| Dead | |
|---|---|
Dead (left) and Euronymous (right) |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Per Yngve Ohlin |
| Also known as | "Dead", "Pelle" |
| Born | January 16, 1969 Stockholm, Sweden |
| Died | April 8, 1991 (aged 22) near Kråkstad, Norway |
| Genres | Black metal, death metal |
| Occupations | Musician (vocalist) |
| Years active | 1987–1991 |
| Associated acts | Mayhem, Morbid |
Per Yngve Ohlin (16 January 1969 – 8 April 1991), better known by his stage name Dead, was a Swedish black metal vocalist best known for his work with Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. He also performed as vocalist of the Swedish death metal band Morbid on their demo December Moon.
Roadrunner Records ranked Him #48 out of 50 of The Greatest Metal Frontmen of All Time.[1]
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Ohlin was born in 1969 in Stockholm, Sweden. As a young child, he suffered from sleep apnea.[2] At the age of ten, he suffered internal bleeding when his spleen ruptured after what he told everyone was an ice skating accident. In the Swedish metal book Blod eld död ('Blood Fire Death', an allusion to Swedish band Bathory's fourth album Blood Fire Death), his brother said in an exclusive interview that Dead was bullied in school and one day the beatings got out of hand causing the ruptured spleen.[3] He had to be rushed to a hospital, where he was for a time clinically dead.[4][5] After this near-death experience he became enthralled with death and dying.
In 1986, he founded the Swedish death metal group Morbid, with which he recorded a demo tape called December Moon. Shortly afterwards, however, he decided the band wasn't going anywhere and contacted the members of Mayhem. According to Mayhem bassist Jørn 'Necrobutcher' Stubberud, he initially sent them a small package inholding a demo tape, a letter, and a crucified mouse.[4][5] Although Necrobutcher lost the package itself, he kept the tape which had Ohlin's contact details. Ohlin moved to Norway and joined the band in early 1988.[4]
In interviews, fellow musicians often described Dead as odd and introverted. Mayhem drummer Jan Axel 'Hellhammer' Blomberg described Dead as "a very strange personality ... depressed, melancholic, and dark".[6] Likewise, Mayhem guitarist Øystein 'Euronymous' Aarseth once said: "I honestly think Dead is mentally insane. Which other way can you describe a guy who does not eat, in order to get starving wounds? Or who has a t-shirt with funeral announcements on it?"[7] Drummer Kjetil Manheim later likened Ohlin's personality to that of Marvin the Paranoid Android.[4]
According to Emperor drummer Bård 'Faust' Eithun:
"He [Dead] wasn’t a guy you could know very well. I think even the other guys in Mayhem didn’t know him very well. He was hard to get close to. I met him two weeks before he died. I’d met him maybe six to eight times, in all. He had lots of weird ideas. I remember Aarseth was talking about him and said he did not have any humour. He did, but it was very obscure. Honestly, I don’t think he was enjoying living in this world, which of course resulted in the suicide."[8]
On the cover of Mayhem's Live in Leipzig, Ohlin printed a message which said: Jag är inte en människa. Det här är bara en dröm, och snart vaknar jag. Det var för kallt och blodet levrades hela tiden (roughly translated: I am not a human being. This is just a dream, and soon I will awake. It was too cold and the blood kept clotting all the time). In an article, journalist Chris Campion wrote that Dead may have suffered from Cotard delusion; meaning that he believed himself to be dead as a result of childhood trauma.[9]
For concerts, Dead went to great lengths to achieve the image and atmosphere he wished. From the beginning of his career he was known to wear "corpse paint", which involved covering his face with black and white makeup. According to Necrobutcher, "It wasn't anything to do with the way Kiss and Alice Cooper used makeup. Dead actually wanted to look like a corpse. He didn't do it to look cool".[9] Hellhammer claimed that Dead "was the first black metal musician to use corpse paint".[10]
To fulfill his corpse-like image, Dead would bury his stage clothes and dig them up again to wear on the night of a concert.[5][4] According to Hellhammer:
