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Per Yngve Ohlin


Member

1986-1988 Morbid - vocals (as Dead)  
1988-1991 Mayhem - vocals (as Dead)  

Personal information

Also known as: Dead
Born on: 16.01.1969
Died on: 08.04.1991

Official website

Introverted, shy, very calm, depressive, melancholic and even schizophrenic..... that's how many described the young Swede. Since he hardly had contact with humans, spent the majority of his time alone in his room and his depression got far increased, it is probably difficult to say whether someone could do something about it or not. A lot of people and even the bandmembers admitted that Daed wasn't a person you could know very well. Dead stated he was not a human and that he did not belong on this Earth. He told that, as a child, he stood constantly on the threshold of Death because his sleep was so deep that his face started to turn blue. He said he already wanted to die at the age of 3. when he slept, no one could wake him, probably because he was in a condition between deep sleep and losing consciousness.

Dead reported once an experience, which may have been a so-called "Near Death Experience: "Once something amusing happened to me. I had internal bleedings, and the cause could not be determined on radiographs. It continued to bleed and and finally my heart had no more blood, and my veins were nearly empty of blood. Clinically seen, I was dead. At the moment, when I fell (into a door, took as I experienced later), I saw everything in a strange blue color - she was transparten, and for one moment everything was dipped into this blue, to something track-sends white and "hot" me surrounded... I later asked someone about these colors who had had many near-death experiences and much more knowledge about the "supernatural" than I had. He said I came into the first "level" of the branch ral world which has the color blue. The terrestrial level has the color black. Afterwards comes a grey, which is very similar to the terrestrial color. The next step in the blue is when it becomes more brightly and then it stopped with a white color, which is a stage no mortals can enter. If a mortal nature succeeds in reaching this then it is no mortal any longer and cannot return on earth anymore. To the white level - it continued with colors from which I do not know anything - only spirit and large magicians can travel there. I experienced that the white level, which I had entered without knowing it, was the dead world, and I had actually died."

Dead did not understand himself as human. He understood himself as a nature of another world. He was fascinated by death, dying, darkness and the other worlds. He told he often had visions wherein his blood in his veins froze, and that he is dead. That was the reason why he accepted the name "Dead". He knew that he would die soon. Do the stagenames reflect the spirit of the carrier? Or are the carriers intended these names to fulfill the fate them promised?

Before Dead joined Mayhem pushed, he was the singer for Stockholm cultband Morbid. After the demo "December moon" in 1987, Dead left the group because the commercial, musical concepts of the other members weren't what he wanted. A few weeks after Dead joined Mayhem, also Hellhammer joined. Dead, Euronymous and Hellhammer lived in an old house in the south east of Oslo where he then lived together with Euronymous and Hellhammer and worked on the next LP. It became clear that Dead had some, to normal people, strange behaviors. He buried articles of clothing for months in the earth and brought it over to the Mayhem shows were he wore the rotting clothes. With the new members and Dead's fascination for death the atmosphere of the music changed drastically. The lyrics went away from the"Gore and Splatter"-topic and the subjects went to Satanism, the darkness, Death, the depression and evil in general. Kristian Vikernes said : "Until Dead and Hellhammer joined the band, Mayhem was a funny hobby-band." The line-up with Dead, Euronymous, Necrobutcher and Hellhammer was to bacame the most famous one.

The Norwegian Black Metal scene had found a soul. Dead was one of the leading figures in the scene. At Mayhem gigs, the stage laid full of mutilated pigheads and Dead performed self-mutilation upon himself. Briefly after the show in Sarpsborg Dead expressed his inclination to mutilated heads in an interview. In The C.O.T.I.M. - magazine Dead stated:

'Pigheads, as well as other heads, is what we try to have at all gigs. But also others are kind of planned at the future shows. It needs sick ideas and also money as well as it has to suit to the place we're playing at...For example if we use impaled pigheads in an Islamic country we'll surely get killed then. Another thing is that what's the most disgusting thing to do right here to fuck with the wimps might not have the same effect here than somewhere else. If we ever come to India, the most evil thing that we can do there will be to sacrifice a "holy cow" on stage. I want to have stage equipment at our shows of Transylvanian landscape, instruments of torture that are from the 1st century, real trees from a dead forest, spotlights that are used to "paint" dark colors of dusk and later moonshine...different animal heads and human craniums hanging in meat hooks by chains from the dead trees and the heads have huge screws in their eyes...that's what I think would make the perfect mood. But if we can build such things by ourselves, we must pay for the giant expenses it will include and we must make it portable too, I can't imagine if we will ever be able to do this. But to tell of what else we as the show or effects is when I cut myself up. Something I study is how people react when my blood is streaming everywhere but that's not why I do it. I like to cut, in others preferably, but it's mostly in myself. That I can't do too often makes me a bit mourning...the nearest thing is three gigs in Sweden which will probably be in the end of May and I think of if I can take a highly tuned kitchen saw machine that's cutting and sawing faster that it's possible to control it...that would be a nice thing to have there I think. Another band here, that's the one of the guy that'll set this whole thing up by the way, will try to get a goat that they shall sacrifice on stage by a fireman's axe but I just can't remember the band name. Another Black metal band that'll play there is Grotesque (from Gothenburg) + some other death metals. If it shall be "gore" that it has to be REAL effects and only snuff is real!

The concerts in his Swedish homeland, which Dead dreamt about, would never take place?

On 08 April 1991 it was so far - Dead began killing himself with only 21 years of age. DEAD first tried to cut the pulse veins open with a kitchen knife, when it took longer than he wanted to wait, he took Euronymous' shotgun and shot himself to the head. The ammunition came from Varg Vikernes, who gave it to Dead as his Christmas present. On the only farewell letter Dead proved his morbid sense of humor with only four straight words: "Excuse all the blood". Hellhammer was at that time with his parents. Euronymous, since there was only one key for the door and Dead locked it from inside climbed into the house via Dead's window. When he saw Dead's corpse he ran away to the first shop he could find and he bought a camera and took pictures of the macabre scene. Then he informed the police. Also he collected bone fragments and gave them to different people. He also made an amulet. A picture can be seen on the Cover of the Bootleg "Dawn of the black hearts".

(source: http://www.peryngveohlin.com)