Dead (Mayhem)
3
1Per Yngve “Pelle” Ohlin, known as Dead, was the vocalist of the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. He was deeply fascinated by themes of darkness, the atmosphere of old European landscapes, Carpathian castles, Transylvanian folklore, the occult, and legends from Eastern Europe.
Dead did not feel fully human in the ordinary sense. He believed he came from another state of being. He described visions in which he felt distant from life, as if his spirit was frozen or already beyond the physical world. This influenced his chosen name and his belief that his life path was different from others.
As a child, he experienced a serious medical crisis during which his heart stopped briefly. He later recalled seeing a blue light followed by a white light. He interpreted this through a personal spiritual model: the earthly plane as dark, a higher one as blue, and beyond it a white plane associated with the afterlife. He believed he had crossed into that state and returned.
Though quiet and introverted, Dead became known for very intense symbolic performance practices. He wanted his stage presence to feel otherworldly and unsettling. To achieve this, he prepared his clothing and surroundings in ways he felt captured the atmosphere of forgotten graveyards and abandoned forests. He sometimes carried items associated with stillness and the past to evoke the idea of being between life and death. His stage makeup was pale with darkened eyes, sometimes with hints of green to suggest distance from the living world.
After he joined Mayhem, the band’s lyrical direction shifted toward themes of darkness, existential despair, spiritual isolation, and the idea of a realm beyond life. His image and presence strongly shaped the band’s identity.
Euronymous, the band’s guitarist, once said: “I think Dead lived in a reality of his own. He didn’t experience the world like others do.”
Follow