The earliest
rock groups to wear body painting similar to corpse paint included
Screamin' Jay Hawkins,
Screaming Lord Sutch and
Arthur Brown in the 1960s. In the 1970s, examples of black and white face paint by rock & roll performers included
Secos & Molhados,
Alice Cooper,
Klaus Nomi,
Lou Reed and
Kiss. Guitarist
Zal Cleminson of the
Sensational Alex Harvey Band wore face paint and colorful clothes, performing in a menacing demeanor that evoked the
evil clown trope. Later that decade,
punk rock acts like the
Misfits and singer
David Vanian of
The Damned also used black and white face paint. On seeing
shock rock pioneer Arthur Brown performing his US number two hit "Fire" in 1968, Alice Cooper states, "Can you imagine the young Alice Cooper watching that with all his make-up and hellish performance? It was like all my
Halloweens came at once!" In the late 1970s and '80s, such face paint began to be more associated with
metal performers. Vocalist
King Diamond of
Mercyful Fate used face paint similar to corpse paint as early as 1978 in his band Black Rose, while
Hellhammer and their later incarnation as
Celtic Frost also wore similar face paint.
Per "Dead" Ohlin was the first to explicitly associate stylized face paint with an attempt to look like a
corpse according to drummer
Jan Axel "Hellhammer" Blomberg of
Mayhem.
Brazilian band
Sarcófago also pioneered the look, being dubbed by
Metal Storm magazine as the first band with "true" corpse paint. However,
Necrobutcher insists that his band Mayhem was the first to use corpse paint and credits the band's singer Per "Dead" Ohlin with coining the term. Early corpse paint was meant simply to highlight an individual's features and make them look "
dead." Bands of the
early Norwegian black metal scene used corpse paint extensively. Early vocalist of Mayhem Per "Dead" Ohlin started wearing it in the late 1980s. According to Necrobutcher, Mayhem's bass player: "It wasn't anything to do with the way Kiss and Alice Cooper used makeup. Dead actually wanted to look like a corpse. He didn't do it to look cool." In the early 1990s, other Norwegian black metal bands followed suit and their style and sound was adopted by bands around the world. Eventually, some
Norwegian bands—such as
Emperor and
Satyricon—stopped wearing corpse paint, often citing its loss of individualistic meaning, as well as its increased trendiness, due to use by so many bands. ==Examples==