Stian Aarstad is a Norwegian pianist and keyboard player best known for his four-year (1993–1997) stint with the

black metal Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, a shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, raw ( lo-fi) recording, unconventional song structures, and an em ...

band

Dimmu Borgir Dimmu Borgir () is a Norwegian symphonic black metal band from Jessheim, formed in 1993. The name is derived from Dimmuborgir, a volcanic formation in Iceland, the name of which means "dark cities" or "dark castles/fortresses" in Icelandic ...

during which he played keyboards and synthesizers while engendering criticism and controversy for appearing onstage and performing in a top-hat-and-cape outfit reminiscent of

Jack the Ripper Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer ...

,Metal Storm
/ref> while wearing minimal corpse makeup and not moving or showing any emotion. Upon joining Dimmu Borgir, he didn't listen to metal music, preferring only to listen to classical. Dimmu Borgir's second album Stormblåst (1996) was laced with plagiarism, Stian Aarstad stole from the Magnum track "Sacred Hour" in the opening song "Alt lys er svunnet hen" ("All Light Has Faded Away") and he copied the title track of the Amiga game "Agony" for the song "Sorgens kammer" ("Chamber of Sorrow"). Aarstad contributed little if any originality to this album, the band re-recorded the album in 2005 leaving these plagiarized tracks out.http://www.psygnosis.org/games/agony/files/notes.txt In 1998 to 1999, he produced a demo for the

unblack metal Unblack metal (also known as Christian black metal) is a religious philosophy and subgenre within black metal, inheriting several characteristics of it, such as the melody, the lyrics and the aesthetics ( corpse paint), whose artists either dire ...

band

Vaakevandring Vaakevandring was a Norwegian unblack metal band that was active from 1996 to 2007. The name in Norwegian is a reference to the resurrection of Jesus.

, which was later re-released as a self-titled EP in 2004. In the 2000s, Aarstad had been the pianist for the band Enthral, but left his regular position during the recording of the band's third album. As of 2005, Aarstad has been performing with the electronica/pop music act Karatkorn.

References

1970s births Living people Dimmu Borgir members Norwegian black metal musicians Heavy metal keyboardists Norwegian rock keyboardists Norwegian rock pianists Norwegian male pianists Place of birth missing (living people) Old Man's Child members Heavy metal producers {{Record-producer-stub