from Burzum on his YouTube channel, saying "bye bye" to the project.

In late 2019, Varg Vikernes announced on Twitter that he intended to release another album as Burzum.

Varg Vikernes stated at the time that this would be his last album under the Burzum name.

In late 1994, while in prison, Vikernes wrote a Norwegian-language book called Vargsmal.

Varg Vikernes wrote for his personal blog, Thulean Perspective, which was set up in January 2013.

Varg Vikernes has self-published a tabletop role-playing game named MYFAROG.

Varg Vikernes had used the term following his 1994 conviction until the late 1990s and in 2022 stated that he "appreciated" being labelled as a Nazi.

Varg Vikernes rejects the out of Africa theory of human origins and instead claims that modern Europeans, especially Nordic peoples, are not Homo sapiens but are instead descended primarily from Neanderthals and in fact have "close to no or even no non-Neanderthal admixture".

Varg Vikernes wrote a blog post sympathetic to some of the views of Anders Behring Breivik, but said he suspected Breivik carried out his terrorist attack as part of a Jewish conspiracy.

Breivik has later in fact stated that he identifies as an Odinist, and that he wants Varg Vikernes to be one of the leaders of a new Nazi party in Norway.

Rapper Kanye West has drawn scrutiny for his ties to Varg Vikernes, which have included sampling Burzum's 1996 song "Rundgang um die transzendentale saule der singularitat" in Gucci Mane's "Pussy Print", posing in a Burzum T-shirt, and allegedly modeling his Vultures album cover after one of Burzum's own albums.

Varg Vikernes and his French wife, Marie Cachet, have a son together who was born in 2007.

Varg Vikernes's wife has been diagnosed with high-functioning autism, and Vikernes claims to have HFA as well though he has not been professionally diagnosed.

Varg Vikernes is a teetotaler, having never consumed alcohol or other recreational drugs.

Varg Vikernes claims he is a distant relative of Norwegian Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling through his great-great-grandmother.