Darkthrone’s Nocturno Culto on Black Metal’s Extreme Past: “It Could Be Eating the Spiciest Meal”

If there’s one thing anyone knows about black metal, it’s the chaos that accompanied its rise in Norway. Church burnings, getting stabbed 27 times, etc… we all know the stories. As the chaos of the black metal scene dissipated through generations, it lives on in the tales of the musicians that lived through it.

In this week’s episode of The MetalSucks Podcast we sat down with Darkthrone’s Nocturno Culto to discuss the legacy of black metal, the band’s new album, Old Star, and a slew of other topics. When asked whether he feels the legacy and chaos of black metal are represented correctly in modern times or they’ve been watered down and diluted over the years, Mr. Culto had this to say:

“Well, I have the impression that being there and how things worked back then was just crazy. It was chaos. Definitely, and these kind of people really wanted to be extreme, you know? In everything. That could be talking about what they want to do to people, it could be eating the spiciest meal, more spicy than everyone else. It was a lot of small things back then. People wanted to be extreme.

“I moved away from the whole scene in ’91, so I didn’t bother that much after that. It was a strange time, it was so many years ago, and you know for us we really just wanted to forget about it. For Fenriz and me, we were just musicians, you know, being interested in music. Even though we had our crazy times ourselves of course because when you’re very young you’re kinda stupid, and that’s just how life is.”

Old Star is out now and can be purchased here. You can listen to our full interview with Nocturno Culto or download the podcast episode in its entirety below.