WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT BATHORY
On June 3, 2004, the body of Thomas Forsberg was found in his apartment in a suburb of Stockholm. The 38-year-old had died of an undiagnosed heart defect, but beyond that, little was known about the circumstances of his last few days, or his death.
It was a tragedy that someone so young had passed away so unexpectedly, but the lack of detailed information about his death was strangely appropriate. Thomas Forsberg was better known as Quorthon, founder and sole member of Bathory, the cult ‘band’ who helped spark two distinct genres into life during the first seven years of their career: black metal and Viking metal.
Yet by 2004, Bathory were a marginal act – not quite forgotten, but certainly overlooked by the wider metal community despite a run of six classic albums that began with 1984’s landmark self-titled debut and ended with 1991’s epic This was partly down to Quorthon himself – he refused to play live, rarely did photo sessions and peppered his early interviews with obfuscation, misdirection and half-truths. In life, as in death,
