Quorthon
Encyclopedia
Tomas Forsberg, better known as "Quorthon" (February 17, 1966, Hägersten, Stockholm – June 3, 2004, Hässelby, Stockholm), was a multi-instrumentalist and the founder and songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 of the pioneering Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 black metal
Black metal
Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, blast beat drumming, raw recording, and unconventional song structure....

 band Bathory
Bathory (band)
Bathory was a Swedish heavy metal band, formed by Quorthon in 1983. They are regarded as pioneers of both black metal and viking metal. Quorthon remained the main songwriter and member of Bathory for more than two decades. Bathory was permanently ended after Quorthon's death in 2004...

. He is also credited with creating the Viking metal
Viking metal
Viking metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by its galloping pace, keyboard-rich anthemic sound, bleakness and dramatic emphasis on lyrical themes of Norse mythology, Norse paganism, and the Viking Age...

 genre. He composed the music and wrote the lyrics on all of Bathory's album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

s.

Career

Quorthon formed Bathory in 1983 when he was 17 years old. Always underfunded, his albums had a rough quality which many black metal bands would later emulate, and which would come to characterize this genre of music. He recorded in a garage known as Heavenshore Studios on a 4 track recorder, with mechanics working around him and neighbors mowing their lawns.

Around this time (in the mid-late 80's) Bathory began to amass a cult following in the underground metal scene, despite the fact that live performances by Bathory were rare, if they even happened at all. Albums from this period helped to define the then-burgeoning black metal
Black metal
Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, blast beat drumming, raw recording, and unconventional song structure....

 sub-genre, and the (also rare) photographs of the band helped to define its image. Quorthon at this time also had many frightening and stressful experiences dealing with over-zealous fans, often receiving letters written in blood and dead/mutilated animals in the post, amongst other things. This behaviour, along with Bathory's dark image and extreme music, cemented Quorthon's unfortunate image, as he put it, as "the baby-eating, blood-drinking God of the bat-cave" in the popular imagination as well as popular metal press, much to Quorthon's disgust and anger.

Beginning in the 1990s, Quorthon took full control of Bathory, choosing to forgo performing live in order to spend time recording music with hired musicians, as well changing style from the black metal of the 80's to a slower, heavier style dubbed "Viking
Viking
The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...

 metal", due to its lyrics being focused on Norse mythology
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...

. From this point onwards, he also played bass guitar on almost all of his albums, and mostly used a drum machine or a session drummer. Quorthon also personally paid for the production of Bathory's only ever music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

, for the song "One Rode to Asa Bay
One Rode to Asa Bay
"One Rode To Asa Bay" is a song by Bathory about the Christianization of Scandinavia and appears on the 1990 album Hammerheart.Cover versions of the song have been recorded by Fearbringer, Opera IX, Mystic Circle and Folkvang....

", taken from their first Viking metal album, Hammerheart
Hammerheart
Hammerheart is the fifth album released by Bathory. It continued Blood Fire Deaths transition away from black metal to what would become recognized as Viking metal, and is considered a cornerstone work of the genre.-Track listing:...

. The video was shown on MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

's Headbanger's Ball, though Quorthon had not yet seen it at the time he was interviewed for the program.

In 1993 Quorthon set Bathory aside and recorded and released two albums under the name "Quorthon". The first, called Album, was released in 1994, and Purity of Essence followed in 1997. The albums were more rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 oriented than Bathory's black / Viking metal style. While working on these albums he found new inspiration to continue composing music for Bathory. Bathory's next albums were in a retro-thrash metal
Thrash metal
Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized usually by its fast tempo and aggression. Songs of the genre typically use fast percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work...

 style, unlike previous releases. But in 1996 Quorthon released Blood on Ice
Blood on Ice
Blood on Ice is a concept album by the Swedish viking metal band Bathory. The master tapes were recorded in 1989, but the album was not immediately released, both because the album was never properly finished, and because founder and song-writer Quorthon was worried that it presented too drastic a...

