Boyd Blake Rice (born December 16, 1956) is an American experimental sound/noise musician using the name of NON since the mid-1970s. A pioneer of industrial music, he is also a writer, archivist, actor, and photographer. Rice's music and art have been influenced by fascist ideas and aesthetics, and he has often been accused of fascist sympathies as a result.
He first made the news for, at the age of 19, showing a skinned pig or goat's head to then-First Lady Betty Ford. He was arrested and interrogated by the US Secret Service, but was released.[6][7][8]
Music
Rice creates music under his own name, as well as under the moniker of NON and with contributors under various other project names.[9]
From his earliest recordings, Rice has experimented with both sound and the medium through which that sound is conveyed. His methods of expanding upon the listening possibilities for recorded music were simple. On his second seven-inch, he had 2–4 extra holes punched into the record for "multi axial rotation".[10]
On Might! (1995), Rice layers portions of Ragnar Redbeard's Social Darwinist harangue,[12]Might Is Right over sound beds of looped noise and manipulated frequencies.
Other work
After dropping out of high school at the age of 17, Rice began an in-depth study of early 20th-century art movements, producing his own abstract black and white paintings and experimental photographs. Early on, he met European art historian and gallery owner Arturo Schwarz, with whom he began a long correspondence. Schwarz, a biographer of Duchamp and Man Ray, encouraged Rice to pursue his art, no matter what. Though he would later shift his focus to sound, he has never stopped creating visual art and has given a number of one man shows over the years.[13]
In the mid-1970s Rice devoted a great deal of time to experimental photography, developing a process by which he could produce "photographs of things which don't exist".[14] He had a one-man show of the photos in the early 1980s at Richard Peterson's Pink & Pearl Gallery in San Diego, which was documented in the local press.[15]
In the mid-1980s Rice became close friends with Anton LaVey, founder and high priest of the Church of Satan, and was made a priest, then later a magister in the Council of Nine of the Church.[12][16] The two shared many views and had each been inspired by Might Is Right.[12] In 1987 Rice and Nikolas Schreck founded the Abraxas Foundation, an "occult-fascist" think tank that also counted Adam Parfrey and Michael J. Moynihan among its members.[17] During an interview, Rice described the basic philosophy of his foundation as being "The strong rule the weak, and the clever rule the strong".[18]
Rice was for many years an advocate of Charles Manson, personally communicating with him in prison.[19][20] This ended when Rice was arrested for bringing a bullet with him into the prison, which ended their relationship; despite this, in February 1989 Rice appeared rallying for Manson's release during Manson's parole hearing, wearing a sign that read "Guilty of Witchcraft? Manson Killed No One."[21][20] Rice has documented the writings of Manson in his role as contributing editor of the 1988 book The Manson File.[22]
Views
Since the 1980s Rice's music and art have been influenced by fascist ideas and aesthetics. The packaging for NON's 1986 album Blood & Flame, for instance, included a Wolfsangel and a quote from Alfred Rosenberg.[23] He has often been accused of fascist sympathies as a result.[24][25] He also cultivated connections with neo-Nazis such as James Mason (who he began corresponding with in 1986[26]), Tom Metzger (whose TV show he appeared on in 1986[27][11]) and American Front leader Bob Heick.[28][11] He has described himself as an "aesthetic fascist".[29] In 1997, he stated in an interview that:[30]
I feel that I’m a fascist, but 'Nazi' is a real specific term... I'm a fascist in the sense of the modern bastardized meaning of the word. I’m completely against democratic values and liberalism. I think that they have very little to do with life on Earth. I think they’re an ideological abstraction.
In his first letter to Mason, dated April 1986, Rice states “I am completely of the Manson-Hitler thought & do whatever I can to further it.”[31] This was only made public in the 2020s upon being reported on by Spencer Sunshine, having been read from a collection of Mason's paper correspondence located in an archive at the University of Kansas.[31] In a later letter to Mason, Spencer reports that Rice states that he was reading American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell’s book White Power and calls it "awesome", and that this letter was decorated with a swastika at the top of the page.[31]
During one broadcast of Metzger's show, Rice agreed with the host's assertions that industrial music was “a new propaganda art form for white Aryans”, and when asked about “racial separatism and tribalism,” Rice said “it seems like the only intelligent way to go.”[31]
Rice introduced Mason to Adam Parfrey and Michael J. Moynihan, who would bring Mason's book Siege to a larger audience.[25] In 1989, Rice and Heick were photographed for Sassy wearing American Front uniforms and brandishing knives. He has also expressed support for fascism in his writings, interviews, and public appearances.[32]
Rice began to face a backlash for these associations in the late 1980s, when more left-wing avant-garde figures like Jello Biafra, Peter Christopherson, and V. Vale cut their ties with him.[33] In the 1990s he began to disassociate himself from the far right and to use fascist iconography with more irony.[34]
Rice has denied that he is a neo-Nazi.[35] In one 2012 interview he praised Arthur de Gobineau while adding, “I don’t think that to believe in the principle of natural inequality that necessarily equates to: you hate black people or you hate Jews or something.”[36] In another 2019 interview he described himself as "utterly apolitical."[37] A 2018 art show was cancelled because of protests over Rice's fascist associations,[35] as were some shows on Rice's 2013 tour with Cold Cave.[38][39]
Rice was arrested in 1995 for domestic violence, though never charged.[41] Carver writes in her memoir, Drugs Are Nice, that he physically abused her.[41]
Hensley, Chad (Fall–Winter 2000). "Non Sense: An Interview with Boyd Rice". Esoterra: The Journal of Extreme Culture. No.9. pp.12–17. ISBN978-1-84068-166-6.
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