Countering Fascism in Black Metal

"This week, Atlanta Antifascists exposed members of the Ravensblood Kindred, a white nationalist group associated with the Asatru Folk Assembly, listed as a “neo-Volkisch hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The members included a Georgia Sheriff’s Deputy employed as a jailer, and a National Guardsman currently deployed in Afghanistan.

And in Florida, Holden Matthews, the son of a Sheriff’s Deputy, was arrested for committing a string of arsons against Black churches in Louisiana. In Facebook postings, Matthews identified his faith as Asatru, claimed that he was visited by the Norse goddess Hel, and as countless headlines in the mass media have recounted, was a singer in a Black Metal band.

So what’s the deal with Asatru, Black Metal, and Neofolk? Are they all just goth Nazis with beards? The short answer is no, but it’s complex.



Asatru, also known by a variety of different names – Heathenry, Odinism, Wotanism, or neo-Paganism among them – is a religious movement that, in the United States, dates back to the late 1960s, when Stephen McNallen founded the Viking Brotherhood, the group that became the Asatru Folk Assembly in the mid-1970s. While McNallen had rejected National Socialist elements within the movement, beginning in the 1980s, he began promoting the concept of “metagenetics” – the idea that culture and religious practice are DNA-linked traits, available only to people of particular ethnic heritage."

"Notably, there are countercurrents pushing back against fascist infiltration in the Asatru, Black Metal, and Neofolk scenes. Groups like Heathens Against Hate oppose the racist and homophobic currents in Folkish Asatru. In January 2019, writer Kim Kelly organized Black Flags Over Brooklyn, a festival of anti-fascist Black Metal bands, and recently, Shane Burley, author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It started A Blaze Ansuz, a blog devoted to anti-fascist Neofolk bands.

When neo-Nazi Black Metal band Horna tried to tour the US in March and April, they were only able to play three out of their thirteen scheduled dates at the originally booked venues due to being consistently deplatformed by antifascists.

As Shane Burley notes in the introduction to his anti-fascist Neofolk blog, “Neofolk is one of the best examples of what Rose City Antifa refers to as ‘contested space,’” and the same could be said of Black Metal and the Asatru faith itself. All three are predominantly white spaces, full of misfits and outsiders who don’t fit in with mainstream culture, which is exactly what fascists are looking for."

- This Week in Fascism

 

Proud heathen practicing Asatru Irminfolk here.

 

At my first black metal show I was approached by a women who said I was an "ideal Aryan". Since I was young I still made out with her but that encounter was a shock to me. Her boyfriend who had an actual swastika tattooed on his face did not like what I was doing.

I guess it was also my first introduction to how crazy women are.

 

Yeah you won't get that at the much more superior death metal gigs. You make out with a chick there, you're going home with her man too.

 

^
Seems that could happen just as easily in the black metal scene! Hmmm:



Just in case you can't see the song title: it's

Black metal sodomy

Did you know she had a boyfriend when you start making out? That would probably be my reason not to. Especially when its a weirdo with a swastika tattoo on his face! Wtf

 

from 2010:

Horna Comments On NSBM Allegations

" It is apparently irrelevant what we do or say when they have already decided what we stand for, and as anyone can tell, HORNA has always had big political messages, symbols and pictures in our releases and live shows... or quite the opposite!! A big fuck off to Antifa and their fascist intolerant propaganda!! HORNA has never been a band with NS message. We are satanist, religious, devil-worshipping, alcohol-consuming occult bastards and our band has NOTHING to do with NS."

from march this year:

Antifa and Proud Boys Clash Over Black Metal Band With Alleged Nazi Ties

One Facebook commenter, Reaver Gravespawn, who has opened for Horna in two different bands (“Gravespawn” and “Draconian Oracle”), echoed support for the group. He argued that Horna wasn’t hostile, so much as indifferent. “Black metal, both as a style of music and ideology, is quite unapologetic about its overall coldness toward humanity,” he wrote to The Daily Beast. “If people choose to hate us over misanthropic or selfish indifference, so be it, but hate us for the right reasons.”

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I like certain black metal partly for the reasons the guy in above quote from second article mentions. I dig Horna and have not noticed any actual hatespeech (most of their lyrics are in finnish though ).
Inticing violence and discriminory practices and hatespeech ment as such against particular (groups of) people is indeed problematic. Some fuckwits seem very susceptible to it and can act upon it against homosexuals, immigrants, certain religious folks etc. (or their buildings: church burnings come to mind)

 

"Horna's current line-up includes guitarist Shatraug (né Ville Iisakki Pystynen) and vocalist Spellgoth (né Tuomas Rytkönen), both of whom have strong ties to the world of NSBM.

