Wolverine, the unyielding animal of the north and a symbol of freedom, was the subject of Entombed’s “Wolverine Blues” back in 1993. But as death metal became a toy of the “marketplace” and lived hell in those days, Wolverine had to suffer, too!
Do you know the wolverine? A rare animal of the northern lands, the wolverine has been a subject of intense interest for scientists, but nobody knows much, as it is hard to even spot it. “Think of a weasel,” says Ernest Thompson Seton. “Many of us know of this little devil of destruction, this small but cruel quintessence of courage. Weasel is the symbol of slaughter, restlessness and unrelentness. Think of that devilish brat of rage. Now, multiply it with 50. That is the wolverine.”
Known for its extraordinary strength and ruthlessness, Inuits describe wolverine as the trickster. Indeed, wolverine knows very well when to act, when to retreat, how to react under given circumstances and when to be “invisible.” It is a good hunter, but in essence, wolverine is a scavenger.Under the harsh conditions of the icy north, it utilizes everything it can find. To find food, it is known to travel as long as 65 kilometers in one day. An adult wolverine may have a domination area of as big as 1,500 square-kilometers. Weighing at most 30 kilograms, the wolverine is observed to kill a deer; that is how strong it is.
Wolverine is a loner and a monogamist. Due to its precious fur, it faces the threat of extinction. It mostly lives in Alaska, Northern Canada, Siberia and Scandinavia. As an expert in survival, the wolverine is the stuff of legends. In native mythology, it is a cunning hero but also the link to the spiritual world. Inuits have countless tales on the wolverine. One tale depicts it as such: “Trickster is at one and the same time creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others and who is always duped himself. He wills nothing consciously. At all times he is constrained to behave as he does from impulses over which he has no control. He knows neither good nor evil yet he is responsible for both. He possesses no values, moral or social, is at the mercy of his passions and appetites, yet through his actions all values come into being.” (Radin, 1956)
Known for its extraordinary strength and ruthlessness, Inuits describe wolverine as the trickster. Indeed, wolverine knows very well when to act, when to retreat, how to react under given circumstances and when to be “invisible.” It is a good hunter, but in essence, wolverine is a scavenger.Under the harsh conditions of the icy north, it utilizes everything it can find. To find food, it is known to travel as long as 65 kilometers in one day. An adult wolverine may have a domination area of as big as 1,500 square-kilometers. Weighing at most 30 kilograms, the wolverine is observed to kill a deer; that is how strong it is.
Wolverine is a loner and a monogamist. Due to its precious fur, it faces the threat of extinction. It mostly lives in Alaska, Northern Canada, Siberia and Scandinavia. As an expert in survival, the wolverine is the stuff of legends. In native mythology, it is a cunning hero but also the link to the spiritual world. Inuits have countless tales on the wolverine. One tale depicts it as such: “Trickster is at one and the same time creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others and who is always duped himself. He wills nothing consciously. At all times he is constrained to behave as he does from impulses over which he has no control. He knows neither good nor evil yet he is responsible for both. He possesses no values, moral or social, is at the mercy of his passions and appetites, yet through his actions all values come into being.” (Radin, 1956)
Features attributed to wolverine, such as loneliness, independence, survival and strength, were not of interest only to Inuits. Entombed, the European vanguard of the second wave of death metal and the originator of death’n’roll, named its 1993 album after it: “Wolverine Blues.”
The album is considered as a step away from the band’s death metal roots, an effort labeled by many as commercialization.But Entombed witnessed such events with “Wolverine Blues” that the young band firmly understood the market cares about neither wolverine nor death and exists only to maximize profits in defiance of young musicians, trampling upon their creativity.
“Wolverine Blues” is the first album that Entombed released after being “discovered” at the main market, the United States. Thus, the band realized a “dream,” by signing to Columbia/Sony through Earache Records. Not only Entombed, of course, companies such as Columbia and Geffen, increasingly aware of the “storm of death in the underground,” were busy binding small firms which have “knowledge of the scene,” such as Earache, to themselves. Carcass, Deicide, Morbid Angel and even Napalm Death: Bands that would not believe if they saw themselves earning money from this music in their dreams, were signing deals considered as record for such an extreme genre, being handed over to “best” producers and sent off to make new albums at “polished” studios, with budgets of tens of thousands of dollars. It was time to be spoilt for death metal!
