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Venom, the
original inventers and founders of Black Metal, the creators of
Thrash, Speed, Death and Power Metal, the deadliest force ever to hit the
music scene, the original sinners playing the Devil's music at its highest
intensity, the ultimate Rock n' Roll band in the universe, Venom,
hell fucking yeah!!!!!!!.
It all started way back in the 70's
in the north of England, a young Heavy Metal / Punk Rocker called
Conrad Lant started working in a recording studio as the assistant
engineer after leaving school, one day while visiting a friends house, he
met a guitarist called Jeff Dunn, they talked about music and the
bands they were in and they quickly discovered that they both shared the
idea of creating a band that was heavier and more over the top than
anything anyone had ever seen before, more Satanic than Black
Sabbath, louder than Motörhead, with a pyrotechnic show to rival
Kiss, and with even more leather and studs than Judas
Priest, the ultimate ingredients for the Ultimate Metal
Band.
Conrad had been interested in music from an early age
and had played in a few different bands throughout his school days, one
early band being 'Album Graecum' which he had read in a book in the school
library meant Petrified Dog Shit, then with some of the members of AG he
formed another group called 'Dwarfstar', playing songs by the Pistols,
T/Rex, Bowie, UFO and of course, Judas Priest, AC/DC and Motorhead.
Venom, the
notable Newcastle ne’er-do-wells who, in 1982, detonated the whole black
metal explosion at one stroke, by releasing an album with that title.
Their story is one of the most surprising in the history of UK metal,
seemingly rising from impossible conditions to become the cornerstones of
the modern sound. Think about it. How many bands have actually inspired –
and named – a whole area of music, almost single-handedly.
Venom weren’t a band prepared to
compromise. They held firm to their principles, even if at times, this
might have cost them significant rewards. For instance, they always
boasted that their stage show was so massive they’d never play a UK date
until they could be satisfied on being booked into a venue that could
house every last pyro and effect. That’s why they made their debut at the
legendary Hammersmith Odeon in London on June 1, 1984. Go on, name one
other UK band whose first ever live performance was at such a prestigious
venue. Easy, isn’t it? There is no other.
“We did it to shove two
fingers up at the music industry. Look, we were told – like everybody else
– that there was a certain way of doing things in this industry. You had
to pay your dues, right? You had to get in a van and do all the shit
holes. Then, and only then, could you consider moving up to bigger venues.
That was the way it worked – and there was no other way. Oh yeah? We said
‘Bollocks’, booked the Hammersmith Odeon in London and filled out. Our
first British gig – well, apart from a couple in local church halls in the
very early days. Now what did the know-alls have to
say?
“That was the way we were -
and are. I was a tape operator at Impulse Studios in Newcastle. I had to
listen as bands came in, and said they wanted to sound like Judas Priest
or Saxon. They wanted this song to be like one band, and another to be
like this other happening act of the day. And there was me, in the corner,
saying, ‘Hey I’ve got a band too!’, and being ignored. All these local
musicians were convinced they were the ones likely to succeed. But there
was no originality there. It’s typical of the city. It’s club land, where
everyone knows the words to ‘We Are The World’. Where’s the originality?
You think back to all those bands at the time: Tygers Of Pan Tang, Raven,
White Spirit. They all sounded like someone else. We didn’t.
“From
the start, I wanted Venom to be different, to stand apart, even if it
meant we got ridiculed. When I joined the band, we sounded like some Judas
Priest tribute band. We even had a guitarist with long blond hair. He
(Mantas) may deny it now, but he knows it’s true. That was Venom back
then. The first thing I had to do was knock it out of them.”
So who
are Venom? Where do they come from? And how did they become so
influential without achieving the enormous commerciality that was surely
their birthright. Ah, now here lies a soap opera. So, come with me, back
to 1979, when the world was very different. When mobile phones and the
Internet were figments of fevered comic book superheroes. And when the New
Wave Of British Heavy Metal was starting to make its presence felt. And in
a dark corner of the North East of England
existed…
Guillotine. Yes that was the original name of the band. But they quickly made
the switch to their more renowned name, something suggested by a biker
mate (there are variations on this part of the story, but this is the way
the band themselves recall it).
“When I
joined Guillotine they were a five-piece,” recalls
Cronos. “In fact, I got in there as a rhythm guitarist. The guy they had previously had short
curly hair and just didn't look the part, so I took over on rhythm guitar
with Jeff on lead.”
“What
happened was that I was going out with Jeff’s girlfriend’s best mate.
Anyway, I met Jeff one night when I had
called to take the girl out, he was there with his girlfriend and we got
twalking, I told him I was in a ‘punk/metal’ band called DwarfStar and
he said he was in a ‘priest style’ band called Guillotine, we
talked about our influences, and I mentioned that I wanted to create a
Satanic Metal band; he also wanted to go this route, and when he found out
that I worked in a studio (Impulse), that was it. He had to get me in the
band, because they just couldn’t afford the cost of
recording!”
‘Jeff Dunn, the guitarist who started the band
Guillotine along with guitarist Dave Rutherford and bassist Alan Winston,
they hadn’t long parted company with their singer and drummer when they
met Clive Archer at a Judas Priest concert, Clive was in a band called
Oberon and wasn’t happy with his guitarist and bass player, then
finally after a few meetings the members of Guillotine decided to
give Clive and his drummer (Tony Bray) an audition, they got the job and
Guillotine were finally a full band again, only problem was,
original member Dave Rutherford wasn’t really getting on very well with
the new guys, although Jeff saw their potential, especially the mad
pounding out-of-time drummer, Tony; the world knows them better, of
course, as Jeff = Mantas and Tony =
Abaddon.
“We decided on those names very
early on. I found a piece of paper recently from when the band first
started, and on it were written Conrad Cronos, Jeff Mantas and Tony
Abaddon. Come on, it would have been daft to be singing about Satan and
demons, and all those dark things, and then for me to say, ‘Hello Jeff!’.
We’d have felt like twats. That was always my problem with Ozzy. He’d sing
about evil things and dark figures, then spoilt it all by going, Oh God,
help me!’ Wrong! That was stopping one step short of where I wanted to
take this band. We were prepared to go beyond the Hammer Horror of Black
Sabbath.”
For the record, Cronos comes from Greek mythology and was
one of the Titans, the generation that preceded Zeus and the Olympian
gods. He was the son of Uranus and Gaia. Legend has it that Uranus was so
disgusted by Cronos when he was born that he tried to shove his own son
back into Gaia! Abaddon is the Hebrew term for the demon known as ‘the
angel of the bottomless pit’. Or The King Of Grasshoppers. Mantas is
another name for Tzizimime, who is regarded in certain cultures as a demon
of twilight.
The quintet
was quickly whittled down to the infamous trio of Cronos, Mantas and
Abaddon - and most would regard this as being the classic
Venom line-up.
“I switched from
rhythm guitar when our bassist left one week before one of our gigs, we
couldn’t play a gig without a bass player and we didn’t have time to teach
a new one the songs, so I agreed to switch,” says Cronos with that
trademark hyper-speed verbal delivery that matches the velocity of the
music.
"I was working at
Impulse Studios in Wallsend [the Neat Records studios] and from first
getting the job I used to pester the managing director about bringing my
band 'DwarfStar' into the studio, although without any joy, then when I
joined Venom I tried again, although without any recordings for the MD to
hear he wasn't going to entertain my ideas at all. So one day at out
Church Hall rehearsals I set up an old crappy cassette player and recorded
our rehearsal, it was terrible, the hall was way to big and the
recording really booming, a right racket, but anyway I played it to
everyone at the studio and they hated it, and not surprising as
the big church hall reverb didn’t do justice to our sound and we sounded
terrible, but soon after I was able to convince
the engineer (Mickey Sweeney) to work for free if I'd stay back
every night in the studio and help him with other sessions, he agreed so I now just had to try to
convince the studio boss (Dave Wood) to give me a
few hours for free also, again agreeing to
do all sorts of extra work around the studio, this is
when we recorded the 3 track demo, at last we had a good-ish
quality recording our ourselves to play to the world, and
I made as many copies as I could to mail out to all sort of labels and
magazines, and one mag in particular was 'Sounds Magazine',
and we were astonished that Geoff Barton decided
to put all 3 tracks in his play list, and for a few weeks
running, he claimed he loved
them so much he didn't want 3 different artists like the other journalists
put in their play lists, he just put all 3 of our song from the demo".
