Do black metal bands actually worship Satan?
I get that the title of this article sounds a little dumb on the surface. Asking if black metal bands really worship Satan should be a little like asking if rappers really rap, or if emo bands are really overly dramatic, or if indie bands from the late 2000s were really bad, the answer is obviously yes.
What’s more, one can see that the answer is obviously yes just by looking at them. Heavy metal has had a fascination with the occult ever since Ozzy Osbourne had that fateful night terror and turned it into song in the campiest fashion possible (“OOH NooOOOooo” indeed, Oz). However, the likes of Sabbath and Deep Purple went into the stratosphere as some of the biggest rock bands on the planet in the 1970s, thus a lot of the more eyebrow-raising imagery was jettisoned for a more standard rock band image.
No, it wasn’t until the new wave of British Heavy Metal broke in the late 1970s and early 1980s that bands really started flirting with Satanic imagery on a large scale. Iron Maiden, in particular, were one of the bands that really popularised that kind of imagery, with Lucifer presented as a regular playmate of Eddie’s on their album covers. However, this was nothing more than a more energised version of the scare tactics Sabbath was deploying on their early albums.
Venom, on the other hand, seemed like the realest of real deals. They were, after all, the band who, in their very first writing session with their most famous lineup, wrote a song called ‘In League with Satan’ and saw fit for it to be part of their very first single. Then you get to their first album. It’s called Welcome To Hell. Then you see their logo. It’s a pentagram and a goat’s skull. Then you see the upside-down crosses, the Latin, the bondage gear, and you take a cursory glance at their lyric sheets.
This is a band that truly worships Satan, right?!
Do black metal bands really worship Satan?
Especially because the bands directly descended from Venom really do seem to take the whole thing a bit too seriously. Even before you get to the terrifyingly stupid actions of the Norwegian black metal scene in the 1990s. Burning down churches at best, and outright murdering each other, all for the sake of being the most evil kid in the metal bar. Which is a slightly more complicated way of saying they were doing stupid shit for clout. Yeah, real metal of you, lads.
Behemoth, Watain, Mercyful Fate, Gorgoroth, all black metal bands that claim to be genuinely in league with the man downstairs in one way or another. Whether that’s the LaVeyan form of Satanism, which boils down to Richard Dawkins style atheism, but make it Goth, or the real-deal “I sacrifice Goats to our dark father” style Satanism. Yet the sweet irony of it all is that none of them has been getting the joke. Venom weren’t genuine Satanists. They never claimed to be any more than Tobey Maguire claimed to be Spider-Man.
Venom were just doing what Sabbath had done over a decade before them, but committed to the bit slightly more. It also helped that, unlike Oz and chums, they didn’t have ambitions of being megastars. Thus, their message only went out to people who either truly got it, or the much, much worse option, only thought they’d got it. Those were the kind of people who didn’t see the wit and the camp at the heart of all heavy metal and genuinely think this is an art movement built around being as evil as possible.
Nah, it’s about getting your anguish and trauma out in a safe, fun and silly environment. The moment you start focusing on the trappings over the art is the moment you’re doing it wrong. Soz.