Quorthon

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Quorthon (born February 17, 1966 , † June 3, 2004 in Stockholm ; actually Ace Forsberg , born Thomas Forsberg ) was a Swedish musician .

biography

Quorthon founded the Swedish metal band Bathory in 1983 at the age of 17, of which he was the head and songwriter. As such, Quorthon is considered one of the pioneers for Black Metal and Viking Metal , his first six albums are considered milestones. He had no permanent line-up for most of his albums.

Quorthon rarely gave interviews, lived secluded from the metal scene and didn't want to perform live. In the entire history of the band, there was only one video for the song One Rode to Asa Bay from the album Hammerheart (1990). Photographs were rare. He was considered to be rather introverted in the scene, but part of the mysticism actually came about by chance: Bathory had not taken any promo photos before the release of their debut album, a line-up was not specified because two members of the band, which was still permanent at the time, were the group had just left again. But in time Quorthon began to appreciate the mystery he had created. Quorthon later wanted to keep the fictional character he created and his private person strictly separate, he also did not want to be a star and did not feel part of a scene. He also spread various rumors about his private life. He once stated that his real name was "Pugh Rogefeldt".

In 1994 he founded the solo project Quorthon named after him, which, however, differed greatly from Bathory. With the project he played the album and the double album Purity of Essence in 1994 , both of which are more oriented towards alternative rock and grunge from the 1990s and have nothing to do with metal . The style of music has often been compared to Alice in Chains , Soundgarden, and Stone Temple Pilots .

On June 8, 2004, Blabbermouth.net announced that Quorthon had died at the age of 39 and had been found dead in his Stockholm apartment the previous day.

Bourgeois name

Blabbermouth gave Thomas Forsberg as his real name and wrote that he was the son of the Black Mark Production owner " Boss "; heart failure was given as the suspected cause of death. The message was taken over by numerous other sites. On the official Bathory page bathory.se (now to be found under bathory.nu ), however, Quorthon's death was only referred to with the note "In memory of Ace / Quorthon" . Paternity was denied by Quorthon Years older than Quorthon and his fatherhood is therefore extremely unlikely. However, this was based on misinformation, Quorthon and Boss were 22 years apart. The Black Mark Production site did not provide any information either. Fjordi from the Tartarean Desire Webzine therefore doubted every word in his article on the death report, especially since it comes from Blabbermouth.net and thus from the environment of Roadrunner Records .

In fact, the information about Quorthon's death and his relationship to Börje Forsberg came from the immediate environment, namely from the former Bathory drummer and current film director Jonas Åkerlund . His father Börje and Ace Försberg himself kept their relationship a secret for years. His father actually wanted to announce this himself later, Åkerlund had come before him. Nevertheless, there is a mistake in the report at the time: Thomas Forsberg is only the birth name. In fact, Quorthon had chosen the first name "Ace", which he had derived from one of his favorite musicians, the KISS guitarist Ace Frehley , and officially renamed himself accordingly.

Since this fact became known, there has been more information from his private life. So he also left a sister. Jennie Tebler was a longtime guest singer with Lake of Tears and now has a band called Silverwing.

Discography

With Bathory

As a Quorthon

  • Single (1994)
  • Album (1994)
  • When Our Day Is Through (EP, 1997)
  • Purity of Essence (1997)
  • God Save the Queen on A Black Mark Tribute (1997)
  • I'm Only Sleeping on A Black Mark Tribute Vol. II (1998)

With Jennie Tebler

  • Silverwing / Song to Hall up High (single, 2005; music, lyrics, all instruments, published posthumously)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bathory - Birth of a legend .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Fjordi: Bathory RIP. Tartarean Desire. Retrieved May 23, 2018.
  3. ^ Daniel Ekeroth: Swedish Death Metal . Bazillion Points Books, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9796163-1-0 , pp. 32–33 ( google.de [accessed on May 23, 2018]).
  4. ↑ a b Quorthon / Bathory: A rogue who invented evil . In: Metal Hammer . May 11, 2017 ( metal-hammer.de [accessed May 23, 2018]).
  5. ↑ a b Bathory . In: laut.de . ( laut.de [accessed on May 23, 2018]).
  6. ↑ Quorthon From BATHORY Had a Grunge Solo Project !? In: Metal Injection . February 12, 2016 ( metalinjection.net [accessed May 23, 2018]).
  7. ↑ Quorthon . In: Intro . June 4, 1994 ( intro.de [accessed May 23, 2018]).
  8. ↑ Holger Stratmann: Quorthon: Album . In: Rock Hard . No. 84 , 1994 ( rockhard.de ).
  9. ↑ a b BATHORY mastermind QUORTHON Dead At 39 . Retrieved May 23, 2018.
  10. ^ In memory of ACE / QUORTHON . Retrieved May 23, 2018
  11. ↑ Twilightheart: Quorthon - Obituary. In: Sheol Magazine. Retrieved May 23, 2018 .
  12. ↑ a b Andreas Schiffmann: Label Special: Black Mark. It all started in Berlin. In: Rock Hard . 371 (April 2018), pp. 34-35 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Quorthon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Forsberg, Ace (real name); Forsberg, Thomas (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish musician
DATE OF BIRTH 17th February 1966
DATE OF DEATH June 3, 2004
Place of death Stockholm