The black metal scene took off in the 1990s in Norway with bands like Dark Throne,

immortal and mayhem.

These bands relied heavily on death as a theme and even painted their faces to look like corpses.

That focus on death seemed too strong for some and instead of just creating music about

death, they caused death in real life.

This is monsters. Oh, you're going to be. Christian Viggerness was born on February 11th, 1973 in Bergen, Norway and eventually changed his first name to Varg.

In interviews, his mother described him as a happy and loving child who tended to prefer to be on his own.

She stated that he had a very rich imagination.

His mother worked for a large oil company and his father was an electronics engineer.

He has one older brother.

According to Varg when he was six years old, his family lived in Baghdad for a year

while his father was working on a computer program for Saddam Hussein.

He claimed that that was where he started learning about racial matters.

Varg has never kept his racist beliefs a secret and said in interviews that both of his parents were quote-unquote race conscious.

He said he felt like his mother was afraid he might bring home a black girl.

Fortunately for her though, Varg would dislike people of other races

just as much as she did, proudly spouting Nazi propaganda

and displaying a swastika.

He said that his father disagreed with him displaying a swastika flag, but that he was also, quote,

pissed about all the colored people he saw in town.

Along with his racism, Varg developed a desire to rebel against the norm.

One of those norms he saw as a threat was Christianity.

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