Quorthon (a.k.a. Tomas Forsberg) was just 17 when he convinced his father, who owned a Swedish record label, to include two songs from his band Bathory on a heavy metal compilation that the label was putting together. In doing so, the elder Forsberg unleashed upon the world one of the first examples of the extreme music that would come to be known as black metal.

Quorthon would eventually grow tired of the imagery and aesthetics of the genre that he helped create (not to mention the creepy, overzealous fans mailing him dead animal parts). He would reinvent himself and Bathory, in the process becoming the father of yet another sub-genre, Viking Metal.

The third Bathory record, 1987’s Under the Sign of the Black Mark, would be Quorthon’s last foray into straight black metal. The album along with its two predecessors stand to this day as the template for all black metal that has followed. Here, with the second track of that record is Bathory performing “Massacre.”

Quorthon was found dead in June of 2004 from heart failure. He was just 38 years old. His legacy lives on in not one, but two thriving sub-generes of metal. This Black Metal Friday is dedicated to his memory.

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