Given how sweetly un-evil Snorre appeared to be, I found myself querying the infamous (and implicit) bad-assedness of Norwegian black-metal musicians. The murder of Aarseth, the suicide of Mayhem vocalist Dead, the church burnings, the grave desecrations, the obsession with Satanism that veered into racism and fascism among the more extreme crews, and the generally attendant ghoulishness, are all essential to the Norwegian mythology upon which subsequent black-metal mythologies may (or may not) be based.

But at what point does a myth—even if it’s based on a real event—begin to more resemble a convenient fiction (or worse, an empty caricature), utilized by music writers and fans and the musicians themselves, to create easy cohesion and a sense of purpose? Are mythologies essential to the playing of “authentic” black-metal music? Is cohesion?

ALAN BISHOP: It’s a matter of economy and standard of living—it dictates how much of a cultural legacy that can be not just preserved but promoted, and it’s sort of perpetuated through history. And [most countries] just don’t have the resources. You have storerooms of old tapes and old films in hundred-degree heat rooms, just baking. Records are warping or developing mold and insects. I’ve had records come over via cargo and there’s still millipedes running around inside them. The culture is left to rot, just like the buildings and the infrastructure. Roads are getting worse. No money is going back into preserving things. The corruption is so obvious there, where it’s not as obvious here.

THE BELIEVER: So you’ll have that first-time-getting-it feeling again and again.

AT: There’s no classic hiphop record that I’ve not bought ten times just for that feeling. When I opened up [Public Enemy’s] Apocalypse ’91 and I heard “Lost at Birth,” the first song, and that siren going off, that was the last great adrenaline moment in my youth. I opened it up and didn’t know what to expect. I just put on my headphones—they happened to be on ten—and when that sound came through I was like, oh, shit! One day I walked past Tower and I said, “I know I have the shit at home, the shit’s on my iPod, my iPod’s at the hotel, but I gotta hear it now.”

BLVR: So [incredulously] you went into Tower and bought it?

AT: My logic was, to me buyin a record’s like voting for president. I helped you get up one on the Soundscan, so maybe Chuck will get a two million plaque by 2014 when I buy my 500th copy. That’s pretty much how I operate.

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