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In 1981, the Dead Kennedys recorded one of their most famous songs: “Nazi Punks F*** Off.” The song quickly became something of a rallying cry for punks who were tired of Nazis invading their subculture. Punk has always been about being anti-establishment and anti-fascist. I bring this up as an introduction because I want to talk today about a much more unfortunate association between Nazism and music, specifically black metal.
Let’s get something out of the way first: is all black metal made by Nazis? Absolutely not. There are loads of fantastic musicians in black metal bands who are otherwise completely normal people with normal political beliefs. In fact, there are also musicians making extreme metal in the left wing. Communities such as r/rabm (Red Anarcho Black Metal) are dedicated to finding black metal that is decidedly antifascist and not NSBM (National Socialist Black Metal). So then why does black metal have a reputation within the extreme metal community for being associated with Nazism? In this post, I want to have a discussion about why black metal is associated with Nazism as well as some of the ethical dilemmas that come with listening to extreme music. I also want to discuss some of the lines I draw while listening to music made by objectively bad people as well as contribute to the larger discussion about separating art from artists, which I will argue is somewhat hard to do.
First of all, what is black metal? Wikipedia gives us some good baseline characteristics for us to define the genre. Typically, black metal is metal with:
● Raw or lofi production
● Shrieking or otherwise harsh vocals
● Tremolo riffs with guitar distortion
● Extreme subject matter (We’ll get to this soon)
● Theatrical elements in live performances such as corpse paint
These criteria are certainly not all-encompassing. Black metal is arguably the most sonically diverse metal subgenre. Listen, for example, to bands like Turia and Fluisteraars (atmospheric black metal) and then a band like Mayhem (2nd wave black metal). I promise you they sound nothing alike.
So let’s get to extreme subject matter. Ever since the 90s, black metal has had an unfortunate relationship with Nazis. Most importantly, I think that fringe music attracts fringe people. You don’t have this association with Nazism in pop or hip hop because those genres are not extreme. As a general rule, those genres are meant to have lots of listeners. Black metal, on the other hand, is intentionally abrasive. Most people are not meant to like this kind of music. To illustrate this point, I want to look at Mayhem, which is the most infamous black metal band. Most people who know about black metal but don’t listen to it likely know about it because of the story of Mayhem.
I’m going to refrain from sharing the story of Mayhem, but a quick glance at their wikipedia page should give you all the context you need. This is just to say that they are probably the most widely known black metal band in the world. How many Spotify listeners do they have? Around 190,000. Behemoth is another more modern black metal band. I personally don’t listen to Behemoth, but you could arguably describe them as a “popular” black metal band among metalheads. They only have about 360,000 listeners on Spotify. Black metal musicians aren’t looking for mainstream success or fame. There’s a certain ethos to the genre that both avoids and shuns mainstream success. I.e., if a black metal band were included in something such as, say, the Rolling Stone top 500 albums of all time list, it would delegitimize the extremity of the music. The common joke among metalheads is also that any black metal band with above [insert low amount here] of listeners is for posers.
Again, this is all just to say that this is NOT music that most people enjoy or even tolerate. It’s meant to sound harsh and abrasive. This, in my opinion, is the first reason why we see that black metal attracts people with fringe political beliefs. This is not a phenomenon unique to black metal either. Look at grindcore and crust punk. Both of those are subgenres of extreme punk and they attract mostly radical left-wing musicians (I am not using the term radical as a pejorative here. I am using it in the most neutral way possible).
The second reason is a byproduct of the first. Because this is extreme music, the group of people who listen to it, distribute it, and discuss it is relatively small. As a result, a small group of people dabbling in far right politics during the genesis of the modern black metal were able to make their way around the scene. Take Mayhem again, for example. Let’s look at the list of bands Faust was in, for example. Faust was the stage name of a black metal musician in the band Emperor. He is most well known for killing a homosexual man, for which he gained notoriety in the underground scene in Norway. Faust was in Emperor, but he was also in bands like Stigma Diabolicum, Thorns, and Aborym to name a few. Most of these bands only released demos or compilations, but my point is to say that lots of these musicians interacted with each other by being in various projects, so it was easy for far-right wing ideologies to spread in black metal circles. Basically, if you were listening to black metal in the 90s, it was almost impossible to avoid Nazism, fascism, and various other hateful ideologies. Yes, there were bands who disavowed Nazism or remained apolitical, but due to limited options for distribution, gigs, etc., it was hard to not interact with Nazism either directly or indirectly.