“We had a
singer at the time, Clive Archer, he had the idea of calling himself Jesus Christ as
his stage name [?] which wasn't really in tune with the rest of our names,
although he used to put all this lime powder on his face and let it dry,
then he'd move his face and let it crack, it was the birth of corpse
paint, although a lot more gruesome. Archer
didn’t exactly endear himself to the rest of the band when he chose an
inappropriate stage name.
That in itself
was enough to get him fired, but not until we got a chance to go in the
studio one more time”.
Neat
Records decided at this time that as there were so many [skint] bands
around that all needed to record, that he would put an affordable deal
together called the '£50 Demos’, this was 4 hours in the
studio to record as many live songs as possible straight to 2 track
master, no fancy 16 or 24 track recording with a mix later, oh no, just
set up the equipment, get a basic sound on everything, then go for it,
about as live as you can get in a studio. But £50 was still way to
much for us in those days, I remember I only got about £20 a week
wages. So again I promised to work impossibly long
hours in the studio to pay for the session,
and eventually after much grovelling, I was
finally given the go ahead to bring the band in to the studio to record
the ‘£50 Demos’.
So on the 10th October
1980 we entered the studio, we recorded 6 tracks in the 4 hours we were
given.
Sons Of Satan, In League With Satan, Angel Dust, Live Like An
Angel, Schizo and the band song Venom. When it was time to record
Live Like An Angel Jeff asked me if I'd have a
go singing
it, I said "Hell Yeah", although at the end of the session we had a band meeting and Jeff and
Tony said that they preferred my vocal style to Clive’s. Clive was
very big about the whole situation even though he had in reality just been
sacked, he said we could keep his PA for me to sing into,
and his parting words were something like; ‘I fucking love this band, I
really hope you guys make it”.
These
demos, the fact that Clive was out, Neat Records finally agreed to take a
chance and let Venom record a
single. “Geoff Barton (then of ‘Sounds’ magazine, a strong supporter
of Venom in their early years) ended a review of the (self-titled) White
Spirit album by saying; “in closing can I just politely suggest that
Neat Records should release a single by the virulent Venom, and soon”.
That seemed to help our cause a little bit, as Neat were surprised that a
classic rock fan like Geoff would like the band. [Neat thought we had
bribed him?] Anyway, this was when the band
first shocked an unsuspecting public with the
single ‘In League With Satan’,
[c/w: Live Like An Angel ~ Die Like A Devil] a seven incher that was so savage
it made Iron Maiden sound like grannies with dyspepsia.
“I had to really work hard in the studio to
get us enough time to cut that single. We were asked by Neat to work with a guy called Steve Thompson as pop producer – and we hated
him with a vengeance. He didn’t get what we were about at all, he was just some
old 'know-it-all' fat guy who
hung out in the building doing sessions for crap club singers [never beens
and never will be's] and the like, he
knew nothing about rock or metal or anything really, we
were gonna tie him up and lock him a flight case, but we knew he had no
sense of humor and wouldn't
find it funny and he'd cry like a baby. The original mix of the single
was awful; it sounded nothing like us. So I did something that nearly got
me fired from the studio as well as blowing the chance of getting the
single released. When nobody was about, I put the 16 track
master tape back on the machine
and completely re-mixed it. Just went for it without permission. I then
swapped the newly mixed tape that I'd done with the
other tape the
other guy had mixed. So it was my mix that got pressed up into the
singles, and it was only when the label was
playing the first batch of discs that arrived at the office that the
producer said,
‘Hang on, that’s not my mix’. I just came clean straight away and admitted, ‘No, it’s not, it’s mine! Honestly, I nearly lost my job over that… the label people were livid. But I stand by what I did. The single
sounded raw, hard and very much the way it should have been. I’ve still
got the original tape at home – it’s nothing like
us, I should probably just destroy it so it never gets out.”
That same year, 1981, the band’s
debut album, Welcome To Hell was unleashed - the audio
equivalent of rubbing a tab of salt into a gaping wound.
“Actually,
what a lot of people don’t realise is that the album was really no more than a collection of
demos! It wasn’t a true album, which is why there’s such a huge difference
in sound quality between 'Welcome To Hell' and the next album, 'Black Metal'.”
In a strange way, the
very demo quality of the record probably did much to boost Venom’s
growing popularity as the uncrowned kings of the rapidly expanding metal
underground.
“Neat Records were very
surprised at how well the single was selling and asked me if we had any
more songs, “loads” I said, so Neat asked if we
would record everything we had so they could hear all our tracks.
We went back
into the studio and recorded what we thought were a bunch of demos. Then,
Neat Records said, ‘You know, we could stick a cover on these and put them
out as an album’. We thought, ‘Great idea. We’ll go back in and re-record
the songs properly with more care and attention etc, and then turn the songs into a proper record’. Er, that wasn’t the way Neat saw it at
all. They literally meant that they wanted to release our demos,
warts n' all, as the first
album!”
Despite a lack of production
values, the album did give Venom a strong foothold for the band on
the metal scene. The fearsome trio were no longer just another band for the masses – they had
substance and real potential. Their roar was ferocious, unnerving and
utterly vitriolic.
“Funnily enough, because of the
first album’s very basic style, we got a reputation for not being able to
play our instruments at all. Of course, we used to lay up to that like
crazy. We’d do 50 interviews in a day, and at first we’d be sayings things
like, ‘Nah, we can’t play a note. We’re shite, really’. Then we’d take
completely the opposite approach and tell the journalists, ‘Of course we
can play. We’re all classically trained virtuosos. I can play Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
easily. I’m a genius’. It was all a laugh. Something to break the monotony
of having to answer the same questions all day.
“But
there were loads of people who thought that Venom were incapable of
actually playing a decent note. Now look, I would be the first to admit
that we had a drummer who wasn’t exactly a good time-keeper, but then so
do Metallica. Come on, everyone knows that about Lars Ulrich. But does it
matter? Did it hold them back? No. You work with what you’ve got, and
that’s the way it always was with Tony.”
A year later, having now
established themselves as pariahs of the metal world, yet conversely building a strong fan base among those who
worshipped noise, Venom returned with arguably their most important
album… Black
Metal
“We knew that
together we had an original sound, the unholy din that came at you when we
kicked into a track was truly tremendous, trying to get this mayhem down
onto tape in a studio was another matter, I tried my best with all of the
skills I had learned as a studio engineer, I just went for the heaviest
sound I could get, I mean there was no way I was ever going to make Venom
sound like Lynyrd Skynyrd now was there? It was pure mayhem from start to
finish.
“The
Venom sound came about more through time constraints than anything else.
We only spent three days on Welcome To Hell, and about a couple of
weeks at Impulse Studios for Black Metal, this is all the time that
Neat would allow us in the studio. People always think that I had more to
do with the production than anyone else, because I had studio experience.
But, although I was there from dawn to dusk, the whole band were all
involved, really. One of the problems is that they all kept turning
themselves up, so agreeing a final mix was nearly impossible, I would have
preferred to mix without them there but as the studio equipment was old
and we didn’t have anything like SSL, (programmable desks) everyone had to
get involved and it ended up looking something like a game of twister,
with everyone leaning over the desk to turn the faders up and down on
their instruments to help with the mix”.
For
Cronos this period was a somewhat frustrating time, being in a band
gaining momentum, yet also forced to work with others on the
label.
“The Black Metal era was
annoying
for me. Why? Because, as I said
before, I was in the studio as an engineer with bands like White Spirit,
Fist and Raven etc,
they all thought they
were the dog’s bollocks. I
actually got most of them signed as I was working as A&R for Neat, I'd
go to the clubs around the north east and check out all the local up and
coming acts, I'd then go back to Neat and tell them which bands I thought
were worth a single or two for the label. I'd also sit in on all the
sessions so I could check out their potential, or not. A lot of
these guys were just
local wannabe's, really. Nothing more.
