20 YEARS OF INFERNO 20 YEARS OF INFERNO By: Runar Pettersen

20 YEARS OF INFERNO 20 YEARS OF INFERNO By: Runar Pettersen

HOW TIMES FLIES BY. INFERNO METAL FESTIVAL CAN NOW CELEBRATE TWENTY YEARS OF HELLRAISING IN OSLO, NOR WAY. IT HAS BEEN A HELL OF A RIDE – AND THERE IS ENOUGH MATERIAL TO FILL A BOOK – BUT LET'S KEEP IT SHORT. LET'S TAKE A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE.

I remember it very well back in 2000 when it was announced that there would be a new metal festival in Norway – and it was going to be in my own hometown Oslo. Such a great idea! This was long before I started working for the festival. Back in 2001 metal festivals were not that common like it is today. Most festivals back than were mainstream and included all kinds of genres, like Roskilde Festival, Hultsfred Festival and Reading Festival. In Norway we had the Quart Festival and Kalvøya Festival. Both are long gone. There were some metal festivals around – like Wacken Open Air in Germany and Sweden Rock Festival in Sweden. Those were very popular also for Norwegians. In Norway we only had some very small metal festivals back then. One of them was Hole in the Sky in Bergen that started in 2000 in a very small venue called Garage and the four-day festival called Black Metal Nights at Lusa Lotte Pub, all the way back in 1994. The last one had the capacity of hundred people or so. Having a metal festival like Inferno was therefore a much needed event in Norway.

Inferno Metal Festival 2001 had only Norwegian bands and one Swedish band on the bill and it was only two days. The complete line-up was announced Thursday the 25th of January at a Kick Off Party at John Dee. Cato Bekkevold, soon then to be in Enslaved, and Fenriz from Darkthrone, announced all the artists for the festival. while Crest of Darkness and Audiopain entertained us with their music. The headliners in 2001 were Enslaved and Borknagar … while Pain was the only Swedish band. Sweden's Hypocrisy was one of the first bands to be announced – but they canceled. Also from Sweden, Witchery, was on the bill, but canceled on short notice. Khold did their first gig at the festival, before even their debut album, “Masterpiss of Pain”, was released. Some of the other bands who played that year were Zyklon, Gehenna, Susperia, Hades Almighty, Cadaver Inc. and Peccatum. It all started when Jens F. Ryland heard the idea that his Borknagar band mate, Asgeir Mickelson, had been dwelling on for some years. The original idea was to have a Scream Magazine festival during the Easter, but Asgeir realised he would never actually bring this idea to life so he rebranded the festival as Inferno, gave the idea to Jens and joined in as the permanent designer. Incidentally, around the same time Jan-Martin Jensen, Radar Booking, asked Jens about setting up a one day festival with Borknagar, but ended up joining the team setting up a two day festival instead. From there on the snow ball started to roll. Back then, the famous Norwegian cartoon character Nemi was the mascot for Inferno, and was on posters, shirts, magazine and much more. Nemi was used as mascot the first two years.

When the first year was over, and Jan-Martin and Jens were locking the door at Rockefeller, six o'clock on Sunday morning, together with Fredrik from Rockefeller. After he had put the keys away he turned around and asked “So, should we book Rockefeller for the Easter also next year?”. Without hesitation they both responded “yes”. Inferno Metal Festival 2002 had Dimmu Borgir and Witchery as headliners. Lower on the bill were Behemoth, Carpathian Forest, Nocturnal Breed, Vintersorg, Blood Red Throne and Source of Tide. Also worth mention is that 1349 and Windir performed at the smaller stage at John Dee. The festival underestimated the popularity of 1349 and the line to go down the stairs to John Dee was huge. This was the moment when the Inferno audience learned to be early for the gigs at John Dee to not miss out anything. The line-up was presented at the Kick Off Party on 18th of January at John Dee where Pain and Windir performed live. On the negative side; both Aura Noir and Theory in Practice canceled their gigs. Six bands came from outside of Norway that year. Friday was completely sold out, while Saturday had a few hundred tickets left. Not that strange that Friday sold out with both Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth performing that day. Inferno 2002 also had something called the Inferno Award, that was held for the first and last time, and was in honor of someone who did extraordinary work for metal in Norway. The nominees were Fenriz from Darkthrone, Metalion from Slayer Magazine, Rune Hammer from Sound of Noise and Bjørn Nørsterud from Scream Magazine. The award went to Fenriz.

