Tuesday evening, the apartment building had to be evacuated after heavy smoke development, and the fire department responded with several vehicles to the address on Schweigaards gate, where Neseblod Records is located. Neseblod Records occupies the same space as the old Helvete Record Store, which was once owned by Øystein Aarseth, also known as “Euronymous” from the band Mayhem. Aarseth started the store in 1991. Neseblod store was opened in 2013, in parts of the premises of the old record store “Helvete,” and is considered legendary in the metal community.
“It’s unclear what happened. I’m standing outside now and can’t go into the premises, which are very smoky. Therefore, I have no idea of the extent of the damage,” says Grete Neseblod to VG around 11 PM Tuesday evening.
On her own Instagram account, Grete writes: “There has been a fire in the store, it is now extinguished. Hoping for as little damage as possible, everything smells like smoke.”
They do not know the cause of the fire but say they received a report that someone had observed flames in the basement.
“We were there with many vehicles at first because it was a 1890s building. The fire was extinguished reasonably quickly,” says duty commander at Oslo Fire and Rescue Department, Robert Gudmundsen.
He explains that one of the firefighters who responded to the fire inhaled some smoke and was checked by medical personnel on-site.
Let’s just hope the damage is as minimal as possible.
Hell on Earth Metal Zine 