They were getting their first taste of attention, and some of these bands were even
being tipped by the
media to succeed. A lot of them
thought they
could treat Venom like we were a bunch
of crap. Some of them even got us banned from certain rehearsal rooms in the area, so we'd book the studios under different
names like 'Oberon' etc until we got sussed out. This is also why we ended up rehearsing in a
church! There they were, swanning around in their new leathers, while I
looked like a tramp. But what did these bands end up doing? Fucking
nothing! I was thinking on an international scale, even though I never
knew it at the time.”
Not all the songs for
what was to become one of the definitive metal albums were brand new, with
the compositional ink barely dry on the proverbial pages. ‘Buried Alive’
and ‘Raise The Dead’, for instance, had dried mud on their
boots. “There’s a tape of Clive Archer
singing ‘Raise The Dead’,” laughs Cronos. “And we had ‘Buried Alive’
written for the first album, but didn’t feel we were capable of doing it
justice at the time when we
recorded the first album.”
‘Buried Alive’ saw Cronos, with his studio
experience, taking a real perfectionist’s attitude.
“I didn’t want
BBC-type effects for the intro, with cabbages being cut up to sound like
earth shoveled onto a coffin – I wanted the real thing. So, we brought in
a cardboard box and loads of mud, put microphones into the box and used
spades to throw the mud into the box. And Keith Nichol, our engineer
(given a co-production credit on the record) was brilliant about it. We
called him Woody Woodpecker, because he was about three foot tall and had
red hair, but he’d go the extra mile to get us what we wanted.”
One
other song on Black Metal had a bit of history to it, as the
bassist explains.
“One day in the studio, Abaddon was very
late for the session, Jeff and I were jamming through some new riffs and
started to work the words out. One of our roadies Ged Cook, our manager’s
brother who ended up playing in local bands, came in the room and jumped behind
the kit. We started to mess around with the song – and the song ‘Countess
Bathory’ was born!”
“Abaddon later came in and we played the new
song for him, he then got behind the kit and tried to make up a new drum
pattern, but the one Ged had played worked best, he was furious that we
ganged up on him and made him play Ged’s beats, he wanted to put his own
stamp on the track but none of his beats were working, he hated the song
for ages.
Mention of Abaddon brings up an
itch that Cronos is desperate to scratch. “His
role, or lack of it, in the songwriting process caused a lot of
rows in the band later on. You see,
he never wrote anything, despite getting credits. It was
always down to Mantas and me to write the songs. Mantas and I would
meet up at each other houses and share our ideas, he would show me his new
songs and any spare riffs he had composed that he wanted me to put lyrics
to, and I would teach him the riffs for my songs, but Tony was never there
and never wrote any of the Venom
songs.
“Abaddon came into his own in the
live arena,” adds Cronos. “He understood pyros, and because he used to
work in a factory he could weld things together for stage effects. In the
studio? Forget it. He’d do his parts and then fuck off. You’d not see him
again.”
But if there were songs that were a couple of years old,
then one track had a history that was covered in cobwebs, at least as far
as the storyline goes.
“The idea for ‘Teacher’s Pet’ goes back to
when Mantas was about ten so he told me,” says Cronos. “The way he tells
it, he had a female RI teacher, who was a bit of a floozy. She used to
wear these mini skirts, would sit with her legs crossed and all of the
boys would have pre-pubescent fantasies about her. The kid he sat next to
in class, during her lessons, used to have his hand permanently down his
trousers. Mantas was so young that he used to wonder what the kid was
doing. That’s why the first line of the song goes: ‘Teacher caught me
masturbating underneath the desk’. Not that he was ever caught, but he
must have gone home with a right mess in his pants!”
The album ends
with something highly unusual – a song that’s a taster for things to come,
namely a sneak preview of the title track for what was to be the band’s
third album, At War With Satan, eventually released in
1984.
“Oh, that started off as a story that I wanted to have
published as a novel,” shrugs Cronos. “It was about the battle between
Heaven and Hell. I had the whole idea mapped out. And then it turned into
this concept album. I suppose it was our equivalent of ‘Rush’s ‘2112’,
although theirs was more about oppression. Anyway, I thought it would be
cool to do a teaser at the end of the Black Metal record, just to
warn the fans what was to come. And we did do the concept album. In fact,
we devoted the whole of the first side of our At War With Satan
album to the title song, which was unheard of back then for a band like
us! And, if there’s some real trivia freaks reading, get this: put
together the track that ends Black Metal with the full song ‘At War
With Satan’ and it lasts 21 minutes and 12 second… 2112!”
Black Metal was released later in 1982, to a massive acclaim from the
metal underground, and even the mainstream started to take some notice.
For Cronos, there was a sense of vindication, although critical acceptance
never bothered him. The man’s dream was coming true, even it was a
nightmare for others.
“I was always frustrated that Black Sabbath
never took things a stage further. They might sing about Satan, but still
asked God to help them! You know, people go to watch Dracula movies, but
none of them want to be the vampire. In Venom I wanted to be the devil, to be the vampires!”
What’s
more, this dirty, shambolic trio from Newcastle tilted the metal world off
its axis.
In a recent interview with Mantas he said, “Every
time I think about what we achieved with Black Metal it just
fucking floors me!” exclaims Mantas. “Even now, I can’t believe how much
impact we made, and how influential we’ve been and continue to
be.
“Paul Stanley of Kiss was once asked whether the band putting
on make-up was a stroke of genius. He just said that if a person came out
of the sea carrying a gold nugget, would you call them a genius? That
kinda sums it up for me. We never set out to change the world – it just
happened.”
Although Cronos maintained,
“We always had a vision. Most bands starting out were playing pubs. That
was never for us. We did a video for the songs ‘Witching Hour’ and ‘Bloodlust’ (from Welcome To Hell) to show
promoters what sort of stage show we wanted – and they’d all say, ‘But if
you do that then you’ll be skint’. Did we care? Did we fuck! All these
other artists would spend any money they got from gigs on beer. We spent
it on bigger and better pyros – and who had the last
laugh?”
But we should leave the last word
on Black Metal to a man who understands the legacy of the
album better than most – Slayer’s Kerry King:
“I know the guys won’t mind me saying that they were
the best band in the world with the worst musicians. I still listen to
Black Metal and it’s still awesome. I see Cronos occasionally, and
he’s like Superman. He might be dressed casually, but you just know that
underneath he’s got on the spikes and studs!”
But how to follow a
masterpiece? As hinted at above, it was with a conceptual piece, At
War With Satan.
“That’s a title you can take two ways. On
the one hand, you could say it’s about going to war with Satan, in other
words being on his side. On the other hand, you could take it as
suggesting a war against Satan. Depends on the way you wanna take it. The
album actually ends with the angels being cast down into hell, and
fighting their way out. They’d become the outcasts. It’s all down to your
point of view.
“Loads of people were amazed that
a band like us decided to do a concept album, but to me it was no big
deal. So what? It’s just a collection of songs and sounds. Like any other
record. The difference with this was that every song linked into what went
before. Maybe it was because of the very idea that a band like us would
even think about writing a story, then turn it into a ‘concept’ album,
that’s only for REAL bands who can play their instruments, not the likes
of us.”
In truth, At War With Satan is a glorious
failure, the sweeping strokes of the concept setting up the music in a
manner that demands a huge production, one that sadly the band were unable
to deliver, because of budgetary constraints. Now, if Jim Steinman, or Bob
Ezrin had been on the case…ah, but such was the lot of Venom in the
early 1980s, constantly learning to experiment and to be creative within
the limited confines of their independent status. And yet, one can’t help
feeling that, in actuality, Venom’s music was actually enhanced by
not having an enormous budget.
