making ugly, raw, grim stuff. 'I started out with a simple kit: just one snare, a floor tom and a couple of cymbals. But then, I've been pushing the envelope for years. I work in the post office,' he deadpans. Despite having an extensive back catalogue - 'We're currently working on our "difficult" 13th album,' he says - and selling several thousand copies of each new release, Fenriz, like many of Black Metal's leading lights, still holds down a regular job. (When he's not touring or recording with Mayhem, Hellhammer also works; as a night watchman in a mental hospital.) 'Before the whole Black Metal thing blew up in 93/94, it was all very DIY,' says Fenriz, who decries the watered-down approach ofcommercial Black Metal. 'After that you could just call up [German metal label] Nuclear Blast and get a deal. It was very underground before then. We could walk the streets looking like insane motherfuckers and no-one knew what the hell was going on. We just looked like freaks. But then the media got hold of it and suddenly everyone knew what we'd been up to ... unfortunately.' He laughs. The event that brought black to the world occurred on Saturday, 6 June 1992. On that day, the Fantoft Stave Church near Bergen, a magnificent 12th-century gothic structure made of wood and acknowledged as a historical landmark, was razed. Lightning strikes and electrical failures rather than foul play were thought to be the chief suspects. But in January 1993