For Inferno Metal Festival 2003 the festival expanded from two to three days. Headliners that year were The Kovenant, Immortal and Necrophagia. Also on the bill we had Opeth, Vader, Entombed, 1349 and Children of Bodom while Taake was on the small stage at John Dee. During the Cadaver gig the fire alarm went off. Luckily it was a false alarm, so the audience could go back inside, and Cadaver could finish their show. This was not to be taken lightly at the time as there had been a big fire at a Great White concert – where one hundred people died – just two months earlier.

Headliners at the Inferno Metal Festival 2004 was My Dying Bride, Sadus and Mayhem. Also on the bill were Gorgoroth, Enslaved, Konkhra. Khold, Zyklon, Susperia and Holy Moses. While Helheim, Myrkskog and Urgehal performed at John Dee. Inferno had three cancellations that year; Testament had to be in the studio to record, Grimfist's drummer Horgh had became a member of Hypocrisy and the drummer from Sabbat broke his arm. Sabbat had to cancel, but vocalist Martin Walkyier still came to the festival and he sung a few Sabbat songs with Nocturnal Breed at Rock In the day before the festival. By 2004 there had started to be a lot of gigs the day before the festival. Not only was Nocturnal Breed and Audiopain at Rock In, but also Cadaver and Sarcoma Inc played at Garage (yes, there was also a Garage in Oslo, not only in Bergen). One of the highlights for Inferno 2004 was Mayhem. This was still back when Maniac was the vocalist. But Attila Csihar came on stage to sing “Pagan Fears”. He was at the festival to sing with Aborym.

In 2005 the festival had a showcase in London with Red Harvest, Madder Mortem, Grimfist, Enslaved and Arcturus. This mini festival was totally sold-out and the Norwegian government-owned radio and television public broadcasting company NRK made a report from the seance. Many people were in dismay over this as they thought Inferno was moving away from Norway and Rockefeller. That was not the case at all. Headliners at Inferno Metal Festival 2005 were Morbid Angel, Candlemass and Dissection. Some of the other bands on the bill were Amon Amarth, Arcturus, Aura Noir, Vreid, Grave and Tsjuder. Inferno 2005 has one of my personal highlights as Attila Csihar from Mayhem and Tormentor had a guest appearance with Dissection performing the classic Tormentor song “Elisabeth Bathory”. Since this was way over time and the sound curfew had forced the sound technicians to turn off the sound in the PA, the band had to play the song with only the sound on stage. While Attila Csihar had to sing the song without a microphone and only with the power of his natural voice. That was something you don't see every day. As there were many more people traveling to Inferno from other countries, the magazine was for the first time in English. Also one of the saddest moments of Inferno took place during 2005 when Aggressor from Aura Noir fell four floors from a balcony at a nachspiel and was hospitalized for several months and losing the use of his legs.

The sold-out edition of Inferno Metal Festival 2006 had Usurper, Emperor and Cathedral as headliners. Also on the bill were Carpathian Forest, Khold, Borknagar, Susperia, Marduk and Bolt Thrower. Witchcraft was still not as well-known at the time. Their debut album was released only two years before the festival, so they played at John Dee. Khold had their last gig for several years at the festival – as they returned to carry on with Tulus. The return of Emperor, after they disbanded in 1999, was the big ticket seller. More than 30 percent of the tickets went to other countries than Norway. So we could see that the festival was getting even bigger outside of Norway. This was also the year when Inferno Music Conference saw the light of day. The idea was to bring the international music business together and speed meeting was one of the popular posts on the program.

The headliners for Inferno Metal Festival 2007 were Suffocation, Immortal and Sodom. Also on the bill were Moonspell, Tiamat, Zyklon, Dødheimsgard, Sigh, Dark Funeral and Primordial. Down at John Dee we had Watain, Koldbrann, Anaal Nathrakh and Blood Tsunami. At the Kick Off Party, held on the 3rd of February at John Dee, the Swedish vikings in Amon Amarth warmed up the audience. It was the first gig Sigh played in Norway – in fact one of the few gigs they had done at all up to that point. The same went for Anaal Nathrakh whom had not played outside of England at that time. In 2007 we saw another expansion of the festival and that was Inferno Metal Expo. The expo took place at Sentrum Scene – not far from Rockefeller. You could attend cinema, look at exhibitions, stands, instrument clinics, signing sessions and much more. Inferno Music Conference had speed meetings, keynotes and panels. The highlight of the conference was a keynote interview with Dan Lilker from bands like Anthrax, Nuclear Assault and S.O.D. Today the expo is pretty much included either with the conference or at the festival at Rockefeller. Dan Lilker, who was a longtime fan of Norwegian black metal, did his first concert in Norway. So when he first was at Inferno, not only did he perform with his band Brutal Truth and did an interview at IMC, he also did guest appearance with Norwegian All Stars and Sodom. Also Abbath from Immortal did a guest appearance with Sodom. Inferno 2007 was sold out way ahead of the festival.