“I always favoured individuality. For
me, it was the theatrics of Alice Cooper or Kiss, and the music of Jethro
Tull, Black Sabbath and Bowie that was important. Sure, I loved Judas
Priest and Motörhead, but madcap individuality really made a mark on me. I
was fucking determined that Venom would always do what we considered to be
right at the time. No giving in to pressure from outsiders. There were –
still are – too many who think that the way forward is to be part of the
pack. Yeah, you might get a little bit of success, but can you look at
yourself in the mirror, knowing that you’ve always done what’s right,
rather than something that just earns easy
money.
“I know that Venom never played
anybody’s game. We were always true to just one thing: ourselves. Whether
we succeeded or failed, it was on our own terms. I can’t stress that
enough, because it’s the creed that defines us.”
As I write these word for the new Venom box
set I think about the time, and it was around this time
– 1983 – that I first met Venom. Having championed their cause in
various magazines for a couple of years, I finally came face to
metaphorical cowl with them at a photo shoot in North London. Cronos
immediately made an impression, because he spent much of the time trying
to catch – and eat! – flies. A Renfield character, if you will, much given
to outbursts of erudition. He seemed to be the only one who fitted into
the media analysis of the Venom psyche, although he was obviously
the ideas man, the one who had the big picture, the vision to steer this
band into the right direction. He had little time for any contemporaries whom he dismissed with an
almost imperious wave of his hand, and espoused
the Venom determination to remain unbowed and untethered by
trends.
By contrast, Mantas was quietly spoken and
seemed almost uncomfortable with the music scene, speaking about
everyone who was involved in the industry as 'liggers'.
Maybe it was the first stirrings on an unrest that would see him quit the
band within a couple of years, but he wasn’t the rock demon we’d all
expected – and anticipated.
Meanwhile, Abaddon
was the wannabe rock star in the pack, although he ended up looking like he should
have joined Deep Purple, the road crew used to call him David
Coverversion.
While he may not have been the
greatest drummer in the world, he so clearly understood what it took to
smash his drum kit.
It was a strange trio,
to say the least. A band who were like no others around. And one with the
aura of invincibility.
Strange to tell that the next twist in the
story is one that amazed everyone – and took us all by surprise. The band
decided to record a single called ‘Warhead’. Nothing weird there, except
that it got airplay on the Radio One Breakfast
Show!
Cronos recalls: “We didn’t do the
single with that in mind at all. But Tommy Vance picked up on the song and
loved it so much he started to give us a lot of
airplay.”
The upshot was that Mike Reid, at
the time doing the aforementioned Breakfast Show, decided to play a
snippet from the song each day for a week, building up to airing the whole
track, much to the shock of many used to smoother fare with their bacon
and eggs.
“It wasn’t a gimmick, because that was never something we
wanted, or expected. All we did was record what we felt was a true metal
song, something that fizzed, had energy and growled in the usual manner of
a metal song. The fact that others picked up on it was a bonus.
“You know, a lot of supposed metal or hard rock bands record
singles that are designed for radio airplay. That’s an abomination to us.
So, we went in completely the opposite way, and seemed to hit the right
note with someone.
“There were also those who objected to the
song’s title, because they thought we were advocating war as being
something cool. Fuck ’em! That wasn’t in our minds at all. To us, this was
entertainment, and about as serious as violent horror movies. You don’t
take them to task do you? Well, you shouldn’t. But it’s typical of some
sections of our society who think they’re intelligent, and yet are easily
fooled into making idiots of themselves by missing the whole point of
something like ‘Warhead’. It was a fucking song, not a statement. Did
anyone think we walked around with nuclear warheads under our arms? Oh
sure!”
While this single didn’t catapult the band to superstar
status – or probably pay for a good fry-up at the local greasy spoon –
nonetheless it did ensure that, for a time, Venom were almost
synonymous with metal in the minds of the mainstream British public, those
who remained oblivious to the charms of Iron Maiden or
Motörhead. But things were starting to get a little fraught in the
Venom camp, with Mantas starting to lose touch with the
others.
The band went to America, to headline a tour that saw
Slayer supporting them. Catching the show in Los Angeles, it was
amusing to notice that the assorted members of Slayer were at the
front of the stage headbanging furiously when Venom roared into
their set. To Slayer and a whole generation of young American
metalheads, the Newcastle nutters were genuine heroes – they provided a
way forward, the sound for a new generation.
“I don’t think I
realised how much we meant to Americans, until this tour,” Cronos said at
the time. “But we seem to have become the godfathers of an extreme sound,
one that has a lot of American input right now. Crazy isn’t it? We’re
bigger in the US and Europe than we are at home.”
For all their
impetus and momentum in America, Venom clearly lacked the financial
wherewithal to make the move to the next level. And, if that American tour
proved one thing it was that the road ahead was gonna be
tough, although Cronos was completely understanding of this fact;
"I knew when we started to realize we could make a career out of Venom
that the day would come when we had to make a decision, when we'd have to
meet the devil at the crossroads, and that was to either sell out to the
majors or keep our integrity and stick to our guns. I'd seen other Neat
bands 'sign the deal' and then disappear after one album, and this is coz
the majors will make you change, to make you commercial, to alter what
your about to increase 'sales', but this will change what your about and
destroy everything you've made. I could only ever work with a major
if they let me keep full artistic control, because I'm not gonna let
anyone destroy Venom, maybe one day they will realize this, but for
now they think they know it all, but I disagree".
Mantas was clearly distracted at times. He seemed to lack
the ambition and focus, and by the time the band were ready to record
their next album, Possessed, his contribution was almost at
a standstill.
“He’d lost touch with Abaddon and
me. His input into the Possessed record wasn’t really what we
needed. You see, he didn’t have the passion any more. We also made a big
mistake by hiring a swanky Stately Home to work on the album. We were used to dirty, skuzzy
basements, where we’d work up the songs in the past. Now, we were in the
wrong environment for the music we wanted to make. When we arrived Mantas
thought he could just lie around and do fuck all thinking he was lord of
the manor, but we were there to make an album so it was wrong for the spirit of
Venom. He had no new song ideas at all, I've no idea how he thought
the album was gonna be created, maybe he was hoping I'd do everything, and
it's bloody lucky I did have a shit load of ideas. The only song
we'd worked on was the title track, I'd came up with this during the
writing of the first album, although the riff was originally the riff for
Manitou, although I swapped lyrics as it worked better the other way
around.”
It’s no surprise that
Possessed got something of a muted response from critics and
fans alike when it was released in 1985, but on reflection the album is
actually better than seemed to be the case at the
time.
“I like the songs on
Possessed,” agrees Cronos. “What let it down was the production
and the bands aggressive
input, or lack of it, we should have rehearsed the songs before going
into the studio, the way we did the other albums, the songs are good songs,
but Manty didn’t want to have any rehearsals, so I just had to record the album by showing him
each riff, then getting Abs to play along, then once they had a grasp of
the tune we'd record it, then I put all the singing on later, so the songs
don't really get a chance to settle and find their true speed etc. I do
think the songs on that album are good, yeah they could have been recorded
better, and the album got a bad press from people at the time, and it
deserves better.”
With Mantas increasingly moving
away from the roots of the band, there was to be a split. That seemed
assured, and it happened as the band prepared ideas for their next, and
seemingly crucial, record.
“We started work on an album that we
were gonna call Deadline, but all Mantas’ ideas were wrong. They
were guitar pieces he was to use on his solo stuff – and not at all right
for Venom.”
And so, Mantas was asked
to leave, believing that he’d
gone as far as possible with Venom. He had slowly become unhappy
with the whole music scene in general, he couldn't find his place and was
uncomfortable trying to fit in. Both Cronos and Abaddon took everything in
their stride, they knew exactly how to sail through every day, but Mantas
was becoming visibly depressed, and his selfish and costly demands were
causing friction between the members, so it was decided he had to go. And
so where did this leave the
band? Simple, doing what Motörhead had only recently done, namely
replacing one guitarist with two
others.
The
two men in question were American Mike Hickey (known just as Mike H) and
Englishman Jim Clare (Jimi C). It was a case of the band taking advantage
of their changed circumstances to expand their
sound.
