1987 black death changes name to darkthrone. fall and winter are established as the darkthrone-seasons. Line-up: fenriz, drums, vocals. Zephyrous, guitar. Dag nilsen, bass. Anders risberget, guitar. Inspirationsources range from cryptic slaughter - celtic frost - deep purple - nihilist, and thrash metal in general.
1988 first shitty demo released. Anders quits. Ex-guitarist of black death calls me and asks if we need another guitarist. He knows nocturno culto and I soon arrange a meeting with n.c. after seeing a darkthrone gig, nocturno culto joins darkthrone. (I wonder why). This is early 88. "snowfall" advance promo is sent out. Lots of rehearsing.
1989 we record the "thulcandra" demo. More rehearsing and gigs follow. The musical style changes slowly from thrash to death, and nocturno culto starts doing the vocals. In fall. One of the gigs are recorded, and this is the "cromlech" demo. We feel that that live tape can be sent around to various record labels. And x-mas time 89 we sign a deal with peaceville records.
1990 exciting year for darkthrone. We play a couple of shows with cadaver, in spring we even play a show in denmark, and we record our first album "soulside journey" in sunlight studios, Sweden, with help from the nihilist (now entombed) guys. This year we are really getting fed up with the death metal trend, Bermuda shorts, etc. in 1990 darkthrone still PLAY death metal, but we LISTEN mostly to black metal oriented music. (except for dag, who has problems with the LESS IS MORE feeling of black metal). This is frustrating, because we have finally mastered the art of technical death metal but it feels wrong playing it. Nevertheless, autumn 90 we start to construct the "goatlord" album.
1991 the "goatlord" album is finished, and exists as a rehearsaltape. We follow our hearts, and decide not to record "goatlord". Instead we play grim black metal. Some songs are made, and we do a mini-tour In finland, may 91. then we decide to loose dag, but let him play session bass on "a blaze in the northern sky", which we record in the summer of 1991. it is a fantastic year for us, filled to the brim with black metal feeling. And in the autumn, euronymous starts helvete.
1992 from the beginning, darkthrone always did a lot of correspondance in the underground. (there was really never any black metal underground before, but the attitude was present throughout the eighties. But We did not want a black metal "scene". Just global obscurity). so we do no promotion, just drink , smoke and rehearse for the "under a funeral moon" album, which we then record in the summer again. I still hang with the other extremeists at helvete, but nocturno culto and zephyrous decides to stay away from oslo. Before, in the 80s, all extreme metal was connected, and in the same ´zines. In the end of 1992, we get atleast 2 requests to do interviews for someone starting up pure black metal ´zines for the first time ever. I did not like this direction, and I told them to use their energy on something else.
1993 helvete shuts down. And many strong forces in the Norwegian black metal scene goes, more than before, each to his own. I philosophy quite a bit, while listening to both obscure old school stuff from the eighties and many new forms of music. I had always listened to all sorts of music, but I guess 1993 was the year I got to know that music was my main interest. As darkness and fall arrived, "transilvanian hunger" is recorded. As count grishnack goes to jail, I sense that varg might feel communicatively strangled. So I ask him if he wants to do some lyrics and thus, speak through "transilvanian hunger". He agrees, and he also wrote the lyric quintessence, which appear on…
1994 …the "panzerfaust" album. Ah, 1994. my wild year. Our 4 album deal with peaceville is over after "transilvanian hunger".and the first half of this year, I knit a close relationship with sigurd and his moonfog record company. Before giving darkthrone to moonfog, I sign with isengard and Neptune towers first, so I can see that everything is kosher. Moonfog and sigurd turns out to be extremely fair to deal with. So darkthrone signs to moonfog and release "panzerfaust" in late 94.
1995 we record the "total death" album, (after having collected lyrics from important heads of the Norwegian scene) and stay low. Watching the black metal circus that spawned from the media craze in 93/94.. it is embarrassing sometimes.
1996 nocturno culto decides that he wants to play a final show with darkthrone. We spend the first months of the year rehearsing for our first live gig, which we played in easter 1996. after that, nocturno culto struggles to settle down in the mountains, and I go on an obligatory acid psychedelic period, lasting for about 2 years. I also start to hang out in the forest A LOT.
1997 "goatlord" is released, I think.
1998 fuck if I know what happened, but late this year nocturno culto writes more song material and wants me to do lyrics. The last 2 years I only did some guest lyrics for various bands. In November and December I write a couple of lyrics for the album that shall be "ravishing grimness". They scare me, but I think they are better than ever. Oh, and a darkthrone tribute album is released by moonfog.
1999 nocturno culto writes more material, I write more painful lyrics. I can assure you that the way I end up playing drums on "ravishing grimness" is purely by choice, and it is JUST the way I want drumming to be in black metal. Not many others agree on this. Anyway, nocturno culto is the sanest soul in darkthrone in this period, so he takes care of most of the music and business. Thanks, Ted. We now have to decide whether we shall do interviews or not. We go for it, doing hundreds of interviews.
2000 the interviews continue. All year. So there is more darkthroning going on than usual. And in the end of the year, nocturno culto starts to work on the next album, "plaguewielder", and I am right writing more hard lyrics.
2001 a great darkthrone-year. (mostly for negative me, ´cuz I say no to a 3-page coverstory-interview in kerrang. And I turn down a 30 000 $ offer to playing live a weekend in England). We get a request to have our music featured in an s/m movie. Also, "plaguewielder" is recorded in the same studio as "ravishing grimness" (studio studio) with guest vocals from apollyon (aura noir, cadaver) and sverre from audiopain. We continue doing shitloads of interviews. AND, we get to make fun of people saying "plagueWILDER" instead of "plagueWIElder". Fuck ém. We also sign an exstensive record deal with moonfog (after both peaceville and moonfog wanted to sign us), and we start working on our next album (no. 10).
2002 I`m back! Well, a bit more than before; we decide that I will do 3 of the 7 songs on for this new album. The lyrics are already done (I changed my style of writing) and that's about it so far this year. We will record this next fucker in oslo, it seems. For the first time. Now, GET OFF THE NET
Source: http://www.darkthrone.no/frameset.php?load=biography