Inferno Metal Festival 2008 had Satyricon, Gorgoroth and Destruction as headliners. Satyricon was the last of the big Norwegian black metal band to perform at the festival. Except from Darkthrone, of course – who doesn't play live. Also on the festival were Overkill, Gorefest, Behemoth, Tristiania, 1349, Tulus, Krux and Onslaught. One of the highlights was when Tom G. Warrior from Celtic Frost joined 1349 on stage to perform the Celtic Frost classic “The Usurper”. The big news that year was that a fourth day was added with a club night. The club night had 15 concerts around many clubs in Oslo. Garage, John Dee, Club Maiden, Blå, Rock In and Sub Scene was used. The last one was for those under 18 years old. Some of the bands you could see at the club night were Gallhammer, Sahg, Vreid, Negură Bunget, Urgehal and Cor Scorpii. So there was a lot of running around in Oslo the first day of Inferno from that year on. Also on the club night was Karaoke from Hell – a karaoke project featuring a live band. One problem at the first club night was that it was too Red Harvest, Inferno London 2005 popular, so most of the clubs were packed at full capacity. The highlight at Inferno Music Conference was the famous black metal bus sightseeing held by Anders Odden from Cadaver, Satyricon and Celtic Frost. The sightseeing was held for some years, but we still get questions regularly from both press and other people that believe it’s still going on.

Pestilence, Paradise Lost and Carpathian Forest were the headliners for Inferno Metal Festival 2009. Pestilence did their first gig after their reunion since the band broke up in 1994. Meshuggah was announced as headliner but canceled their gig before the festival. Also performing in 2009 were Samael, The Batallion, Keep of Kalessin, Septic Flesh, Swallow the Sun, Kampfar and Vreid. Both Troll and Sarke did their first gig ever at the festival. The club night had a lot of action going on, with bands like Blood Red Throne, Sahg, Deathhammer, Vulture Industries and Sarke. There was also a special gig with Wardruna at the Viking Ship Museum at Bygdøy. This was Wardruna's first gig ever. They repeated the gig also at Inferno 2010. 2009 saw an expansion with cinema screenings at Cinemateket. Inferno Film screened “Lake of the Dead”, “Dead Snow”, “Season of the Witch”, “Lady Frankenstein”, “The Monk”, “Blood on Satan's Claw”, “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills” and a concert video with an early gig by Darkthrone from Bootleg TV in 1990. Before the screening of the Darkthrone gig Metal Hammer's Jonathan Selzer did an interview with Darkthrone's Nocturno Culto. Also in 2009 was the first year that you could get a tattoo at Inferno.

Inferno Metal Festival 2010 was the ten years anniversary of the festival. The festival was still growing, so the festival moved to a bigger hotel – Royal Christiania Hotel – located downtown in Oslo. At the previous years the festival had to use several hotels, by moving into a bigger hotel so audience, artists, media and music business attendees could stay under the same roof. Headliners for 2010 were Marduk, Mayhem and Death Angel. While one of the exclusive gigs that year was The Kovenant performing the entire “Nexus Polaris” album with almost the same line-up as on the album. Only Astennu from Australia was missing. Some other bands playing that year were Taake, Deströyer 666, Benediction, Finntroll, Mistur and Belphegor. The club night also had some cool bands like Kvelertak, Shining (NO), Mongo Ninja, Tribulation, Vomitory and Faustcoven. Benediction did their first gig on Norwegian soil despite being active since 1989.

Forbidden, Immortal and Meshuggah were the headliners at Inferno Metal Festival 2011. Also performing were Aura Noir, Gothminister, DHG, Akercocke, Atheist, Djerv, Soilent Green, Pentagram and Napalm Death among many others. The club night could tempt with Alcest, Rikest Crust, Einherjer, Haust and Rotten Sound. Slavia did their last gig at Inferno as front man Jonas died of cancer later that year. Also Urgehal did one of their last gigs at Inferno as Trondr Nefas died in 2012. Rest in Peace. Immortal had the gig that everyone was talking about at Inferno Metal Festival 2011. The band had an extra long set that year, and while the rest of the days had Inferno's usual five bands each night at Rockefeller, Friday only had four bands because of Immortal's long set. Inferno Switzerland was held for the first time in 2011. The Swiss edition of the festival lasted four years.