“Jimi was a Northern lad, just
like us, while Mike sent through a demo. What happened was that we spread
the word about the search for a guitarist, once Mantas quit. We got in
loads of demos, and these two seemed to be what we were looking for. When
I got Mike’s tape, it really impressed me, because he did a version of the
classical piece ‘Flight Of The Bumble Bee’ – expect that it turned out to
be a mistake.
“Years after Mike got the job, I came across the tape
and played it to him, just to see what the reaction would be after all
this time. Well, I got one – and it wasn’t the one I was expecting. Mike
said that it wasn’t him playing on that tape! It seems that the guy who
sent through that demo had the same management as Mike, and that I’d
gotten the two mixed up somehow. I’m not sure what happened to the guy
who’s playing I had been listening to, but it was a lucky mistake, because
Mike was exactly right for the band at the time.”
Now a four-piece,
Venom found that they could try different things musically. As
Motörhead discovered when they brought in Wurzel and Phil Campbell
to replace Brian Robertson, potentially there’s a new dimension to the
approach.
“Having Mike and Jimi in the line-up did
take us in a different direction. It was an exciting time, because it gave
us a real shot in the arm. Mantas was losing interest before he left, and
what we needed was a shot of enthusiasm, which we got from the new guys.
Mind you, it had a down side for me. With two guitars there, I was
suddenly faced with my bass lines being a little swamped, and that did not
please me at all!”
The new look Venom released
just one album, 1987’s Calm Before The Storm. Now, this was
a period when the whole thrash movement was at its height, and the genre
was starting to fragment. Some bands were becoming more sophisticated,
while others were delving into altogether more extreme areas of music. It
was a tough time for Venom, because they were almost caught in the
headlights.
Determined to stick firmly to their own path, they
certainly opened up their sound somewhat with Calm…, but
probably not enough to attract a new audience. However, they were
sufficiently removed from the roots of the band to alienate some diehards,
who’d only be satisfied with a repetition of the Black Metal
formula – such is the price of success and
reputation.
While the sound of the album still
had a brutal edge, nonetheless the dark imagery of the past had given way
to a more sword & sorcery approach. Up to a point it worked quite
well, but there was always a feeling that this line-up of the band was
destined to fall apart quite quickly. As so many other bands have found in
the past when changes do occur to the delicate mechanism that is a rock or
metal band – especially one as important as Venom had been – it’s
as if a chain reaction has been set in motion; the restive spirit suddenly
takes over, and with it comes a succession of changes. For Venom
this certainly seemed to be the case. The decision by Mantas to leave the
band actually unbalanced it, and there was inevitability that, without a
crucial figure such as the guitarist, more upheaval would follow.
At the end of 1988 the
band decided to split.
But after Calm
Before The Storm the front man – who had become the figurehead of the band over the years
– decided it was time to move on. Not only that, but he took the two
guitarists with him, intent on starting a new career, by forming a band
called…Cronos.
“That
wasn’t my intention. I never really saw the new project as being something
of a solo band, I prefer the concept of ‘The Band’ rather than a one
person deal, but I could have looked like a solo artiste to the outside
world, because it had my name on it. I had a whole list of band names
drawn up, including Ghost or Transatlantic. In
the end, though, I was persuaded – against my better judgement – to go for
Cronos as the name of the new project.”
So, what happened
next? Amazingly, Abaddon – now on his own – teamed up with…Mantas, they
decided to start an new project which they at first called Sons of
Satan, they had assumed Cronos would take the name Venom.
Cronos recalls; “I was working in America on the first
Cronos album and playing some live shows when the call came through
from Aby asking about his drum kit, I had put all of the Venom equipment
into storage when the band split, He told me that he and Mufty were going
to start a new project, he
asked if I minded if they used the name Venom, I told him I was going out
as Cronos and had no intentions of using Venom. So Mantas, now back in the
fold and seemingly re-invigorated after the brief hiatus.
but that is to simplify the complex
relationship that made Venom work in the first place. So, let’s a
take a moment just to understand what exactly made the trio of Cronos,
Mantas and Abaddon work so brilliantly.
There
is a scientific theory that explains the closer you get to analyzing a
phenomenon, the more likely you are to affect that which you’re trying to
measure. The only way to appreciate the classic Venom line-up is to
stand back a little from the minutiae. Mantas and Abaddon began in the band in the first
place, but without a seeming game
plan or any clue as how to enter the music business. They wanted to be onstage. They wanted to emulate their metal
heroes. But what they never believed could happen was that they’d be as
influential as those they worshipped. Cronos had the attitude and
psychology to stand apart, determined to bring the sort of success to the
band that nobody ever felt was possible, and it was he who had the vision
to motivate the band into the studio and march the band forward, without
him they would have never made the step forward. Cronos would have
undoubtedly followed his instincts and bust his way onto the metal scene
regardless of if he'd met the others or not, he was already working with
other musicians before Venom so it was only a matter of time, and
considering he also created the artwork that helped establish the image of
the band, I guess Venom or a version of was always going to be, it was his
destiny, and obvious now as he is the only original member still going
strong and creating venomous metal after nearly 30 years in the business,
the others just didn't have the staying power.
Maybe,
to some extent, he was fuelled by a hatred of the way in which he was
ignored by his local peers. Perhaps there was a certain one-faceted
fanaticism which drove him on, maybe he had the unique vision of fusing
rock with punk to create a totally unique sound to call his own, or maybe
he's on of the last of the true originals, the larger than life front men
like Ozzy or Lemmy or Elvis [?], but whatever it was, Cronos knew there was
a way forward – and he was ready to take it.
Cronos, therefore,
had the vision. And every successful band needs that one person who has
the will, guts and sheer stubbornness to stand against the odds.
In Mantas and Abaddon he found two people who’s own ambitions
complemented and supplemented his own. Both brought different facets to
the band, in the case of the guitarist, it was a way of playing that
offset an initial lack of technique with brute force. In the case of the
drummer, it was a pounding sensibility that, again, may have lacked
finesse, but gave the songs momentum. Sure, there were better musicians
around in the North-East to form a band with, but they locked together in a
tirade of ‘us against the world’ ghetto mentality, and an outrageous
two-fingered salute.
This wasn’t three individuals out to prove a
point. This was a trio, fuelled and fostered by every wrong turn, every
bad move. Some now believe that, with bigger budgets, better production
values and more market savvy Venom would have achieved so much
more. But that is to completely miss the point. What made them so
important was that they were so much of the street. Their music had much
in common with the punks of a few years earlier, in that it seemed anyone
could play it. They inspired so many to start their own bands, because
they seemed within reach.
Moreover, they dared to make bold, brash
statements that were shocking yet also true. They dismissed so many of
their contemporaries for differing reasons, and time has proven them to be
correct. While many who were hailed as future heroes in the early 1980s
disappeared, the Venom legend has gone from strength to strength,
their achievements multiplied in the telling.
Black Metal remains their piece de resistance
from that period – an album that is a cornerstone of extreme music, even
today. A remarkable effort that still sounds enervating, effervescent and
utterly compulsive.
So, the secret of Venom lies locked
partially in serendipity, partly in belief, yet largely in a mythology
that’s built on solid foundations. And, just when the storm was blowing
itself out, it was a series of incidents in Norway that suddenly returned
them to favour on the underground scene.
By the start of the 1990s,
it seemed that black metal – the sub-genre, that is – had run out of
steam. There seemed little more to be said musically. And then word began
to spread about a series of unsavoury incidents in Scandinavia. At first,
they were dismissed as no more than media frenzy, but slowly it dawned on
everyone that these were for real. Norwegian musicians – professing to be
allied to the black metal community – were burning churches, claiming that
they were an abomination on the traditional Norse way of life.
Moreover, there was at least one suicide and a couple of murders,
connected to these musicians. People began to hear about Count Grishnakh,
Euronymous, Dead, Mayhem, Burzum – these were names that suddenly cropped
up not just in the music press, but also in the more august and serious
portals of journalism. And, as those who’d never heard about black metal
before, started to investigate this strange beast, so Venom got
more attention than ever. Abaddon was even asked to appear on BBC TV’s
respected ‘Newsnight’ program to discuss these violent outbursts in
Norway. Typically, he refused to take it too seriously, even ‘admitting’
on air that he was a practicing Satanist – which was patently not the
case.
But, there was a significant
downside to all of this attention. Young bands in Norway were hailing
Venom as their godfathers, the inspiration behind their ‘cause’. It
was something that Cronos couldn’t stomach. He wanted – and wants –
nothing to do with such crazed antics.
“Look, those bands who seem to think that we are the leaders of
their fucking perverted activities…I want the world to know they have
nothing to do with what Venom were all about. In fact, it disgusts me.
What do they think they’re doing? Trying to tie it in with what we were
about was so wrong. They had no clue about the band. Venom was always
about entertainment, about taking the concept of horror movies and
introducing it into music. But killing and burning? Fuck that! Nobody
should think we could ever condone those acts.”
"When people talk about Venom
they say 'Black Metal' or 'Witching Hour' or 'Bloodlust', they might speak
of our stage names or talk about our stage show etc, but people only
mention the church burnings or murders when they speak of the
Norwegian bands, it's a shame that no one knows them
for the music they created".
What the whole Norwegian incidents
did was to revive and revitalize an interest in the genre, albeit one that
was sadly tainted with a morbid sensationalism. However, by this time,
Venom themselves had somewhat lost their way.
Cronos’
decision to leave, and the subsequent return of Mantas, left two of the
three originals there. But how do you replace someone like their erstwhile
colleague? Abaddon chose to look around the Newcastle area for any
local bands that were no longer active to see if he could persuade any to
join the band. He found one band who had only released one album
through Neat then vanished as quick as they started, now this fact should
have put him off even asking them to join, but he did anyway to the
dissatisfaction of Venom's army of Legions.
The problem was that this band were musically
sufficiently removed from what had gone before to cast doubts over the
sense in using the band name, so they originally called themselves 'Sons
of Satan'. However, after seeing that Cronos was not promoting his band as
Venom, they decided to adopt the name and release their 1989 Prime
Evil album. After the album received less than complementary
reviews, they decided to try gain with 1990’s Tear Your Soul
Apart album, although this just hammered hard the final nail in
the coffin, no one wanted to see them live and they couldn't get another
album deal, and so the band just faded away as if they'd never existed.
Cronos, though, is magnanimous and positive about this brief
period in the band’s history, albeit one that didn’t involve
him.
“I know a lot of people believe that the band were a lame
duck, but let’s give them credit for giving it their best shot. I think
they did suffer from hiring a singer that no one likes and subjects
himself to so much ridicule. Personally, I believe the band would have
been better off hiring someone who didn't carry so much negative baggage,
even his old band mates rejected him as a sad embarrassment, I'm just glad
it all ended quickly before they rubbished the band name forever".
In retrospect, it could have been the same whoever they’d hired, if they already had a
reputation. Rob Halford would have made them sound like Priest, no
question about that. The only way to get over it would have been to hire a
complete unknown – then you don’t have that problem.
Venom also faced another inevitable
problem during the time without Cronos – and that was fan acceptance, of
lack of it. On the few occasions the new line up did play live, the
fans were calling out for Cronos, something for which Cronos has
some sympathy.
“I do feel sorry for anyone in that position, because they’re a
loser whatever they do. But, I suppose you have to say that it’s to the
credit of what I achieved in the band when you make that sort of impact, whoever comes later faces
trouble, any replacements with
Venom need to prove themselves to the fans, I believe it is possible as
there are some intense musicians out there these days.”
Eventually, the line up decided it was time to call ‘time’ on
their ideas, it just simply wasn't working. But anyone who thought that
would end the saga obviously reckoned without another, welcome twist in
the tale.
Although Cronos had been hard at work with his band throughout,
content to release his albums and play all manner of sized venues
worldwide. In 1994, Cronos had recruited new drummer
Mark Wharton of Cathedral and along with his guitarist Mike Hickey,
they went into the studio to lay down the demos for the new album, during
this session, and at the request of Mark who was a massive Venom
fan, they recorded some of the old Venom classics. Neat Records
immediately asked if they could use the tracks on a compilation album and
everyone agreed, this was the Cronos album entitled
Venom. This not only
featured new material with a classic Venom approach. But also
re-visits such old Venom favourites as ‘1000 Days In Sodom’, ‘7
Gates Of Hell’ and ‘At war With Satan’. It was a project that re-ignited
the bassist/vocalist’s love for
Venom.
“It was my third album under the
Cronos band name (following on from 1990’s Dancing In The Fire and
Rock ’N’ Roll Disease three years later), and playing those old
Venom songs again with Mark on drums was fucking brilliant. He gave them a
new twist, and had a real passion for them.
“Doing this did get me
thinking about getting the classic Venom line-up back again. But
by that point, the band had already split up again after a disastrous attempt to make things
work with a different singer. So, I had a good
think about it and discussed the pros and cons with a couple of lawyer
friends of mine in London who were great at offering practical
advice. I thought I might be able to re-capture the past magic again
and continue where we left off in 1986, I knew there was
no messy problem with having to get rid of anyone as they'd all
went their separate ways. so I finally decided to
make contact, just to see if we could do the right
thing, who knows? it could be great
fun.”
Cronos made contact with his old
band mates, and eventually the re-union
got off the ground. But not without teething
problems.
“I had to drag them forward a bit.
Mantas had cut his hair and had a kid by then, so the old lifestyle wasn’t
something which appealed to him. [by 'old lifestyle' I mean the long studio
hours and touring etc, not the partying, he never partied anyway]
And the old arguments
soon resurfaced. But for a short
time, we got it back
together, and we were able to go out to play much bigger gigs than the
ones they’d been doing in the ’90s without me. For instance, we got to
headline the Dynamo Festival.” (with 90,000
fans).
The revived trio released one
album, 1997’s Cast In Stone, but were soon submerged by
problems that seemed to overshadow any rapport they might have. And there
was soon a standoff between Cronos and Abaddon that eventually led to the
latter leaving.
“We had huge problems,” admits
Cronos. “We really weren’t getting on. Then one day, Abaddon sent me a letter to tell me 'your services are
no longer required', ha, the cheeky twat obviously forgot who he was
fuckin with, and thus sealed his fate, my response was, ‘You can’t kick the Devil out of
hell, I’m firing you!’. We had
this crazy situation where both of us felt we could kick the
other out of the
band.”
Ultimately, it was Cronos who came out on top, with
Abaddon quitting to pursue a job
on a building site,
leaving the frontman and Mantas to move forward. Cronos
hired a nu-metal
drummer called Antton who was able to play a steadier beat than the old
drummer, and he hadn't been doing much with any other bands, so he jumped
at the chance pf playing for Venom. The trio flew to Germany to
record the 'Resurrection' album, then played some shows in Germany
and Holland. But of course, this is Venom, so
nothing stays stable for very long.
In February 2002,
Cronos had a climbing accident while out with the Marines in Wales,
this meant he couldn’t play bass, sing or anything as he was wearing a
neck brace, the Doctors had estimated a year or two of recovery, Cronos
told the guitarist to get on with whatever he could and make
the most of this time, he knew he'd been talking about making
another solo album, so Mantas decided to start
his own band – then after he recorded his album a press statement was
released declaring that he wasn’t going to
return to Venom and he wanted to pursue his new direction with his
solo band, leaving Cronos to carry on with the name. Once Cronos
got the 'all clear' from his Doctors, he called the American guitarist who
played on the 'Calm' album, [Mike Hickey] and asked if he'd be up for some
more guitar work with
Venom. Both the guitarist
[now called Mykus] and drummer Antton agreed to help Cronos re-establish
the band, although they couldn't join the band for the long haul, as they
has other commitments elsewhere, Cronos needed to keep his eyes peeled for
other permanent members. They started work on a new Venom album, [Metal Black] which came out in March 2006 on
the Sanctuary Music label.
