Thanksgiving: A time to reflect on all the good things we have in life, cherish family connections, and  bow to the metal gods for gifting us with the beautiful man that we know as Fenriz. This glorious creature needs no introduction: Besides Lemmy, he is heavy metal’s own version of Keith Richards — constant, ageless, irreverent, self-aware and proud of it — and in this Thanksgiving post, we take time to account for all of the reasons we hold Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell dear to our hearts. May he live to be at least 100 years old, but hopefully more. 

I personally have to credit Fenriz for being one of my most inspirational drummers. As someone who got into metal through punk, his savage, primitive battery on Darkthrone’s A Blaze in the Northern Sky (and the rest of their discography) captured me on first listen, and his aversion to triggers and modern drum sounds makes me think that he might be my dad. His bare-bones, hard-hitting style has influenced me in profoundly in my own songwriting, and every time I think about wanting people to hear everything I’m doing on the ride cymbal, Fenriz’s angelic voice tells me to not put Hello Kitty in metal music.

Aside from being a hugely important figure for metal music for two decades now, Fenriz is a steady reminder that no matter how kvlt we claim to be, heavy metal is basically one big playground and we have to laugh at ourselves, especially if we’ve ever unironically worn corpse paint and spiked gauntlets. His interviews are full of brilliant one-liners, and his humor has recently dipped into full dad mode; he has made the full transition from being metal premier elitist to our own personal comedian-in-residence while never ceasing to be a complete badass in the process, still writing albums (good ones!) all these years later. To add to this, who the hell else could legitimately teach a Black Metal 101 and not look like a pretentious jerk?

Were it not for Fenriz, we wouldn’t be using the terms “true” and “kvlt” ironically, and thanks to him, maybe our nostalgia for old speed metal and denim jackets isn’t such a bad thing after all. So as you’re dozing off into Turkey-Coma-Ville this week and feeling smug about the fact that you’re not as dumb as your nutbag right-wing uncle, remember to give credit where it’s due: Blast Transylvanian Hunger or Sardonic Wrath and give thanks for Fenriz, the grim-hearted, endlessly entertaining bitter old codger that we’d all love to get hammered with.

I leave you now with classic Fenriz. Get your belt-buckets and cool (NOT EMPEROR) sunglasses. Happy turkey day, y’all.

– Dustin