Shatraug was once a member of the band Blutschrei, whose 2006 album was called The Voice of Forbidden Pride, and featured song titles like “White Agony” (sample lyric: “If we don’t change the course, our culture will be dying”), “Fight to Win” (sample lyric: “Mother Europe, here I stand, a proud son today and a white father tomorrow”), and “Battle for Survival” (sample lyric: “Let us take the course of time and turn our heads toward the rising of a better Reich”). He currently has a one-man project called Finnentum; earlier this month Finnentum released an album called Vapauden laulu, which is Finnish for The Song of Freedom. Draw your own conclusions.

Shatraug also owned the now-defunct label Grievantee Productions, who released albums by NSBM bands such as Kristallnacht, Raven Dark, and Hammer, the latter of whom have a swastika as part of their logo. In a 2003 interview, he espoused the virtues of National Socialism, stating, “In my opinion the National Socialism means to be proud of the own inheritance and the country, to believe in the brothers in arms and to the values which exclude any foreign influence or religion.”

Meanwhile, Spellgoth also plays keyboards in Peste Noire. That band’s mastermind, La Sale Famine de Valfunde (born
Ludovic Van Alst), has disputed past assertions that the band is NSBM, preferring instead to identify as a “right-wing anarchist.” But their 2001 demo was called Aryan Supremacy, their albums are routinely released on NSBM labels like Militant Zone and La Mesnie Herlequin, their logo (of which Spellgoth apparently has a tattoo) is a variation on that of the White Aryan Resistance, the cover and accompanying promo photos for their most recent album utilize blackface and not-so-subtly endorse lynchings, and Famine has openly made anti-Semitic comments in interviews.

Peste Noire’s logo and the logo for the White Aryan Resistance.



When Blastfest decided to drop Peste Noire from their bill in 2017, Horna dropped off, too, as a sign of solidarity (while claiming no political affiliation, natch)

Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung reports that in 2017, Horna, alongside two unspecified neo-Nazi bands, also played a “private event” in Helsinki; attendees were notified of the venue by mail. The show’s flyer, according to Wiener Zeitung, included “a Celtic cross, symbol of the extreme right, and two swastikas.” The article also claims that Shatraug has been associated with bands featuring such charming names as Aryan Art, Aryan Blood or Final Solution, but, again, I haven’t been able to verify that at this time. (For the record, Wiener Zeitung is basically Austria’s The New York Times, so if they’re reporting something as a fact…)

Horna are free to claim they “don’t bow left or bow right,” but it seems clear where the band members’ ideologies stand."

- Horna, Band with NSBM Ties, Scheduled to Begin U.S. Tour Next Week

 

So you agree the band Horna itself isn't neonazi.

 

Celtic Cross on a album cover..
Thats a paddlin.

 

From the research I have done so far I would say that the members of the band are neo-nazis. Not necessarily the marching in the street kind. But a significant amount of their fan base would undoubtedly be the marching in Charlottesville kind.

Here's another article I just read: Blackmetal-Concert with extreme right band in London - UK Indymedia

 

Sooo the members might be neonazis, but they don't carry out such a message with their current black metal band. But its nevertheless worthy to hassle and stop this band from performing... why exactly?
Seems to me Antifa and the other folks involved are picking a wrong battle here, and actually pissing on the use of free speech. They're not doing themselves and their goal (which when done right seems very worthy) a favor.
Maybe they don't understand what black metal is about (or why and how the war, hate and destruction theme is often used in metal in general).

Also from that second link in my post:

Others defended the band. A member of Withermoon, an L.A.-based metal band opening for Horna at a few of their shows, told The Daily Beast that the outrage was nonsense. “They’re not Nazis. They’re Satanic fans,” he said. “Just ’cause someone’s in a band that talks about that doesn’t mean they’re Nazis. Slayer mentions Auschwitz and Satanic stuff, and that guy’s an atheist.”


It’s true that many prominent metal or metal-adjacent acts have played with Nazi imagery over the years. In 1986, on their most famous record, Reign in Blood, thrash metal group Slayer released “Angel of Death,” which appeared to glorify the violence at Auschwitz (the band later cleared up the Nazi-sympathy rumors, with an absolutely annihilating music video for their song “Pride in Prejudice,” which is not for the faint of heart). Marilyn Manson played with Weimar imagery; Motorhead frontman Lemmy notoriously collected and publicly wore Nazi memorabilia. It can be difficult to draw the line between shock-value stunts and indications of belief (though some might wonder if that’s a line worth drawing anyway).

 

Because they're neonazis... Scum of the earth.

Those are worthy points that you make. And even those who do racist and/or fascist things for money might possibly not have that ideology. It still doesn't make those things less racist/fascist. And people who just happen to be doing it for "shock value" need to learn that it's still a shit thing to do and they should stop, and apologize.