I think the final reason for this relationship between Nazism and black metal is because a lot of the people making the music were, frankly, dumbass kids. Some of them adopted these ideologies as an attempt at “shock factor” and then became easily indoctrinated. It’s not excusing any of these people for what they did, but I think it’s definitely a reason.
So this brings us to today. What does the modern black metal scene look like? As I said previously, there’s since been a backlash against racism in black metal. Thankfully, there are tons of bands committed to making extreme music without engaging in fascist/Nazi politics. If you’re looking for black metal that isn’t sketchy, I highly recommend visiting the subreddit r/rabm. All of the stuff posted there is definitively not made by Nazis. However, there are, unfortunately, still labels and bands that promote (directly or indirectly) hateful ideologies. Now, I want to move into the second part of my post. What lines should you draw?
I think this is a very complicated issue and there’s not really an easy answer. I can rule out any band with Nazi lyrics off the bat. I have absolutely no interest in listening to hateful music made by hateful people. The second category is music made by musicians who are Nazis but who don’t write Nazi lyrics. This one I can rule out immediately similar to the first one. However, this is where things get more complicated.
Let’s say you have Band A and Band B. Band B are Nazis while Band A are not. In fact, let’s say A is decidedly antifascist. Now, let’s say A and B are on the same label making the same kind of music except with different political beliefs. Should I stop listening to all bands on the label because they’re willing to sign bands like B? Or, perhaps, A and B were on a split together. Maybe A is a small band desperate for money and, unfortunately, they didn’t realize B were part of a hateful political ideology. What if A say they regret doing that split and wish they could take it back? Should I still hold that against Band A? I’m not really sure what the correct answer is to any of these hypotheticals-- all of which were inspired by real scenarios.
Another murky example off the top of my head is Fenriz from Darkthrone. When they first released Transylvanian Hunger, there was some antisemitic language on one of the physical editions. However, I believe Fenriz and the band have since said that they regret that decision and that they were idiot kids who didn’t understand the weight of what they were doing. Should I hold that against Fenriz and avoid listening to Darkthrone? Again, I’m not sure what the correct answer is.
A lot of people will bring up “death of the author”-like philosophies as a mode of separating art from the artist, but I don’t think this is valid in this scenario. Separating the art from the artist is a mode of literary criticism designed to allow you to ignore the author’s intent while reading a piece of literature. It’s meant to allow you to form a more direct connection with the text without allowing the author to meddle with your mind. It doesn’t necessarily give you ethical cover for consuming music made by actual Nazi or allow you to completely ignore problematic political beliefs of artists that you support. Moreover, once you decide authorial intent doesn’t matter, that doesn’t mean that the author’s political beliefs go away. I can decide that I don’t care about Varg Vikernes being a literal Nazi and murderer, but once I decide that I’m effectively pretending those things aren’t real. I think this is a bit of an irresponsible approach to art.
I won’t lie: sometimes, I wish I could do that. I wish I could just ignore the fact that people like Varg Vikernes, Faust, and other black metal musicians are objectively horrible people who have done horrible things. Varg Vikernes’ solo project, Burzum, produced some truly excellent black metal, but I just can’t bring myself to listen to it knowing what he’s done. I don’t feel comfortable with that.
So then what’s the answer to listening to music made by terrible people? I’m honestly not sure. Unfortunately, there isn’t a perfect line to draw and there isn’t some ultimate arbiter of metal music to tell me what’s acceptable and what’s not. The advice I will impart, however, is this: be knowledgeable about what the artists you support believe in, who they associate with, and what they do beyond their statements on Twitter.
George Nalbandian is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2021. He is studying political science and English at the University of Louisville.