It’s been a long, strange, somewhat twisted
trip. Full of amazing stories and astounding tales. Sometimes the band
have stunned with their insight. On other occasions, one was left to
wonder at how they let so many opportunities slip through their
grasp.
One story that still amuses is when
they were touring America with Slayer back in the mid-1980s. It was
a tour that got them huge attention, and did no end of good for
Slayer’s profile as well. They were the new kids on the block,
while Cronos, Mantas and Abaddon were giants. However, as the tour came
towards its conclusion, Cronos and Mantas took their flights back to
England leaving the drummer and manager in Los
Angeles where they were involved in meetings with other projects they had
on the go, although the pair got stranded in Los Angeles, unable to pay
their air fare home. Now, yours truly [Mal Dome] was in the city
covering some journalistic jamboree, and in desperation the pair asked if
I might lend them the money to get back home, which I did. Oh, I got paid
back very promptly – no problem there – but it did bring something very
much into focus. The band put so much financially into their show that, on
occasion, it was to their own detriment.
But, in
America especially, wherever you made contact with the underground metal
scene, Venom were the guv’nors. To those who worshipped an ever
increasing desire to go beyond the bounds of normality in metal,
Venom represented the apogee. They were the band who’d inspired so
many to pick up guitars and try their luck. On the East Coast, the West
Coast, in Texas…wherever you may have roamed, the spectre of the three
Geordies loomed. You spoke to young bands just beginning, and within a few
minutes you just knew they’d be mentioning the hallowed name of ‘Venom’ in
hushed tones. It was astonishing to think of their impact.
To some
extent the band remained oblivious to what was going on around them. They
were so engrossed in their own survival that there was little time for
them to wallow in the ramifications of their own music. Perhaps if there
had been a greater awareness from the band at the time, then things might
have been a little different. However, that was never the Venom
way.
It was typical of their nature that much of the invention and
pioneering spirit was born out of a need to offset a lack of funding. Yet,
looking back now, it is hard to imagine how things could have been
improved. More money? Nah. That might have meant a refinement of that
trademark sound. Bigger studio? Ditto. Venom might have ended up
with better sounding records, but ones that would inevitably reduce the
impact.
“What am I most proud of achieving
with Venom?” asks Cronos rhetorically. “Standing apart from
all the sheep in the music industry. You look at the music business,
and most bands want to copy other artists’ success, they are scared to do something original
and make something new in case other people don't like it, and we know
that most people don't like change, they are happiest in their comfort
zones, any new idea is usually shunned at first until people can put it in
a box with a label, so most musicians out there would rather copy a style
that's already established. But did we ever do that? NO chance! We might have made mistakes,
yeah but all of the ideas were all ours, and we made it from our own incentive and
not because we were
trying to be a clone of someone else".
With Venom there
is always some controversy, and there
are two crucial areas
that need to be broached, namely the controversy that arose with
Metallica, and also just how did they come up with the name
‘Black Metal’?
Let’s start with the
whole Metallica scenario…
In February 1984,
Metallica came over to Europe for the first time. They toured as
support to Venom. But any suggestion that the two bands would bond
was soon dispelled. Even during the tour, Venom had a certain
dismissive attitude to the young Bay Area upstarts. Metallica had
never made any secret of the fact that Venom were a significant
influence on them – in their early days, they regularly wore Venom
T-shirts, Metallica
themselves have always had the utmost respect for Venom’s
importance:
“Black
metal, speed metal, death metal - Venom started it all!” says Lars
Ulrich.
As for that ‘Black
Metal’
tag…
It was Venom’s own determination to be
different that led to them coming up with the term ‘black
metal’…as well as a ton
of other titles in an attempt to describe their music which they felt was
like nothing else around at that
time.
“You see, back then everyone with long hair was called ‘heavy
metal’,” explains Cronos. “So, we were lumped in with bands like Journey
and Foreigner – we were all ‘heavy metal’. There were none of these genres
like thrash, death and speed metal as we have now. We didn’t want anything
to do with those bands at all. In fact, we slagged almost everyone off
during interviews.
“We were interviewed by a magazine one day, and
the journalist just said, ‘OK, if you’re not heavy metal, what are you?’.
One of us – and I think it was probably Cronos – just said, ‘We’re black
metal’.
“We never thought for a moment that the thing would stick
and grow into something so massive, even though what’s known as ‘black
metal’ these days has no connection with what we did nearly 25 years
ago.”
“I think the term ‘black metal’ was just one of a number we
threw out to that journalist at the time. We started off calling ourselves
‘long haired punks’, and then ‘power metal’, ‘death metal’, ‘thrash
metal’. But the ‘black metal’ thing struck some sort of chord. What
finally convinced me that we didn’t want anything to do with ‘heavy metal’
was when Eddie Van Halen did that single ‘Beat It’ with Michael Jackson –
it got in the metal charts, for fuck’s sake! We decided then that Venom
was no longer ‘heavy metal’. Let bands like Raven be called that – we had
to stand apart. We didn’t want to call ourselves New Wave Of British Heavy
Metal, because that was a mouthful, so we invented our own
genre.
“And guess what? The song ‘Black Metal’ itself is
actually about playing live, it’s
about a Satanic band (Venom) playing live! With power amps set to
explode!
Venom are a band who
still sell enormous quantities of T-shirts that bear the album covers and
logos which are the artwork of Cronos, the man who invented the emblems
for the band and created that look to go with their unholy sound, and even
today a massive amount of people still want to wear those classic designs,
and Venom albums
continue to inspire more young bands even today.
“One thing I
was delighted about was that a small label recently put out a Venom
tribute record,” says Cronos in conclusion. “What I loved about it was
that the bands all did something unique and different with our songs –
they weren’t trying to copy what we’d done. They understood the spirit of
Venom. If you’re going to do a cover, then make damn sure you do some of
your own stuff with the song. Otherwise, what’s the
point?
“If we’ve taught people anything then that would
be, Don’t try to sound
like or be like Venom if you record a cover of one of our songs, be
yourself, record the song the way you would had YOU wrote it, use what we
did as an inspiration if you want, but be true to
yourself.” |
|
In March 2006,
Venom released a new album in called
Metal Black, and Cronos
stated that this is Venom for the 21st century, with a sound and
intensity of the 80's Venom, this was an obvious title said Cronos "we
put the new line-up together and rehearsed a whole load of the early songs
for about 3 months before starting to write the album, so the songs
emerged in that style, the style of Black Metal, the original name for the
album was to be 'Maleficarvm' which is the name of one of the tracks, but
people said they couldn't pronounce it (?) so we went for the next option,
the controversial one, the name that is already starting fights, people
are going nuts fighting over this, although it makes perfect sense to me,
Venom play Black Metal which means our Metal is Black, seems fucking
obvious to me really, it's the 'same difference', ha, there's another
to scratch your heads over?".
Venom increased their Live appearances in 2006 after
the launch of the album, starting with a UK Tour in
March, Venom received a great response from their Legions, the band hadn't
appeared live on their own soil for almost 20 years and weren't sure of
what reaction they'd get, but they received a great response from the
audiences which also had a lot of fans from Europe who'd travelled to the
UK to add their support. The band were also invited to the BBC to
record a session at Maida Vale Studios, it had been the Tommy Vance Friday
Rock Show which first saw Venom at the BBC in 1985. The album sales
were going very well so the label released the track 'Antechrist' as a
single. The band then headed for the summer Festivals with four main
appearances across Europe. They were bombarded with interview
requests from the world press, so Cronos flew to Germany for a week so he
could deal with all of the European press in one go, there wouldn't be
time to do all of the interviews during the time they had set aside for
touring. Venom loaded up the pyrotechnics and started in Italy by
headlining the Gods Of Metal
Festival, long time friend
Phil Anselmo (Pantera / Down) made a guest appearance on
stage and sang Die Hard, the next stop was in Sweden where they
headlined the sold out Sweden Rock
Festival, Venom were so pleased to
have finally played in front of their Swedish Legions as this was one of
the territories the band had never been. Finland came next and Venom
headlined the sold out Tuska Rock
Festival, it had been around 21
years since Venom had last headlined a Finish Festival and the Legions
were out in force, then last but certainly not least came Germany on the
21st of July, Venom headlined the Earthshaker Festival, the band nearly didn't get to play when an hour
or so before they were due to hit the stage the skies went black and the
biggest thunderstorm erupted, forcing the police to move the entire
audience to a safe place, luckily the event was next to a huge indoor
horse show venue that the massive crowd could fit in. Venom eventually hit
the stage an hour or so late but all fired up ready for a great show for
the German Legions.