Putting pressure on these acts is exactly how to do that. One reason folks don't go after bigger bands as much is probably obvious. They're basically too big to touch.

Another reason I think more focus is put on stopping fascism in the black metal scene is because the bands and their fans do have a tendency to put they're ideas into action. Significantly more than other music scenes.

 

Just listening to a bit of Alcoholocaust.

 

I was very disappointed btw, when I found out God Dethroned isn't into BDSM

 

I bought the Iron cross cd for the cover.

 

I actually am not sure if you're kidding there
As you seem at least as much a fan of nazi imagery and memorabilia than of black metal music.

 

No I wasn't kidding I saw the cover in a magazine and thought it would be a good album based on the cover but I also knew since it was in a magazine that it wouldn't be BDSM.

 

I can't help but being attracted and drawn to certain imagery though, all the runes and symbols have been in my life for so long I literally walk down the road and streets and I see runes in everything like they stand out to me and everything. Now that I study a little bits and pieces of glyphs and older languages I also see symbols and runes in much of this too..

Some people are drawn to words and symbols for no real reason and unsure why. I just think they do that to me.

 

It's like, I can desociate symbols. I was a bit upset to read that Asatru has such a bad vibe, I thought it was one of the more peaceful applications of Norse. There's nothing really but good vibes around it. Well from what I know.

And with an iron Cross like, even Lemmy adorned his cross for decades and nobody accused him of being a Nazi or anything. Now that I've gotten very much into rockabilly and psychobilly and southern rock, I see the confederate flag a lot and confederate themed music, but they aren't racist or anything.

Boys like singing about war. Nobody accuses of war themed bands like Sabaton and akin about being Nazis if they sing about Panzer etc. And as much as nobody really wants to admit it, there's a lot of mysticism surrounding the German army in WW2. In a sense the soldiers were kinda hip, kinda cool. They looked good, they fought well, they were very brave, very drilled in what they were doing. Their uniforms were apex, their symbols were bold, easy and powerful. They use cool words like Panzer and Howitzer and Flammenwürffer. Their armoured vehicles were steel beasts. All of that, is very "metal" in a way ya know?

Throw Panzer into an album name or band name, it's striking and powerful. It attractive. Steel Beast! Steel Panther! Panther tiger leopard! This is all very cool. Hehe. Tanks. Boys like tanks.

 

Did you read the article itself? It goes into a lot more detail on Asatru. Which I didn't quote due to the length that my post became.

But for those interested:

"All Asatru practitioners worship Germanic and Scandinavian gods of the pre-Christian era – Odin, Thor, Hel, etc. – but there is an vital split within the community: “Folkish” Asatru versus “Universalist” Asatru.

Universalist Asatru believe their faith can be practiced by people of any ethnic background, while Folkish Asatru believe their faith is reserved solely for people of either Northern European descent, or sometimes simply white people in general.

Many Folkish Asatru claim they are not racist – in the same way that white nationalists will claim they don’t hate other races – but it is important to note that Folkish Asatru have contributed one of the most prominent rhetorical shifts in modern white nationalism, what scholar Damon T. Berry, in 2017’s Blood and Faith: Christianity in American White Nationalism, calls the “recoding of race as culture.”

The first issue of the neo-Pagan journal Tyr: Myth – Culture – Tradition, published in 2002, features an essay by “Odinist,” (a particular brand of Folkish Asatru that emphasizes occultic aspects), Stephen Edred Flowers that features the phrase “become who we are.”

This phrase would be used by Richard Spencer’s Radix Journal and become the title of Spencer’s National Policy Institute’s 2016 conference, as well as a popular piece of propaganda narrated by Spencer. An archive of the now-defunct Identity Evropa website features, “Become who we are” as the website’s tagline.

As Berry notes:

“But I do not accuse [Stephen Edred] Flowers or anyone else affiliated with TYR of fascism in the Italian or Nazi tradition, nor do I simply accuse them of being white supremacists. Such a charge obscures the racialized particularism they express and does not completely describe what they are doing in their metapolitics. I do, however, argue that they advocate a cultural racism in that they recode the biological narrative of “race as culture” as a heritable trait to argue for what is in that sense racial separatism and that this recoding is key to how they formulate the ethical demand to preserve the white race. As such, they fear mixing, ideological or otherwise, of what they imagine to be racially discrete essences because they believe it will lead to biocultural genocide of the white race. It is in this sense that they are racists, though I hesitate to call them white supremacists.”

​

Like I stated above, even if some of these individuals don't follow the white-supremacist ideology they pretend to, it doesn't mean that what they're doing isn't racist.

I too have been a fan of southern rock and am greatly disappointed when I discover that a band I like flies the confederate flag.

Do those bigger bands want to reinstate slavery, likely not. But the act itself is still racist.