The lore of Mayhem, and the murder of Euronymous, has just been updated with a new chapter. During an exclusive interview with Loudwire, Mayhem bassist Necrobutcher revealed he too had plans to kill Euronymous, but reconsidered just weeks before Varg Vikernes stabbed the guitarist to death.

“A tragic thing happened to my band — one of my best friends [Dead] killed himself. As I’m trying to cope with this, Euronymous tells me that he has taken photos of his dead body. I got very upset by this and I told him, ‘I’m going to beat you up, I’m going to kill you. Burn the photos before you even talk to me again.’”

“[Euronymous] didn’t give me any room to grieve. I was very mad at him, so when he was killed — he was my best friend for 10 years — I never cried over his death. Actually, I thought maybe the cops would think it was me who did it, because I had plans to kill him myself.”

As for why Necrobutcher didn’t kill Euronymous, he says he reconsidered after visiting the guitarist at his apartment. “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.”

Necrobutcher says he’ll be writing about his near-murder of Euronymous in his upcoming book, The Death Archives: Mayhem 1993-2006 — the sequel to his archives spanning from 1984-94.

Watch the interview with Necrobutcher above and click here to grab Mayhem’s newest album, Daemon.

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