Hat-rock

Da sikh-tempel-morderen Wade Michael Page begynte å spille gitar som ten­åring så han opp til folk som Ste­vie Ray Vaug­han. Så kom han inn i et helt annet musikkmiljø.

I slut­ten av tyve­årene, la han ut på en reise, som man kan si endte foran sikh-templet i Mil­wau­kee. Han tok sitt eget liv etter å ha blitt skutt i maven. Han ble 40 år. Wil­liam Pierce, leder av den nazi-inspirerte Nasjo­nal­al­li­an­sen, kalte ham en taper blant tapere.

Ste­mo­ren har snak­ket med Wall Street Jour­nal.

He sold all his pos­ses­sions and set off on a road trip to extre­mist music fes­ti­vals, inclu­ding one cal­led Ham­mer­fest 2000 in Geor­gia, accor­ding to an inter­view pos­ted on the web­site of his record label, Label 56. He even­tually sett­led in Cali­for­nia, joi­ning a band cal­led Young­land, whose songs include “Speed Racist” and “Pride of America.“

På 90-tallet var det en viss opp­merk­som­het rundt nazi-rockeband i Nord-Europa, som grup­pen Oskar Dir­lew­ang­ler - opp­kalt etter en beryk­tet SS-mann. Jo verre, jo bedre.

Far below the radar of main­stream music fans, the hate-music cir­cuit thrums to its own beat. All-day con­certs feature loud music sta­ged in front of mosh pits, with gun and mer­chan­dise sales, inclu­ding Third Reich memo­ra­bi­lia, said Todd Blod­gett, who from 1998-2001 co-owned Resi­stance Records, a label that has recor­ded hate music.

“It’s very com­mon to have stab­bings and teeth get­ting knocked out,” he said. Calls to Resi­stance Records in Hills­boro, W.Va., went unanswered.

Bands often try to outdo each other with hate­ful lyrics, he said, recal­ling one Geor­gia con­cert where a blond-haired woman did a take-off on the famous Nancy Sina­tra song “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” in which she had changed a line to say: “One of these days these boots are gonna’ stomp out every Jew,” accor­ding to Mr. Blod­gett. “The crowd went wild.”

Mil­jø­ene vir­ker peri­fere, de gir iden­ti­tet til men­nes­ker som sli­ter, og popu­lær­kul­tu­ren har tema­ti­sert den unge hvite mann som blir høyre­eks­trem. En nega­tiv iden­ti­tet kan være bedre enn ingen. For den som er i oppo­si­sjon til sam­fun­net er nazist, eller skin­head, det mest eks­treme man kan være. Dette er en til­trek­ning i seg selv.

USA er stort nok og har en våpen­lov og First Amend­ment, ytrings­fri­het, som gir slike mil­jøer et mye større spille­rom enn i Europa.

Wil­liam Pierce, man­nen bak The Tur­ner Dia­ries som inspi­rerte Timo­thy McVeigh, Oklahoma-bomberen, kjøpte opp flere plate­mer­ker og sam­let dem under en paraply.

In the early 2000s, when Mr. Page star­ted his road trip, hate rock was hit­ting its stride, accor­ding to Daryl John­son, foun­der of DT Ana­ly­tics, a Washington-based law-enforcement con­sul­ting firm. The Natio­nal Alli­ance, a white natio­na­list group led by Wil­liam Pierce, late aut­hor of “The Tur­ner Dia­ries,” a semi­nal white-power book, con­so­li­dated a num­ber of hate-rock record labels and set up a music cata­log. Under Mr. Pierce, it was a well-organized and even pro­fi­table ope­ra­tion, he said.

Mr. Page played with Young­land for two years and “fil­led in for various bands on gui­tar and bass inclu­ding Cel­tic War­rior, Radi­kal, Max Resist, Inti­mi­da­tion One, Aggres­sive Force [and] Blue Eyed Devils,” accor­ding to a 2010 inter­view with Label 56, which pro­du­ced Mr. Page’s most recent band, End Apathy.

Mr. Blod­gett said he met Mr. Page at various fes­ti­vals during that time. Mr. Page, he recalls, would hand out lite­ra­ture, stuffed into a com­part­ment in his motor­cy­cle, inclu­ding magazi­nes that espou­sed sub­ver­sive, anti-government the­mes and brochu­res pro­mo­ting a video­g­ame with simu­lated kil­ling of eth­nic groups.

Etter James Han­son, Joker fra Aur­ora, og nå Page, vil USA bli mer opp­tatt av de hvite unge menn som går av spo­ret. De vil helt sik­kert også være inter­es­sert i Anders Behring Brei­vik. Det er klare paral­lel­ler; vans­ke­lige hjemme­for­hold, drøm­mer om å bli noe stort, sam­ti­dig som man står uten fot­feste og kas­tes rundt av sosiale krefter.

Som Brei­vik drømte Page også om å telle, om å lage noe som kunne ha inn­fly­telse, enten det var på menings­mar­ke­det eller musikk. Men deres egne per­son­lige mang­ler gjorde sam­ar­beid vanskelig.

On seve­ral occa­sions Mr. Page discus­sed his musi­cal aspi­ra­tions, asking if Resi­stance Records would invest money in his metal band or pro­vide him with a solo recor­ding con­tract, said Mr. Blod­gett, who is now a con­sul­tant with a San Anto­nio mar­ke­ting firm and who said he was an FBI infor­mant during part of his time at the record label. The FBI declined to comment.

Mr. Blod­gett said that Mr. Pierce, who owned all of Resi­stance Records, after buy­ing out Mr. Blod­gett, had no inte­rest because Mr. Page came off “as a loser among losers.”

“Pierce wan­ted people who could at least appear pre­sen­table and not so tru­cu­lent,” he said.

Mr. Page, he added, “was a fai­rly shy, quiet guy until he star­ted tal­king about Jewish people, blacks and Latinos—and then vitriol would spill out of him.”

Det ville vært mer etter boken om den norske masse­mor­de­ren hadde endt sitt liv som Page. Det ville pas­set den den heroisk-tragiske banen som de selv dyrket.

Sam­fun­net må spørre seg hva det er som gjør at noen tip­per over. Det kan ikke forby hat-rock, like lite som det kan forby rap­ping, med sin homo­fobi og kvinne­for­akt. Men det kan bli mer opp­merk­som på hat i alle former.