Pioneering metal band Mayhem recently spoke with Consequence of Sound, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the band’s debut album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, and to discuss their latest album release Daemon. During the interview, Jørn Stubberud, better known as Necrobutcher, revealed that he intended to kill the band’s guitarist Øystein Aarseth, nicknamed “Euronymous,” however he was supposedly beaten to it by former band member Varg Vikernes (of Burzum) formerly known as “Count Grishnackh.”

“OK, I can tell it right now, because I’ve been holding it in for many years, but actually I was on my way down to kill him myself,” Necrobutcher explained in the interview. “And when it happened, I saw the morning paper, thinking ‘F**k, I gotta get home to my place and get out all the weapons and drugs and shit I had in my house, because they’re coming to my house because I’m probably going to be the No. 1 suspect for this.’”

To understand the situation regarding the murder, it is necessary to understand the band’s first tragedy in 1991, when the band’s vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin nicknamed “Dead” committed suicide. According to Necrobutcher Euronymous photographed Ohlin’s corpse, which caused Necrobutcher sorrow and anger. His removal from the band in 1991 further amplified these feelings, although he rejoined the band later in 1995.

A couple of years after Ohlin’s sucide, in 1993, Vikernes, who had originally replaced Necrobutcher,  murdered Euronymous. Vikernes was eventually charged with murder and arson, where he served 15 years of a 21 year sentence imprisoned.

During the interview Necrobutcher also claimed that the police wiretapped Vikernes, and arrested him for the murder, because they could not charge him with the church burnings.

“Little did I know that the Norwegian police already knew that Count Grishnackh [Varg] was going down also to kill him,” he explained.” Because they bugged his phone, and he actually talked about this killing before he went to Bergen so the cops already knew that he was coming, so they probably were thinking to themselves, ‘We didn’t nail this guy for the church burnings, so let’s nail him for murder, and get rid of this f–king guy in Oslo the same time.’ So that’s basically what happened.”

Check out the full interview below: