[10][13] Moreover, Euronymous claimed to have given these necklaces to musicians he deemed worthy,[14] which was confirmed by several other members of the scene, like Bård "Faust" Eithun,[15] and Metalion.

[16] Morgan Steinmeyer Håkansson of Marduk also confirmed this and that he also owns a piece of Dead's brain matter as well as lead from the shotgun shot, all which were gifted to him by Euronymous.

[7] Faust of Emperor believes that Dead's suicide "marked the point at which, under Euronymous' direction, the black metal scene began its obsession with all things satanic and evil".

[11] The shop's walls were painted black and bedecked with medieval weapons, posters of bands and picture discs, while its window featured a polystyrene tombstone.

Most notoriously, Old Funeral's guitar player Kristian (later renamed as Varg) Vikernes had already left the band to form his own creation, Burzum.

[26] Euronymous took Vikernes, who was five years younger than him, under his wing: inviting him to play bass with Mayhem and offering to release his music as Burzum.

[28] There followed a wave of church burnings across Norway perpetrated by musicians and fans of the Norwegian black metal scene.

[11] To coincide with the release of Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, Vikernes and Euronymous had allegedly plotted to bomb Nidaros Cathedral, which appears on the album cover.

[7] In a 1993 interview on a Swedish radio show, Euronymous said of the church burnings:They [Christians] must feel that there is a dark, evil power present that they have to fight, which…will make them more extreme.

[32]In January 1993, an article in one of Norway's biggest newspapers, Bergens Tidende, brought the black metal scene into the media spotlight.

[33] Varg Vikernes (using his pseudonym Count Grishnackh) gave an anonymous interview to a journalist from the newspaper, in which he claimed to have burnt the churches and killed a man in Lillehammer.

Euronymous claimed that Helvete helps fund its activities, but said that he is not directly involved in its crimes, because if he were caught the organization would fall apart.

[35] After the Bergens Tidende episode, Euronymous decided to shut Helvete as it began to draw the attention of the police and media.

[30] It has been speculated that the murder was the result of a power struggle, a financial dispute over Burzum records (Euronymous owed Vikernes a large sum of royalty payments),[36] or an attempt at "outdoing" the stabbing in Lillehammer.

[8] On the night of the murder, Vikernes and Snorre "Blackthorn" Ruch drove from Bergen to Euronymous' apartment at Tøyengata[4] in Oslo.

[39] This claim of self-defense is doubted by Faust,[41] while Necrobutcher believes Vikernes killed Euronymous due to the death threats he received from him.

To make it look like they never left Bergen, he was to rent films, play them in the apartment, and withdraw money from Vikernes' credit card.

[7] In the documentary Pure Fucking Mayhem, he said "Øystein's daily life was a total theater" that was based on the black metal "archetype" of Euronymous.

[55][62] In an interview by Esa Lahdenperä conducted in August 1993, Euronymous stated: I believe in a horned devil, a personified Satan.

[55]The theistic Satanism espoused by Euronymous was an inversion of Roman Catholic dogma,[55][62] and he claimed "We praise the evil and we believe blindly in a godly creature just like a Christian".

"[63] He opposed the Satanic and occultist teachings of Anton LaVey and Aleister Crowley, for unlike Euronymous, they promoted what he saw as "peace" and commercial frivolity, as well as individualism in contrast to dogma.

[55][62] He said he would "never accept any band which preaches Church of Satan ideas, as they are just a bunch of freedom and life-loving atheists, and they stand exactly the opposite of me".

He believed that the idea of staying underground came from hardcore punk, and said, "Those who scream most about being in 'underground' is also often those who make so bad music that they don't have a chance to get big themselves".

[72] He collected Eastern Bloc memorabilia,[73] and in the 1980s, he was a member of the Norwegian communist youth group Rød Ungdom, which was Marxist–Leninist at the time.

[52] In a private letter written in the early 1990s, Euronymous claimed that "almost all" Norwegian black metal bands at the time were "more or less Nazis", including Mayhem.

[77] He stated in various interviews that his and Mayhem's main influences were Venom,[55] Bathory,[55] Hellhammer,[55] Sodom[55] and Destruction, whilst he also liked Iron Maiden, Kiss, Celtic Frost, Dio and Metallica.

[55] Euronymous is considered one of the creators of Norwegian black metal's guitar style, alongside Snorre "Blackthorn" Ruch of Stigma Diabolicum/Thorns.

[78] In the documentary Helvete: Historien om norsk black metal, Snorre Ruch credits him with inventing a new way of tremolo picking that allowed to play the iconic black metal arpeggio riff, going slowly up and down a chord doing the tremolo picking in each string.

Largely on the strength of international fans, Aarseth was leading the poll, but his name was removed from the campaign at his family's request.

[81][82] The 2018 film Lords of Chaos, based on the eponymous book, is a semi-fictionalised account of the early 1990s Norwegian black metal scene told from the perspective of Euronymous.