Inferno Metal Festival 2012 had Borknagar, Autopsy and Arcturus as headliners. Some of the other bands playing that year were Trollfest, Triptykon, Absu, Tsjuder, Einherjer and Witchery. Sólstafir was still a small band back then and performed at John Dee. Some of the bands at the club night were Solstorm, Execration, Gate to Khaos, Earth, Chton, Kirkebrann and Nekromantheon. Aborted had to cancel that year while Anaal Nathrakh had to play without Mick Kenney as he was stuck at the border control in the US. Triptykon did their first, and so far only, gig in Oslo and had Ravn from 1349 as a guest vocal on the Celctic Frost classic “The Usurper”. Borknagar did a special set with both ICS Vortex and Vintersorg on vocals and former vocalist Garm as a guest vocalist at the end. Personally, I remember very well the crazy gig from Absu, with their madman of a drummer and vocalist screaming just as much between the songs as during the songs. Inferno 2012 was the last year the Black Metal Bus Sighseeing tour was held.

Anders Odden, IMC Black Metal Bus Sightseeing, 2008

Inferno Metal Festival 2013 was my first year as press manager. During the previous years I had reviewed the festival as a journalist for Scream Magazine. This time I got to experience the festival from the inside, so I remember that year very good. The headliners for 2013 were Deicide, Suffocation and Satyricon. Moonspell was kind of a co-headliner with Suffocation on Friday and did one of the coolest gigs that year performing only songs from the two first albums “Wofheart” and “Irreligious”. Also on the bill that year were Aeturnus, Behexen, Solefald, Hades Almighty, Dark Funeral, Taake, Hate and Iskald. Solefald had with them on stage an artist that painted a picture during their gig. Only four bands performed on Saturday on the Rockefeller as Satyricon did a long set. Ghost was booked but decided to cancel their show – so Witchcraft took their spot. Also, the club night had a lot to offer: Blood Tsunami, Altaar, Saturnus, Cor Scorpii, Krakow, Vulture Industries, Helheim, Exeloume and Imbalance. We even had stand-up comedian Jason Rouse on the line-up. Jernverket was our new official radio show and kept the listeners up to date on what was going on all time on Radio Rox.

The big happening at Inferno Metal Festival 2014 was the return of Dimmu Borgir as it had been two years since the band last did a live show. The special concert was in two parts. The first part Dimmu Borgir performed the entire “Death Cult Armageddon” album. The second part was a best-of. Also headlining in 2014 were Blasphemy and Watain. It is funny to think that Watain played at John Dee only seven years before. Also performing that year were Rotting Christ, Hatebreed, Tristiania, Obliteration, Tulus, Gehenna, Sigh, Fleshgod Apocalypse and Impiety. You could also attend a cruise in the Oslo fjord with the doom metal band Church of Misery from Japan. We also did a special acoustic gig with the band Vemod at the Emanuel Vigeland Museum. If I remember correctly we could only invite 30 people to the gig. 2014 was the year we had the record for most concerts at the festival with 55 gigs. I had the idea to have a YouTube crew for that year's Inferno, but it did not go as smooth as I hoped for. But over the years our YouTube channel has become pretty good. Inferno Metal Festival was also held in India in 2014. On the bill were Obliteration and Nekromantheon from Norway, and Undying Inc., Devoid, Inner Sanctum and Theorized from India. The Indian version of the festival was held both in New Delhi and Bangalore, while the Inferno Switzerland was held for the last time.

At Inferno Metal Festival 2015 Behemoth, Enslaved and Bloodbath headlined. Also performing were My Dying Bride, 1349, Dødheimsgard, Kampfar, Septicflesh, Skeletonwitch, Execration and Secrets of the Moon. 2015 is the year I consider as the first step in what is the today's format of Inferno with complete four days at Rockefeller. We cut down on club scenes at the club night to only four clubs and we had a big stage at Vulkan Arena. Several bigger bands were playing at the club night, like Arcturus, Taake and Naglfar. The idea was to have the stages closer to each other. The club night sold out in advance. One of the highlights at the festival, besides the concerts, was the live interview Gunnar Sauermann did with Nergal from Behemoth at the stage at the hotel. We also did a live stream on the internet done by a company that was called iFeat with several of the gigs which were held on the Rockefeller stage.

