Jon Nödtveidt

As the main songwriter and vocalist for Dissection he released the seminal black metal albums The Somberlain and Storm of the Light's Bane. These albums would prove to be highly influential release for both black metal and melodic death metal.

In the beginning of his musical career, he formed a heavy metal band called Thunder with his brother Emil in 1988. Their songs were presented in a compilation album of Jon's music school in Strömstad.[2]

Nödtveidt also performed in several other projects, including The Black (as Rietas), De Infernali, Nifelheim, Ophthalamia (as Shadow), Satanized, Siren's Yell, and Terror, a grindcore band which featured members of At the Gates.

He also worked as a journalist in Metal Zone, where he was responsible for keeping track of the growing black metal scene. He was a member of the Misanthropic Luciferian Order, now known as Temple of the Black Light, and the Werewolf Legion, a Swedish criminal organization based in Stockholm (not to be confused with the Russian Werewolf Legion). Contrary to popular belief, he was not its co-creator, but "was introduced [...] by close friends at a quite early stage."[3]

Nödtveidt was convicted of being an accessory to the 1997 murder of Josef ben Meddour, an Algerian gay man.[4] He restarted Dissection upon his release from prison in 2004.

On 13 August 2006 Nödtveidt was found dead in his apartment in Hässelby, by an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a circle of lit candles.[5]

Early reports indicated that he was found with an open copy of the Satanic Bible, but these were later dismissed by Dissection's guitarist Set Teitan. According to him, "it's not any atheist, humanist and ego-worshiping The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey that Jon had in front of him, but a Satanic grimoire. He despised LaVey and the 'Church of Satan'."[6]

The said "Satanic grimoire" is reputed to be the Liber Azerate, one of the publishings of the Misanthropic Luciferian Order, by which Nödtveidt apparently was influenced, his last album Reinkaos's lyrics being co-written by the same man who wrote the Liber Azerate.

Nödtveidt's brother, Emil "Nightmare Industries" Nödtveidt, the rhythm guitarist and keyboardist of gothic industrial metal band Deathstars, wrote a song named "Via the End" the night he heard about Nödtveidt's suicide. The song appears as the fifth track on Deathstar's third album Night Electric Night.

Regarding his views on suicide, Nödtveidt said:[7]

The Satanist decides of his own life and death and prefers to go out with a smile on his lips when he has reached his peak in life, when he has accomplished everything, and aim to transcend this earthly existence. But it is completely un-satanic to end one's own life because one is sad or miserable. The Satanist dies strong, not by age, disease or depression, and he chooses death before dishonor! Death is the orgasm of life! So live life accordingly, as intense as possible!