Per Yngve Ohlin aka Dead, the Swedish black metal singer known for his death obsession and fronting the bands Morbid and the more infamous Mayhem was 22 when he killed himself in 1991. That was actually the second time he died. The first time was when he was about 10 years old and he fell through the ice he was playing by (some stories say he suffered internal bleeding at that moment). He was dead on arrival but the doctors where able to revive him.

He made Mayhem notorious for their violent shows with impaled pig heads and Dead cutting himself to the point of having to get medical attention after a show from blood loss. He also dressed in clothes buried weeks prior to concerts and wore the black metal face makeup known as corpse paint to look dead. Mayhem band mates said they couldn’t get along with him because he isolated himself, possibly suffering with depression.

His body was founded by band mate Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth along with a note with the words “Excuse all the blood” on it and supposedly an apology for firing a shotgun in the house Mayhem used to practice and Dead called home since he left for Norway to join Mayhem. Since the two didn’t get along, Euro exploited Dead’s death by making necklaces from Dead’s skull fragments, speeding rumors that the guitarist ate the singer’s brain, and taking photos of Dead’s corpse before getting the police. One of these photos became the cover of the Mayhem bootleg album “Dawn of the Black Hearts.”

To me, Dead was an amazing singer and wonderful singwriter. However since he didn’t see himself as human after his first death, no one was really surprised to see I’m go and I hope he is resting comfortably in the wod beyond.