The headliners at Inferno Metal Festival 2016 were Mysticum, Nile and Mayhem. Also performing was Marduk, Suffocation, Vader, Sodom, Blood Red Throne, Moonsorrow, Nifelheim, Order and ICS Vortex. While the club night had thrash legends Exodus as headliner. The most talked about gig that year was without a doubt the gig from Mysticum. They did a few gigs way back in 1996, and one in Finland in 2015, so Inferno was their big return to the stage in Norway. The band wanted to do big things on the stage and we supported them. They built the stage up with three columns where each of the three members was standing on. With screens on every column and in the back – the light show was spectacular and unique. Also Mayhem did a very special set that included several former members of the band. Most welcoming was Maniac who did a hell of a job on stage. Also Eirik “Messiah” Norheim and Kjetil “Manheim” Haraldsson did guest performances. 2016 was the first year we had the Inferno Metal Auction – which has become a tradition every year since then. The first year, it was held by Stian Fossum from the band Devil, but Tore Bratseth from Bömbers has held the auction since then.

The headliners at Inferno Metal Festival 2017 were Carcass, Gorgoroth and Abbath. I guess most people have the Abbath gig still strong in mind as Abbath himself left in anger after only four songs. I remember it very well as the newspapers were calling me very early the next day to find out what happened. Since this basically had nothing to do with Inferno it was not easy to answer. Other bands performing that year were Samael, Destruction, Venom Inc, Belphegor, Primordial and Helheim. The gig every one was talking about was Slagmaur. The band had hired a stunt team. This included a show where two people was hanged and the great finale was a “witch” that was hanged on an up-sidedown cross and was put on fire. Most people were very impressed by the show – but there were also some who thought is was a bit to much, just as Slagmaur hoped for. The club night had bands like Borknagar, Red Harvest, Vesen, Befoulded, Slegest and Whoredom Rife. This was the last club night for Inferno. It was the first year we had Tor Baklund as curator for the art exhibitions. So we had famous cover art artists Necrolord and Dan Seagrave with their own art exhibitions at the festival that year.

Inferno Metal Festival 2018 was the first year we went all in and had the festival for four full days at Rockefeller and John Dee. This was without a doubt a success and we sold out all four days. We also arranged the time schedule a bit different and had the first band playing the big stage at Rockefeller in contrast to earlier years that used to start at John Dee. We could now have five bands at the main stage and the last band playing longer than before. The headliners were Obituary, Emperor, Satyricon and Carpathian Forest. Emperor was the big happening that everyone was talking about. They played the entire “Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk” album. Actually, Satyricon insisted on playing earlier on their night since they didn't want to perform as the last band on the “graveyard shift” – as they called it. We could not chance the band line-up, so to make everyone happy we moved the time schedule with an hour. It actually worked out fine as the audience still came to see Nordjevel performing their very early shift. So we have kept that time schedule, starting one hour earlier since then. Some of the other bands that year were Dark Funeral, Shining, Naglfar, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Napalm Death, Electric Wizard, Tsjuder, Memoriam and Ihsahn. Tsjuder did a very cool gig that year with original Bathory bassist Frederick Melander covering three Bathory songs. At the top roof bar I had the idea to have two DJs every night consisting of musicians from the Norwegian metal scene. Not professional DJs, but the idea was that it will be fun to have members from Dimmu Borgir, Borknagar, Satyricon, Execration, Ulver and so on serving the music at the bar. We also brewed our own beer that year together with Aass Brewery. The beer was well received so we have kept on bringing Inferno Beer to the festival. On the very sad side this was the last Inferno for our dear friend and the organizer of Inferno Music Conference; Hilde Hammer. She lost the battle against cancer later in 2018. Since she was sick during the festival she teached Kristoffer Neegaard to take over the duties at the festival. He is now in charge of the conference. Also worth mention is that Torje Norén worked at Inferno for the last time to do other duties. It was very strange to not have Torje around since he had been working with Inferno from the very beginning in 2001. 2018 had the highest ticket sale outside of Norway with 62 percent. Not bad at all.

Making Inferno Metal Festival 2019 was in many ways harder than usual for me personally. Simply because two of the key organizers of the festival that I worked close with were now gone. I still think it turned up pretty well at the end, so all the hard work paid off. The headliners were Dimmu Borgir, Bloodbath, Opeth and Hypocrisy. Some of the other bands who played were Taake, Witchcraft, Aura Noir, 1349, Carach Angren, Svarttjern, Ragnarok and Tribulation. Two of the highlights from Inferno Music Conference was the drum clinic from Dirk Verbeuren from Megadeth and the guitar clinic from Fredrik Åkesson from Opeth. The ticket sale was very good this year as well and it sold out. We had people from 55 countries visiting us.

Hilde Hammer.

We are now happy to be able to celebrate Inferno Metal Festival 2020 with all our followers over the years and also with all the ones that have never been to Inferno before. We are for sure going to write some more history. We still have a lot to do and ideas to realise. Hope you had fun looking into the story of this festival and you are welcome to join our celebration at Inferno Metal Festival 2020!