# Attila Csihar
**Attila Csihar** (Csihar Attila) is a Hungarian extreme metal vocalist, best known as the frontman of the Norwegian black metal band [Mayhem](https://www.edgepedia.org/mayhem-band), a position he has held on and off since late 1992, and previously the singer of the Hungarian band Tormentor, which he founded in 1985.[1](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026) His voice is one of the most recognizable in extreme metal, appearing not only with Mayhem and Tormentor but with projects such as Void ov Voices and the drone band [Sunn O)))](https://www.edgepedia.org/sunn-o).[2](https://www.metal-rules.com/2020/01/01/attila-csihar-mayhem-tormentor/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Origin | Hungarian vocalist; founded the proto-black metal band Tormentor in Budapest in 1985, in his mid-teens, using the stage name "Mayhem"[1](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026) |
| Mayhem entry | Invited by guitarist Euronymous in 1991 after the suicide of frontman Dead; Euronymous had obtained Tormentor demos through the tape-trading network[3](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/mayhem-vocalist-attila-discusses-euronymous-murder) |
| Signature album | De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (1994), his full-length Mayhem debut, recorded before the murder of Euronymous in August 1993[4](https://www.vice.com/en/article/mayhem-esoteric-warfare-attila-csihar-interview/) • [3](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/mayhem-vocalist-attila-discusses-euronymous-murder) |
| Vocal style | Rather than the standard black metal screech, a gnarled, throat-singing rasp; he took classical vocal lessons in the early 1990s and treats the voice like an instrument with many colors[1](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026) • [5](https://thequietus.com/interviews/sunn-o-attila-csihar-interview/) |
| Other projects | Sunn O))) (from the White2 album onward), his solo project Void ov Voices, and the death metal band Sinsaenum, joined in 2016 at the invitation of ex-Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison[5](https://thequietus.com/interviews/sunn-o-attila-csihar-interview/) • [6](https://www.infernofestival.net/pm2024/Void%20ov%20Voices%20ENG.pdf) • [1](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026) |
| Career span | First performed with Tormentor at age 15; by his own account in a recent interview he was 55, with about 40 years of vocal work behind him[7](https://ondarock.com/interviews/mayhem-attilacsihar/) |
## Tormentor and communist Hungary
Csihar's love of metal began with an Iron Maiden show in 1984, held in the parking lot of the Budapest Sportcsarnok stadium after Hungary's then-Communist regime refused to let the band play inside.[1](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026) He found his direction after discovering Venom's *Black Metal* album in an underground shop, and founded Tormentor in 1985. The band's first show was at a talent competition, with Csihar wearing a mask and a black cape borrowed from a theater school; they reached the second round.[1](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026)
Under the regime, official gigs required state sanction and lyrics were parsed for political content. Tormentor recorded an album, *Anno Domini* (1988), for which Csihar had to submit the lyrics to the authorities; the Communist system collapsed before it could be released, and the album never came out at the time.[1](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026) The record nonetheless reached cult status in black metal circles, and its demos circulated through the underground tape-trading network as far as Norway.[8](https://www.andrewliles.com/10-questions/attila-csihar/) • [1](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026)
## Joining Mayhem and De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
In 1991 Csihar received what he describes as a "very polite" letter from Mayhem guitarist [Euronymous](https://www.edgepedia.org/euronymous) (Øystein Aarseth), asking whether he would join the band following the suicide of their singer Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin). Euronymous sent two tapes: the already released EP *Deathcrush* and the demos for what would become *De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas*. Csihar recalls being stunned by the demo's riffs and drumming; some of his friends assumed the tape had been sped up.[3](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/mayhem-vocalist-attila-discusses-euronymous-murder)
When he traveled from Hungary to Norway he was met by Euronymous and by [Varg Vikernes](https://www.edgepedia.org/varg-vikernes), then the band's bassist, who wore chainmail he said he needed for protection. Csihar's impression of Euronymous differed sharply from the figure he had imagined from their correspondence: "He seemed very polite, kind of gentle," and always used a typewriter for letters.[3](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/mayhem-vocalist-attila-discusses-euronymous-murder)
**The vocals.** For *De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas*, Csihar deliberately avoided the screech that would become standard among black metal vocalists, producing instead a gnarled, throat-singing rasp. He has attributed the approach partly to an influence of the Slovenian avant-industrial band Laibach and partly to a spiritual experience he dates to May 23, 1992, in Budapest, which he describes as a vision of the sun that reoriented his life. He recorded the vocals with the lights off, surrounded by candles.[1](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026) A contemporary studio account describes his performance as unlike anything the producers had heard before, an expressive and dramatic way of voicing a black metal album.[9](https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/producing-norwegian-black-metal-part-1)
The album was overshadowed before its 1994 release by the murder of Euronymous: on August 10, 1993, Vikernes stabbed him to death outside his home in Oslo. Csihar, back in Budapest by then, learned of the death weeks later from a small news item in a Hungarian music paper, having assumed the band members who stopped answering calls were on vacation. He has said he "totally lost my way for a few years" afterward.[3](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/mayhem-vocalist-attila-discusses-euronymous-murder) • [1](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026)