The spoiling came to be a disaster for Wolverine Blues. As might be guessed, the band was telling the story of the wolverine in the title song:
I'm a misanthropical breed / insatiable in my need to feed
Utterly fearless / for your luscious flesh
I've got an appetite like a war / and I always hunger for more
Vicious mammal / the blood is my call
Pound for pound / I am the most vicious of all
To put a wolverine into a cage is “to put it to an end,” the band also tells in the song, an ironic prophecy for the then-future of death metal.
Drummer Nicke Andersson says the inspiration for the song came from a novel by James Ellroy, one that tells the tale of a murderer who identifies himself with the wolverine.
But the marketing team of Columbia was oblivious to either the lyrics nor the novel. Seeing the word “wolverine,” they, with the "creativity" of a marketer, remembered the Marvel Comics character. Why not sell Entombed music to kids through Wolverine?
Without bothering to even notify the band, Columbia gets in touch with Marvel, which in turn allows the Wolverine character to be used in the cover of the first edition of the album. Using the character to the promotional video “Wolverine Blues” also gets the nod.
After learning what has happened, Andersson says it was as if “a tank had rolled over them.” (Choosing Death, Albert Mudrian, pg. 191) “We could not say anything,” he says. “None of us had even read that comic. But they had this grand marketing idea. We could only ask, ‘Are you sure it is a good idea?’ "
Thus, Wolverine Blues meets the listener with a campaign that has nothing to do with its idea and an American-style parody of a video.
“Wolverine Blues” is the first important death metal album after the genre is “discovered” by the market. Then comes “Heartwork” by Carcass. Both albums infuriate the fanbase of the bands. Though far away from the “market ear,” Wolverine Blues is a mid-tempo “death’n’roll” album closer to influences of punk.
Sony/Columbia had “bought” many bands after they sold tens of thousands of albums through a couple of days recording in shitty studios and now, it was expecting much more from Entombed. The “marketer mind” is recognizable: Here is a talented band that created its own fan base, a band whose name is circulating in the underground. Imagine the success when such a band gets the backing from a giant company!
But the result was far from that. Two years after its launch, Wolverine Blues stood at 40,000, while Columbia was expecting sales surpassing 100,000. The same was also true for Carcass and Napalm Death albums.
To tell the truth, Wolverine Blues is a damn good piece of music. But it also represents a radical departure from Entombed’s previous style.
So, was this departure a natural outcome of the band’s internal dynamics and development? Entombed members say they had more or less prepared the album before the Sony deal.
But according to the book “Choosing Death,” Columbia manager Jim Welch had pressured Entombed and Carcass to “write a song that could be played on radio.” (pg. 192)
As the company could not reach the sales target, Entombed’s contract was canceled. In 1996, the band had to sign a bad deal with East/West Records. A year later, it passed on to UK’s Music For Nations.
Gathering clouds over the band caused founding member Nicke Andersson to call it quits. In 1997, Andersson closed the Entombed book and with garage-rock band The Hellacopters, went on creating music.
Death bands that shook the world in early ‘90s had to go through similar things. As the fan base increasingly felt death was “being commercialized,” legendary bands fell from grace. Meanwhile, a new genre, claiming to be the “real underground” was gathering speed. But black metal’s commercialization less than a decade later would be with much curious antics and go much deeper.
Who is left standing? To give Entombed credit, it continues to make great music: Just lend an ear to Serpent Saints (2007). Napalm Death also comes to mind. Under intense market pressure, Napalm Death had entered the studio Oct. 1993 and left it May 1994 with its “most commercial” album, “Fear, Emptiness, Despair.”
The band retaliated six years later, with the aptly-titled “Enemy of The Music Business” and continues to make uncompromising music.
What also stand from those days are the words of Jo Bench, the Bolt Thrower bassist. “We thought going under the management of Columbia was a death kiss for Earache. We were happy of not being a part of all this. When big companies enter a genre, they generally kill it and get out. But they could not drag Bolt Thrower.” (Choosing Death, pg. 190)
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