THE ORIGINAL DR. PIGFACE

Attila Csihar has fronted black- and doom-metal bands for over 20 years. His first band, Tormentor, were from his native Hungary. His next outfit were Mayhem, one of the most terrifying Norwegian black-metal bands of all time, where he famously subbed in for freshly suicided frontman Dead on 1994’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and has fronted their live performances since 2007. He’s also worked with Italian industrial black-metallers Aborym, and also toured with American doom-metal darlings Sunn O))). But Attila really deserves to be a fashion icon instead of a simple nerd one. His stage costumes have run the gamut from some sort of man-pig physician (made from real pig) to your standard corpse to some sort of corpse-like tree. We called him up to chat about costumes and casual day wear.

Vice: Where do your costumes come from?
Attila Csihar: Most of the costumes I wear are either designed by me or are collaborations. A lot of my masks
were made by Nader Sadek in New York, and most of my clothes by my friend Mate Benyovszky in Budapest. The last costume I wore with Mayhem was actually a real priest’s funeral outfit. It was 70 years old and was handmade by nuns. The costume was worn at hundreds, maybe thousands of funerals through the years. I bought it in a Christian store–it was kind of expensive, but it was worth it since it’s really beautiful. Of course, I didn’t say why I was buying it. I had to lie and say I was working on a film. But I think the church lies to us too, so it’s alright.

Of all the costumes you’ve worn, do you have a favorite?
Well, there were so many favorites. There was Dr. Pig–a scalped pig’s face I wore over my own face. It was a huge scandal in Sweden. The Mummy–that went with an onstage time machine. The Pimp was good, and the Slavetrader. I had a black guy on a leash for that. He got a bit worried when I tried to sell him during the show, but he was cool really about it–he realized it wasn’t a racist thing. People in Tel Aviv and Moscow really loved the Dictator, and there were others too: De Gaulle and Alien. I rose from an onstage coffin for Satan Klaus. Oh also there was Quasimodo.

What’s the spookiest?
The Invisible Man.

The most expensive?
Most expensive was either the Broken-Mirror Man or the priest’s funeral costume.

And the worst?
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 were using white make-up, so I started to wear a white base and put black make-up on top, around the eyes and the mouth. When Dead did a similar thing in the early 90s, he was the first to label that make-up technique “corpse paint.”

What about the fluorescent frozen-tree thing?
For the Sunn O))) tour, the concepts behind the costumes were supposed to have a totally different meaning. The tree was about transformation. During the show, I gradually transform from a human into a plant.

Is it all about costumes with you, or do you like mainstream fashion too? Like what’s casual for Attila?
For normal everyday wear, I like some of the Cyberdog clothes, but not everything they do.

Is there a costume you’d like to wear but which is just too expensive, or made out of something too rare, or is one that somebody has worn already?
Yes, of course. I talked to Banks Violette about making something that would make me look like I was performing in another dimension. I wanted to levitate in a huge, onstage 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. Huge crystals could be good too for appearing as a fossil. I also wanted a spacesuit but they are extremely expensive.

JULIEN MOREL
PHOTOS BY ESTELLE HANANIA