, a Viking metal concept album which he began recording in 1989 but did not finish. His next albums followed in that vein, including the Nordland
Nordland I
Nordland I is the eleventh full-length album by Bathory, released in 2003. It is characterized by an unapologetic return to the Viking metal of Bathory's middle period, and features songs written mainly about Norse mythology...

saga. It was planned as a four-album set, but only two were finished.

Death

Quorthon was found dead in his apartment on 3 June 2004, apparently from heart failure
Congestive heart failure
Heart failure often called congestive heart failure is generally defined as the inability of the heart to supply sufficient blood flow to meet the needs of the body. Heart failure can cause a number of symptoms including shortness of breath, leg swelling, and exercise intolerance. The condition...

. He was only 38 years old. Although many websites and articles state that he died on June 7, the text on the Black Mark Productions
Black Mark Productions
Black Mark Productions is an independent record label based in Sweden and an office in Germany that specializes in extreme metal releases, perhaps best known for its close connection to Quorthon, leader of the defining black metal band Bathory until his death in 2004...

 website says that he died on June 3, 2004. Quorthon was buried at Sandsborgs kyrkogård in Gamla Enskede
Gamla Enskede
Gamla Enskede, "the garden city," is a district of Enskede-Årsta borough, South Stockholm, Sweden. It was created in 1904 to provide housing for workers, and is...

, South Stockholm
South Stockholm
Söderort is the southern suburban part of Stockholm Municipality, Sweden...

 on 13 July of the same year.

Discography

With Bathory
  • Bathory
    Bathory (album)
    Bathory is the debut album of the Swedish band Bathory. It is considered one of the first recorded examples that defined the black metal style....

    (1984)
  • The Return (1985)
  • Under the Sign of the Black Mark
    Under the Sign of the Black Mark
    Under the Sign of the Black Mark is the third album by Bathory. It had a major influence on the black metal genre, specifically the Norwegian black metal scene that emerged in the early 1990s. The song "Woman of Dark Desires" is a tribute to the band's namesake, Elizabeth Báthory, and has become...

    (1987)
  • Blood Fire Death
    Blood Fire Death
    Blood Fire Death is the fourth album by the Swedish band Bathory. It was released in October 1988. The album, although mostly black metal, includes some of the first examples of Viking metal....

    (1988)
  • Hammerheart
    Hammerheart
    Hammerheart is the fifth album released by Bathory. It continued Blood Fire Deaths transition away from black metal to what would become recognized as Viking metal, and is considered a cornerstone work of the genre.-Track listing:...

    (1990)
  • Twilight of the Gods
    Twilight of the Gods (album)
    Twilight of the Gods is the sixth album by Bathory. It continues the exploration of the newly created Viking metal style, and also displays heavy Epic doom and classical influences; it is titled after an opera by Wagner, and the melody of "Hammerheart" is lifted from Gustav Holst's The Planets...

    (1991)
  • Requiem (1994)
  • Octagon (1995)
  • Blood on Ice
    Blood on Ice
    Blood on Ice is a concept album by the Swedish viking metal band Bathory. The master tapes were recorded in 1989, but the album was not immediately released, both because the album was never properly finished, and because founder and song-writer Quorthon was worried that it presented too drastic a...

    (1996)
  • Destroyer of Worlds
    Destroyer of Worlds
    Destroyer of Worlds refers to the tenth full-length album release by Bathory. It takes its name from a famous quote by J. Robert Oppenheimer about the atomic bomb, "I am become death, destroyer of worlds," which was itself mistakenly quoted from a verse in the Bhagavad Gita...

    (2001)
  • Nordland I
    Nordland I
    Nordland I is the eleventh full-length album by Bathory, released in 2003. It is characterized by an unapologetic return to the Viking metal of Bathory's middle period, and features songs written mainly about Norse mythology...

    (2002)
  • Nordland II
    Nordland II
    Nordland II is the twelfth and final album by Bathory. It is the successor to Nordland I. Like its predecessor, it is characterized by an unapologetic return to the Viking metal style of Bathory's middle period, and the songs on this release deal primarily with Viking culture...

    (2003)


As Quorthon
  • Album (1994)
  • Purity of Essence (1997)

External links

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