In May of 1982, with Christian Conservatism not only on the rise in America but deeply entrenched in the countries of Western Europe and the nuclear weapon race reaching its peak, a new form of extreme music was taking hold. In the midst of this environment three kids from Birchwill, Switzerland, barely out of high school, Tom Warrior, Bruce Day, and Stephen Priestly entered the Grave Hill Bunker bomb shelter and recorded demos of ‘Death Fiend’ and ‘Triumph of Death.’ These demos were followed in December by the ‘Satanic Rites’ sessions, the intro and outro to which were inspired by deliberately slowing down the Venom single, 'Witching Hour.' The trio called themselves Hellhammer, and they took the Satanic imagery of Venom into whole new realms, with recordings that represent some of the earliest visions of what came to be called the first wave of black metal (a term Venom had coined), a music that represented an artistically extreme exploration of subjects hidden by religion, popular culture, and the preppie atmosphere of the 1980s. Among other imagery Hellhammer invoked specters of mass destruction, bloody pussies, and burning churches.

It is a bizarre road that front-man Tom Warrior, also known as Tom Gabriel Fisher, has taken, a road shared by bassist and co-lyricist Martin Eric Ain. When Ain joined Hellhammer halfway through the band’s brief tenure, the essential core of what would eventually become Celtic Frost was formed. Celtic Frost went on to create three mind-blowing releases: Morbid Tales (1984), To Mega Therion (1985), and Into The Pandemonium (1987). These albums were progressively experimental, to the point where the inclusion of a drum machine on the new wave-influenced song, “I Won’t Dance” from Into The Pandemonium and the glam rock debacle Cold Lake in 1989 alienated fans of the earlier material. Celtic Frost broke up soon after but reformed in 2005 to release Monotheist, an album steeped in Crowleian darkness and crushing guitar tones, winning back the favor of most fans. Yet it is the early Hellhammer recordings that arguably remain the most respected and most influential releases of Fischer and Ain’s career.

Despite releasing only one official 12” and recording only three demos (which until February existed only in bootleg form) Hellhammer have gone on to acquire mythic status, a surprising fact considering that their career spanned barely two years. Just as Hellhammer once copied Venom, they are now imitated the world over. Examples run from blatant copycats like Germany’s Warhammer and Brazil’s Apokalyptic Raids to slightly more original, but still obvious, devotees as Japan’s all-girl Gallhammer. Not to mention countless others who, like the punk bands of the late seventies, continue to pick up and pound on their instruments with limited skill and maximum aggression.

In addition to playing with Celtic Frost, Tom Warrior is involved in numerous side projects, including the industrial/electronic experiment Apollyon Sun, and is putting together a book titled Only Death Is Real – The Illustrated History of Hellhammer And Early Celtic Frost. He also maintains a blog at fischerisdead.blogspot.com The blog’s unusual url title is a story perhaps to be told at a later time. For now, suffice it to say that Tom Fischer comes across as an intelligent, serious-minded man. Imagine Werner Herzog on downers. He also seems like someone who laughs rarely, but is nonetheless in possession of certain morbid humor. In fact, he might have chuckled a couple times during this interview, though it’s difficult to be certain.

It seems like bands with Satanic or otherwise extreme content are everywhere today, but that wasn’t the case in 1983. So where did you come up with the ideas for the lyrics of Hellhammer?

Well, first and foremost, when we started we were simply a Venom clone. In 1981 when I first heard Venom there was no other music on the planet like this. The only band that approached the extremity of Venom was the punk band Discharge. Me and my best friend at the time wanted to form a band and hearing these bands proved to us that what we had in our mind was actually feasible. It encouraged us to actually form a band though we were completely inexperienced. We had just picked up our instruments. And because we were so inexperienced initially we weren’t good enough to emulate our own ideas so we tried to copy Venom and that included, of course, the lyrical content, which would explain why the early Hellhammer material is so extreme, so Satanic. The second factor is that the circumstances in my life at the time were completely radical. And the hatred and the pain and injury that I experienced every day in my private life, I used Hellhammer as valve to release all of that. Which explains the immense hatred, the aggression, and the violence in the lyrics.