The man himself doesn’t need an introduction nor does his persona. I choose to focus on his despotic fascination for homemade costumes and “clothing” that he chooses to adorn himself with on stage for Mayhem, Void Ov Voices, and Sunn O))). At one gig going as far to make himself up as a tree, explaining that Sunn O))) music was for the plants. Some of his appearances have nonetheless been deemed controversial or lame, but opinions are irrelevant because it is not made with the intention to impress. Some of his masks were designed by Nader Sadek, who I also plan to write about. Various other designs that have come across were the German Hitler outfit, broken mirror man, the death priest (over 70 years old and made by nuns), and the mummy…
Atilla states about the purpose of the visual aesthetics: “I like to challenge the audience, so the worst thing for me is going on stage with something that has been seen a million times before, like corpse paint. Actually, the first time I wore corpse paint was in 1987 with my band Tormentor. Alien Sex Fiend was using white make-up, so I started to wear a white base and put black make-up on top, around the eyesand the mouth. It was cool then.”
Read about his other thoughts and check out all the costumes below:
And future ideas “I want to make something that would make me look like I was performing in another dimension. I wanted to levitate in a huge, on-stage aquarium filled with liquid, wearing deep-diving gear. We planned to have strange or weird sea animals swimming around, like ink fishes, octopuses and horseshoe crabs, for instance. I wanted a spacesuit but they are extremely expensive. Huge crystals could be good too for appearing as a fossil”
