Samoth — Tomas Thormodsæter Haugen, born in Norway in 1974 — is Emperor's guitarist and co-founder, and one of the central figures of the Norwegian black metal scene of the 1990s. He formed the band with Ihsahn in 1991, still a teenager, and much of the guitar architecture on the records is his: long riffs in continuous tremolo, layered over the keyboard arrangements, creating the dense sonic mass that distinguishes Emperor from its contemporaries. While most of the scene sought minimal rawness, the group built layers. His path includes a criminal episode that is part of the band's public history: in 1994 he was convicted of arson for the destruction of Skjold church, which occurred in 1992, and served a prison sentence. The wave of attacks on churches in Norway in that period involved several musicians from the scene and is inseparable from any account of it. After Emperor ended in 2001 he formed Zyklon, an industrial death metal band, and also began working as a producer and businessman within the field. He returned to performing with Emperor's reunion from 2013.
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