Necrobutcher is Surprisingly Unsurprised That Mayhem Has Lasted 40 Years

I’ve said before that I think it’s a miracle that Mayhem has made it to their 40th anniversary as a band. I mean, they’re a great band, but I just assume the band dynamics are kind of toxic when the band’s bassist murders the guitarist. People love to tell you about Fleetwood Mac being the most dysfunctional band in music history but, to the best of my knowledge, Stevie Nicks never stabbed Lindsey Buckingham. But, if you ask founding member and current bass player Necrobutcher, he claims he always knew that Mayhem was going to last this long.

In a recent interview with Australian webzine Metal-Roos (that was transcribed by Blabbermouth), Necrobutcher (real name Jørn Stubberud) was asked if he thought the band would still be going 40 years later, and Necrobutcher, astonishingly, said yes:

“Well, actually, the [answer] to that is probably yes, because… I get [that] question a lot. For example, in different circumstances, the question is, ‘You didn’t think this would happen when you were 16 years old and started this band?’ But that’s exactly what was going on. I had such faith in the project, and I thought that, ‘This is it. We’re gonna make it.’ And we did. We had to believe. We thought it was possible, and we always thought so. And that’s why we survived, too, because the first thing you have to do is to have faith in yourself. That’s rule number one. So, no, I’m not that surprised, but I’m surprised how fast life went by. And now I’m 56 years old, and I started when I was 16, so that’s a whole lifetime, basically. I would have gotten a gold watch fucking 15 years ago if I was working for the community, or the 25-year-old gold watch, or something like that. I actually thought to myself that actually I was gonna buy myself a watch. But, as you can see, I don’t wear any watches.”

So apparently, Necrobutcher always had faith in his band’s ability to make it big, which kind of sidesteps the bigger question of “Are you surprised this whole project didn’t fucking implode?” But, in terms of sheer talent, no, it’s not surprising that Mayhem made it big in the metal world and continue to be remembered to this day. I’m just shocked that anyone’s left alive to tell the tale.