## Vocal approach
Csihar's singing draws on training and self-teaching rather than a single extreme-metal idiom. He took classical vocal lessons in the early 1990s, whose breathing exercises stayed with him, and taught himself throat singing from descriptions because he never found a master from the Mongolian or Tibetan traditions to study with; he describes forming a chamber in the mouth that produces harmonics, "almost like feedback."[5](https://thequietus.com/interviews/sunn-o-attila-csihar-interview/)
He describes his current method as painting with the voice, choosing whichever color of sound fits a particular part of a song. The operatic "priest's voice" on the title track of *De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas* was an early example; *Ordo Ad Chao* used a range of techniques, while he regrets the narrower, scream-only approach of *Esoteric Warfare* (2014), after which bandmates and producers encouraged him to use the full spectrum of his voice again.[7](https://ondarock.com/interviews/mayhem-attilacsihar/)
## Sunn O))) and other projects
Csihar's connection with the drone metal band Sunn O))) began in 1995, when guitarist Stephen O'Malley interviewed him for his magazine *Descent* about Tormentor and Mayhem. O'Malley later sent him recordings, including the album *Flight of the Behemoth*, and the collaboration took shape on the album *White2*. Csihar also contributed the track "Decay" ("The Symptoms of Kali Yuga"), and his 2003 compilation *The Beast of Attila Csihar* was released on the band's Southern Lord label through O'Malley's connection with Greg Anderson.[5](https://thequietus.com/interviews/sunn-o-attila-csihar-interview/) He took a break from the band around 2005, when he returned to Mayhem, and Sunn O))) recorded their album *Black One* with other vocalists.[5](https://thequietus.com/interviews/sunn-o-attila-csihar-interview/)
His solo project Void ov Voices has included a silent-film concert program performed at the Inferno Metal Festival in 2024, and an album named after the Baalbek monolith in Lebanon.[6](https://www.infernofestival.net/pm2024/Void%20ov%20Voices%20ENG.pdf) • [1](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026) His recorded output also extends to unexpected territory: he performed the role of Caiaphas in a staged production of [Andrew Lloyd Webber](https://www.edgepedia.org/andrew-lloyd-webber)'s rock opera *Jesus Christ Superstar*, singing with a rock band and a classical ensemble together.[10](https://www.truemetal.it/heavy-metal-news/intervista-mayhem-attila-csihar-2-456178) • [11](https://www.revolvermag.com/music/attila-csihar-dark-past/)
## Sinsaenum and later Mayhem
The project Csihar describes as weighing on him most is Sinsaenum, a death metal band he joined as co-vocalist in 2016 at the invitation of [Joey Jordison](https://www.edgepedia.org/joey-jordison), the former Slipknot drummer. The two had met a decade earlier at the Gates of Metal festival in California in 2006, where a Mayhem performance caused a scandal; Csihar appeared as a "mad doctor" wearing a face made from the skin of a pig's head. Sinsaenum's career was cut short by Jordison's premature death.[1](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026)
Mayhem marked their 40th anniversary with a world tour, and released the album *Liturgy of Death* through Century Media.[1](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026) • [3](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/mayhem-vocalist-attila-discusses-euronymous-murder) Csihar has fronted the band on and off since late 1992, making him the singer most closely identified with its most celebrated album and its longest continuous era.[1](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026)
## References
1. [Mayhem's Attila Csihar comes clean on 30 years of black metal, Louder](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/biographies/mayhem-attila-csihar-interview-2026)
2. [Interview with Attila Csihar of Mayhem and Tormentor, Metal-Rules.com (2020)](https://www.metal-rules.com/2020/01/01/attila-csihar-mayhem-tormentor/)
3. ["He seemed very polite, kind of gentle." The vocalist who traded tapes with one of black metal's most notorious characters, Metal Hammer via Louder (March 2026)](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/mayhem-vocalist-attila-discusses-euronymous-murder)
4. [What Is Extremity? A Conversation with Mayhem's Attila Csihar, VICE (June 21, 2014)](https://www.vice.com/en/article/mayhem-esoteric-warfare-attila-csihar-interview/)
5. [Monoliths & Mysteriis: Sunn O))) Vokillist Attila Csihar Interviewed, The Quietus (December 7, 2009)](https://thequietus.com/interviews/sunn-o-attila-csihar-interview/)
6. [Silent Movie Concert with Void ov Voices, Inferno Metal Festival 2024](https://www.infernofestival.net/pm2024/Void%20ov%20Voices%20ENG.pdf)
7. [Mayhem – Attila Csihar – Liturgy of Death, OndaRock interview (2025)](https://ondarock.com/interviews/mayhem-attilacsihar/)
8. [Attila Csihar, 10 Questions, Andrew Liles](https://www.andrewliles.com/10-questions/attila-csihar/)
9. [Producing Norwegian Black Metal, Part 1, Sound On Sound](https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/producing-norwegian-black-metal-part-1)
10. [Intervista Mayhem (Attila Csihar) 2, truemetal.it](https://www.truemetal.it/heavy-metal-news/intervista-mayhem-attila-csihar-2-456178)
11. [Attila Csihar: From the Dark Past, Revolver](https://www.revolvermag.com/music/attila-csihar-dark-past/)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musicians and ensembles › Individual musical biographies › Rock, metal, and popular-band musicians › Heavy metal › Heavy metal vocalists*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 17, 2026; Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 12, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license