Dead

Per Yngve "Pelle" Ohlin (16 January 1969 – 8 April 1991), better known by his stage name Dead, was a Swedish musician who was best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem from 1988 until his death in 1991.

Prior to Mayhem, he also performed as vocalist in the Swedish death/thrash band Morbid.

Dead was a popular figure of the Norwegian black metal scene, and his legacy persists in the genre to this day.

Roadrunner Records ranked him No. 48 out of 50 of The Greatest Metal Front-Men of All Time.

Dead was known for his morbid personality and obsession with death.

He hoarded dead birds, wore shirts with funeral announcements printed on them and wore corpse paint—being one of the first in black metal to do so.

Acquaintances and peers described Ohlin as difficult to befriend or understand.

Already intensely introverted and depressed, Dead's personality and demeanor would only become more withdrawn leading up to his death, a progression marked by such patterns as harming himself offstage among friends and isolating himself for long periods in his bedroom.

Per Yngve Ohlin (sometimes called "Pelle") was born on 16 January 1969 in Västerhaninge, Stockholm County, Sweden, to parents Anita Forsberg and Lars Ohlin, who divorced soon after his birth.

As a young child, Ohlin suffered from sleep apnea.

At the age of ten, he suffered internal bleeding when his spleen ruptured after what he claimed was an ice skating accident.

However, in the Swedish metal book Blod eld död (English: "Blood Fire Death"), his brother Anders stated in an exclusive interview that Dead was frequently bullied in school and one day sustained a ruptured spleen as a direct result of a severe beating by bullies.

Because of the injury, Ohlin had to be rushed to a hospital, where he was, for a time, declared clinically dead.

After a few years, the incident resulted in a fascination with death, and later inspired his stage name.

As a teenager, Ohlin developed a taste for heavy metal and rock music, citing bands like Black Sabbath, Kiss, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, AC/DC, Motörhead, Venom, Metallica, Bathory, Sodom and Mercyful Fate as his favourites.

Despite his love for Bathory, he was very displeased after their change in musical style and consequently referred to Quorthon as "a wimp".

Mayhem drummer Jan Axel "Hellhammer" Blomberg claimed that Dead "was the first black metal musician to use corpse paint", although this statement has been proven to be debatable as Mayhem guitarist Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth can be seen wearing corpse paint in live footage as early as 1985.

To complete his corpse-like image, Dead would bury his stage clothes and dig them up again to wear on the night of a concert.

According to Hellhammer:

"Before the shows, Dead used to bury his clothes into the ground so that they could start to rot and get that grave scent. He was a corpse on a stage. Once he even asked us to bury him in the ground — he wanted his skin to become pale."

During one tour with Mayhem, Dead found a dead crow and kept it in a plastic bag.

He often carried it with him and would smell the bird before going onstage, to sing "with the stench of death in his nostrils."

He would also collect dead geese and keep them underneath his bed.

Dead would cut himself while singing onstage.

In early 1986, Ohlin founded the Swedish death/thrash metal group Morbid, with which he recorded a demo tape called December Moon.

Disappointed that the band wasn't "going anywhere", he decided to contact members of Mayhem as he was aware the group were in need of a new frontman following vocalist Maniac's departure.

According to Mayhem bassist Jørn "Necrobutcher" Stubberud, Dead initially sent the band members a small parcel containing a demo tape, a letter detailing his ideas for the future and a crucified mouse.

Although Necrobutcher lost the package itself, he kept the tape which had Dead's contact details.

Dead made a brief appearance in the 1986 music video for Candlemass' "Bewitched".

At that point, Dead moved to Norway in early 1988 and became the new official vocalist for Mayhem.

For concerts, Dead went to great lengths to achieve the image and atmosphere he wished.

From the beginning of his career, he wore "corpse paint", which involved covering his face with black and white makeup.

According to Necrobutcher, "[i]t wasn't anything to do with the way Kiss and Alice Cooper used makeup. Dead actually wanted to look like a corpse. He didn't do it to look cool".

During a gig in Jessheim on February 3, 1990, he slashed his arm with a broken bottle.

Emperor drummer Bård Guldvik "Faust" Eithun claims that Dead had to be taken to hospital after the gig, but arrived too late and so "it was no use to give him stitches".

In an interview conducted by Marduk guitarist Morgan Håkansson and published in the fanzine Slayer, Dead explained how he and the rest of Mayhem would expel poseurs at their concerts.

Reciting the events of one particular show, he claimed, "Before we began to play there was a crowd of about 300 in there, but in the second song 'Necrolust' we began to throw around those pig heads. Only 50 were left."

He and the other members enjoyed this sort of practice; he concluded with, "If someone doesn't like blood and rotten flesh thrown in their face they can FUCK OFF, and that's exactly what they do."

Dead died by suicide in April 1991 at the age of 22.

An image of his dead body was used as the cover of the bootleg live album The Dawn of the Black Hearts (1995).