As the Norwegian black metal pioneers Darkthrone celebrate their massive 40th anniversary with the release of the expansive boxset The Fist In The Face Of God, frontman Nocturno Culto—born Ted Skjellum—sat down with Kerrang! to reflect on the band’s remarkable journey. Coinciding with his 54th birthday, the vocalist and guitarist looked back on his early days as an outsider, the band’s rapid stylistic shifts, and their unwavering commitment to remaining in the shadows.
Growing up in Norway during the 1980s, being a fan of extreme music was an isolating experience. Nocturno Culto explained that while mainstream rock was popular, the heavier sounds he gravitated toward were largely misunderstood by his peers.
“It was kind of lonely. At school there was, like, one other guy into it. Kiss was always popular, but when it came to metal, that was a bit more of a lonely affair as a kid, because people didn’t understand the music. This was exactly the same mentality we had with Darkthrone as well, because we never considered Norway as some kind of an epicentre of interest in metal.”
Everything changed when he witnessed the sheer power of thrash metal on television, an experience that permanently altered his musical trajectory.
“I think it was in ’85 or something. There was something called Monsters Of Rock on Sky [TV], which was hosted by [legendary Kerrang! writer] Mick Wall. He played a live video for ‘Hell Awaits‘ by Slayer, and I couldn’t understand what the hell just happened. I had listened to Metallica and Black Sabbath and stuff like that, but Slayer was like this big train of sound just running over you. I sat there afterwards and thought, ‘What the hell happens now?’ I understood that my life would take a bit more of a sinister turn after that video. So, we can blame all of this on Slayer…”
In 1988, Nocturno Culto officially joined Darkthrone, forming a creative partnership with drummer Fenriz that would ultimately shape the future of extreme metal. Their initial meeting at a local train station remains a vivid memory for the frontman.
“I had a band before that, with some of my cousins. But they didn’t have the same kind of, I don’t want to say ‘ambitions’, but I really wanted to play, and do something else once in a while apart from rehearse. So, when I got the opportunity to join them, someone I knew gave me a phone number for Fenriz. We talked on the phone for an hour, mainly about music – particularly ‘Orion‘ by Metallica. We arranged to meet at Kolbotn station, and I asked Fenriz how I would find him. He said he had this kind of bowl-cut, and at the back there was a rat tail hanging down, and some Palestinian scarf or whatever. It was not very hard to spot him, to say the least! In early May 1988 I went to see them play at a rock competition in a nearby county to decide if I wanted to join or not, and then I got into the band after that.”
Their initial goals were surprisingly modest.
“It’s at least 80 per cent truth that when I joined and we started to make serious music, our one ambition was to record an album. That was it.”
While Darkthrone‘s 1991 debut album, Soulside Journey, was firmly rooted in death metal, the band famously pivoted to a raw, atmospheric black metal sound for their genre-defining follow-up, A Blaze In The Northern Sky. Despite the perceived drastic shift, Nocturno Culto maintained that the transition felt entirely natural within the band’s creative bubble.
“I’ve been discussing this with Fenriz for the last five years. We understand why people think that’s a big change, but for us in the band, the change wasn’t that big, really. For us in Darkthrone at the time, we weren’t really a death metal band from the beginning. I don’t want to get stuck in one track or whatever. We would just sit in the basement at [former guitarist] Ivar’s place, having a good time, listening to things that we liked, like Bathory and Motörhead.”
“For A Blaze In The Northern Sky, and Under A Funeral Moon after, we wanted it to be cold. The sound was something we tried to plan as best as we could, because we didn’t want to end up not having control over it.”
This stylistic shift was accompanied by the adoption of stark, black-and-white album covers and the use of corpsepaint. However, the band quickly abandoned the striking visual aesthetic once it began to feel commercialized.
“Actually, I remember very well the time that we decided not to use corpsepaint anymore. Ivar was coming to rehearsal one day in the middle of the summer, walking down the main street in Oslo, and he saw three guys coming towards him with corpsepaint, who were all sweating. When he told us that, we were kind of in shock. It had become kind of a commercial thing, and we decided, ‘Okay, no more!’”
As the Norwegian black metal scene gained international infamy in the early 1990s due to arson and violence, Nocturno Culto made a deliberate choice to distance himself from the chaos and focus entirely on the music.
“Well, I am born and raised in Oslo, and I moved away from Oslo in December ’91, before all those things happened, because I knew that something was going to happen. It was a bit more, let’s say, serious times. Everybody was young and [into] crazy stuff. But I took the first opportunity I got to move out, and I moved far away from Oslo. When I saw all these things on the news, I wasn’t surprised.
“I learned a lot about a lot of things. But it was a very sinister way to view things. It was almost like a competition of how to be most extreme. I think, for myself and Darkthrone, our interest was music, so for us, it was a bit strange. But, yeah, I moved from Oslo early on. I like peace and quiet.”
That desire for peace and quiet ultimately led the band to stop playing live shows entirely, a stance they have maintained for nearly three decades despite numerous lucrative offers.
“I think we always thought, ‘We don’t need the personal attention.’ Our philosophy has always been to let the music do the talking. We are trying to push the music in front of us instead of all the other things, even playing live.
“We’ve had plenty of great offers, and we’ve turned them all down. Really, you can come up with all kind of excuses and things, but the bottom line is that we don’t want to play live. It’s not for us.”
The Fist In The Face Of God boxset is currently available via Peaceville Records.
The collection spans nine essential studio albums, beginning with the 1992 genre landmark A Blaze In The Northern Sky—the first installment of their “Unholy Trinity”—and concluding with their final release for Moonfog Productions, 2004’s Sardonic Wrath.
Each record has been meticulously remastered by Patrick Engel at Temple of Disharmony, designed to preserve the raw, lo-fi aesthetic of the original recordings while optimizing them for the format. The LPs are pressed on heavyweight vinyl and feature their original sleeve artwork.
The Box Set Includes:
- A Blaze in the Northern Sky (1992)
- Under a Funeral Moon (1993)
- Transilvanian Hunger (1994)
- Panzerfaust (1995)
- Total Death (1996)
- Ravishing Grimness (1999)
- Plaguewielder (2001)
- Hate Them (2003)
- Sardonic Wrath (2004)
Darkthrone recently announced As Wolves Among Sheep… Live In Oslo, their first standalone live album. The release captures a rare 1990 performance from the band’s early years, during the era of Soulside Journey and Goatlord.
The album is scheduled for release on April 18, 2026, as part of Record Store Day, and will arrive as a 180g petrol blue vinyl LP through Peaceville Records, making it a must-have for collectors and longtime fans. While Darkthrone has included live tracks on compilations in the past, this marks the first time a full live set is officially released under the band’s name. The recording offers a unique glimpse into a period when the band was still performing live — an era that has since become legendary due to the scarcity of live material.