Before the shows, Dead used to bury his clothes into the ground so that they could start to rot and get that "grave" scent. He was a "corpse" on a stage. Once he even asked us to bury him in the ground - he wanted his skin to become pale.[10]
During one tour with Mayhem, he found a dead crow and kept it in a plastic bag. He often carried it about with him and would smell the bird before going onstage, to sing "with the stench of death in his nostrils".[9] He also kept dead birds under his bed.[5][4]
In an interview for Slayer magazine, Dead explained how he and the band tried to weed-out poseurs at their concerts:
Before we began to play there was a crowd of about 300 in there, but in the second song "Necrolust" we began to throw around those pig heads. Only 50 were left, I liked that! ... We wanna scare those shouldn't be at our concerts, and they will have to escape through the emergency exit with parts of their body missing, so we can have something to throw around. ... If someone doesn't like blood and rotten flesh thrown in their face they can fuck off, and that's exactly what they do.[11]
In time, Ohlin's social situation and his fascination with death[4] caused his mental state to worsen greatly. He would often cut himself onstage with a blade or broken bottle. However, he also tried to do so while with his friends, who would have to subdue him and patch him up.[4] Although this upset many of his friends, Euronymous became fascinated with Ohlin's suicidal tendencies—seemingly because it fit Mayhem's image—and according to them, he would often encourage Ohlin to kill himself.[4][9] Manheim said: "I don’t know if Øystein did it out of pure evil or if he was just fooling around".[4]
By 1991, Dead and Euronymous were living in a house in the woods near Kråkstad, which was used as a place for the band to rehearse.[5] Mayhem bassist Necrobutcher said that, after living together for a while, Dead and Euronymous "got on each-other's nerves a lot".[5] In early 1991, Varg Vikernes sent Ohlin several shells as for his shotgun.[12] On 8 April 1991, while left alone in the house,[4] he slit his wrists and throat with a knife and then shot himself in the forehead with a shotgun.[12] He left a brief suicide note, which apologized for having used the gun indoors and ended with: "Excuse all the blood".[5][13]
The body was found by Euronymous, who had to climb through an open window as the doors were locked and there were no other keys to the house.[4][12] Upon finding the body, he got a camera and took several pictures of the body, after re-arranging some items.[4][12] He also allegedly kept bits of Ohlin's shattered skull.[4] His motive for doing so is unclear; Necrobutcher speculated that taking the pictures and forcing others to see them was a way for Euronymous to cope with the shock of seeing his friend dead.[4][9] After Hellhammer developed the photos, Euronymous initially promised to destroy the pictures, but ultimately did not. He kept them in an envelope at his record shop Helvete.[4] Euronymous allegedly sent one of the pictures to the owner of Warmaster Records in Colombia[4] and it was used as the cover of the bootleg live album Dawn of the Black Hearts, which was released in 1995.
The suicide caused a rift between Euronymous and his friends, who were disgusted by his attitude towards Ohlin before the suicide, and his behavior afterwards. Necrobutcher ended his friendship with Euronymous.[4] Manheim later speculated that Euronymous had wilfully left Ohlin alone in the house so that he would have a chance to kill himself.[4] Ohlin's suicide was said to cause "a change in mentality" in the black metal scene and was the first in a string of infamous events carried out by its members.[4][9]
An obituary in a Swedish newspaper stated that Ohlin's funeral was held at Österhaninge kyrka (Eastern Haninge Church) on Friday 26 April 1991 at 10:00 am.[14] He was buried at Österhaninge kyrkogård (Eastern Haninge graveyard) in Stockholm.
| Title | Band | Recorded | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morbid Rehearsal | Morbid | August 7, 1987 | Demo album |
| December Moon | Morbid | December 25, 1987 | Demo album |
| Dawn of the Black Hearts | Mayhem | February 28, 1990 | Bootleg live recording |
| Freezing Moon/Carnage | Mayhem | April 1990 | Studio recording |
| Live in Leipzig | Mayhem | November 26, 1990 | Live performance |
| Out from the Dark | Mayhem | Early 1991 | Demo album |
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