Gorgoroth Vocalist Is Gay

A Norwegian black metal band leader has come out of the closet.

Gaahl (real name Kristian Espedal), who fronts Bergen, Norway's Gorgoroth and was once called "the evil face of black metal," recently told Germany's Hard Rock magazine that he's gay.

"It doesn't feel to me as if I've outed myself because up until now the whole thing was a non-issue for me," the 33-year-old Gaahl said. "All this evolved very naturally. I feel how I feel and I've never made any secret about it."

This is a bit surprising, since the black metal scene apparently has a reputation for being homophobic. Gaahl's sexual orientation became the subject of rumours when he announced in July that he and 20-year-old Norwegian modelling agent Dan DeVero and designer Sonja Wu were working on a women's fashion collection. DeVero also told a journalist that "Kristian and I developed a close relationship, and he often told me that he had strong feelings for me."

Gaahl's outing is also surprising considering he was involved in far right circles in the early '90s. This also bled into this decade, as he was sentenced to a year in prison for assault in 2001, and spent another nine months in jail the next year for assaulting and allegedly torturing a man. He now says he has friends from both sides of the political spectrum, left and right, all of whom respect him and don't bother him over his sexual orientation or resort to violence.

"It was a slow process that took years and not something that was triggered by any one thing," Gaahl told Hard Rock. "I've always had friends from different cultural backgrounds, hence I was exposed to different ways of thinking from the get-go.

"That's probably why I never developed a deep set of political beliefs. But there have definitely been changes and an evolution in my thinking. I'm a different person today."

DeVero recently told Norway's Bergensavisen newspaper that he's happy Gaahl came out of the closet, but that he's been receiving daily email threats since then. DeVero later said he and Gaahl were never romantically involved.

"People send me emails and some of them have even knocked on my door," he told Bergensavisen. "It is frightening and scary to see this kind of reaction when you are so young."

Gaahl joined Gorgoroth in 1998. He's since released four albums with the band, with the latest being 2006's Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam.

Gaahl may be best known to those not immersed in the black metal scene as the interview subject in the 2005 documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey who gave one-word answers while drinking wine.