Necrobutcher was in the band since 1984, but left in 1991 because of personal concerns following the suicide of former vocalist
Dead as well as internal conflicts and disagreement with bandmate
Euronymous. He was replaced as a session bassist by
Varg Vikernes, who murdered Euronymous in 1993. In 1995, Necrobutcher reformed the band, along with
Hellhammer,
Maniac and
Blasphemer. He still plays in Mayhem. In 2018, he released his retrospective book about the early stages of the band,
The Death Archives: Mayhem 1984–94, published by
Thurston Moore's publishing house
Ecstatic Peace Library. During promotional interviews for the 2018's
Daemon, Necrobutcher claimed he was "On [his] way to kill Euronymous but Varg beat [him] to it", and also claimed that the
Norwegian Police were aware of Vikernes' plot to kill Euronymous, stating: "But little did I know that the Norwegian police already knew that Count Grishnackh [Varg] was going down also to kill him. Because they bugged his phone, and he actually talked about this killing before he went to Bergen so the cops already knew that he was coming, so they probably were thinking to themselves, ‘We didn’t nail this guy for the church burnings, so let’s nail him for murder, and get rid of this f–king guy in Oslo the same time.’ So that’s basically what happened." In 2019, he claimed that while he had intended to kill Euronymous, he had a change of heart after visiting him at his apartment several weeks before the murder actually took place. He recalled: "I’m such a fucking softy. He started to call me, and was like, I need to come to see him. In the end, I came to his apartment, listened to the
Mysteriis album and he wanted to know if I wanted to return to the band. At that time, I thought maybe he’d thrown the photos away, because I never saw any, up until then. Two or three weeks later, he was killed." == Personal life==