Sanctuary also released the 1997 'Cast In Stone' album in June to the delight of Venom's fans,
the album had been almost impossible to get hold of for a number of years,
Cronos re mastered the recordings and added some extra bonus material from
the 'Venom 96' Limited Edition mini album. Sanctuary also released
the 2 CD 'Cronos Anthology' later the same year which compiled all of the
Cronos recordings from the original Neat Records releases, again mastered
by Cronos, he included live bonus tracks recordings of the Cronos band
playing songs from the Venom 'Calm Before The Storm' album.
In
September Venom started their long awaited American Tour. The band had already completed a
successful tour of the UK earlier
in the year and had taken Europe by storm with their appearances at 4
major sell out festivals, so their assault on America had everyone waiting
with baited breath. When Venom first announced they would be touring
the States they refused to release any definite dates, this was both a
deliberate wind up to keep everyone guessing, but also as Cronos had some
serious personal family matters to attend to, he couldn't commit to any
dates until he had sorted out his affairs.
By August the band were
able to go to the US Embassy to get their work permits, they announced
their tour dates and contacted Goatwhore
to support them. they kicked off the tour in Arizona on the west coast to
an ecstatic crowd, the band continued with Los Angeles, San Francisco,
Denver, Cleveland, Chicago, New York, Springfield and Philadelphia.
The American Legions came out in force and the tour was a great
success. Plans to return to the States began before the tour ended,
Venom started negotiations with their business manager in America to look
into getting them back before too long.
The 2006 'Sweden Rock
Festival' DVD was released in September featuring a live track (Black
Metal) from Venom, the band agreed to let it out without any dubs so you
get the real feel of a live show, complete with out of tune guitarist.
(hey nice one mike??? doh!) The DVD also featured some of the other
artists who played at the festival such as Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent, The
Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Doro, and many others. Def Leppard
also played at the festival but don't feature on the DVD.
January
2007, Venom announced their new guitarist RAGE, a
hardcore Metal guitarist from the very depths of Newcastle, he had stood
in for the bands previous American guitarist who had to commute back and
forth states, leaving Cronos and Antton without a guitarist to rehearse
with during many months of the year, but the band wasted no time in
getting down to work with the new blood, they began writing the new demos
for their next album and planning their next live
shows.
Journalists who has followed Venom's career throughout the
years for both their jobs and as fans have varying degrees of acceptance
over the various past members of the band, and I for one was never really
convinced with the American guy being back in the band, he worked better
in the Cronos band for my liking but never in Venom, I always wondered
whether Cronos got him in just to help get the ball rolling after his
climbing accident, same with his brother really, nepotism isn't always a
good thing. I think they are ok as musicians don't get me wrong, but
I've interviewed Venom many times, even the ill fated Dolan line-up, and
there's something not right about an interview when the only person with
any answers is the singer? The others looked nervous with that 'please
don't ask me any questions' look on their faces, but hey, correct me if
I'm wrong, its just my opinion.
Cronos was
back in the Townhouse mastering room with the 'Resurrection' album to make sure it stood up to the sharp
production quality. Sanctuary release the album in April with
additional sleeve notes and unseen photos and artwork.
Sanctuary Records Group also announcement that Venom's "Black Metal" album
is the biggest selling album on the entire Castle Music label.
The album was released by
Castle in 2002 after Sanctuary took control of the entire
Neat Records back catalogue, in fact they bought the label. The failed
Neat label were unable to continue as a label and were forced to declare
bankruptcy .
By April of 2007
Venom had spent the first part of the year working on
the new demos and rehearsing with their new guitarist, they decided to
organise some shows get the new blood up on stage in front of the Legions,
this would surely prove he was the man for the job. Venom then
embarked on a 7 Date Tour of Scandinavia
at the end of May playing in Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway, this
long awaited tour helped forge the new band and prepare them for the
upcoming album recording.
The internet plays an important part in
many peoples lives nowadays and Venom's Legions have embraced this medium
with great enthusiasm, the website 'youtube' receives a fresh batch of
mobile phone camera videos from the Venom tour, the quality of the 'phone
cams' is poor but there an appeal to this new format, there's something
about the videos that give you a sense of the show from the audiences
point of view, we get used to seeing highly polished top production videos
of bands concerts, but to see the back of someone's head getting in the
way of the unsteady unprofessional shaking camera work is fantastic.
Cronos has commented that he has seen the videos and thinks they capture
something you couldn't get with a 10 camera shoot, the sound quality is
terrible as the tiny microphones can't handle the volume created by the
mega pa systems, but the videos have an honesty about them, they are
usually distorted and break up in sections, but it's the nearest thing to
'Reality TV' your gonna get.
By the end of the year Venom's label
'Sanctuary Group' merge with 'Universal Music', adding more weight to the
Venom back catalogue distribution, as well as increased online
availability.
Venom's 'Black Metal'
album is revealed as the top selling album out of all the Castle
Music catalogues releases. 'Black Metal' was released by
Castle in 2002 who then went on to release the rest of the Venom
back catalogue, Sanctuary took control of the entire Neat Records
label and back catalogue after the failed company went into
liquidation.
Venom
announce that the new album is finally completed, the Universal Music 'Noise' Label release the new album entitled:
HELL in May 2008. HELL is a
fierce collection of intense black metal in true Venom style. The positive
reviews speak of an increased intensity in the music, the new guitarist
Rages through the riffs while Cronos snarls
and spits every word, slamming his bass lines down in a fury of blackest
metal.
A select number of special summer festival shows
begin with Venom
headlining day one of the Hellfest 3
day festival in France, this is Venom's first show in France in 23
years. Other bands on the bill include: Slayer, Motorhead, Dimmu
Borgir & Testament, to name a few. The concert goes down a
storm, and Metallian Magazine release their yearly DVD of the festival
called "Hellfest 2008" complete with a track from Venom = 'Welcome To
Hell" [fest].
Venom also
headline the 'Rock Em All
Festival' in Athens, Greece.
The band have been eager to return to Greece since their last show in
1997, and Cronos is amazed at their ever increasing younger fans who cram
the front of the stage chanting along with all the Venom classics, "most
of these kids weren't even born when the 'Welcome To Hell' or
'Black Metal' albums were released", exclaims Cronos to a Greek
magazine, "it just shows that what the fans really want is a great band of
musicians playing a great live set, none of these kids give a fuck about
the original line-up or any of that, they know all the words to the songs
from the latest albums we've released as well as the early material, they
are all enthusiastic as hell about metal and eat, drink and sleep this
stuff, fucking hell yeah, isn't that a fucking fantastic thing".
Universal Music release 2 limited edition Venom albums for the
Japanese market by the end of the year, with "Welcome To Hell" and "Black Metal" being released by the label in special
cardboard sleeves as part of their NWOBHM The Hall Of
Fame Collection. Then by early
2009 Cronos starts work on a special edition release of
the Black Metal album to coincide with 30th anniversary of the
formation of Venom. The album is released in late August worldwide
with a DVD of the "7th Date Of Hell"
show, the legendary video of the
concert the band played at London's Hammersmith Odeon in 1984. The
video has only ever been released on VHS so for the DVD the footage has
been digitally re-mastered.
Danté is officially named as the new drummer in Venom
after weeks of auditions, the band spend the next few months locked in the
studio rehearsing the new line-up. "I believe everything happens for a
reason" comments Cronos, "when one door shuts another opens, and the
timing was right for this change as we've gained a fresh new perspective,
Danté brings exactly that adding an
even higher level of intensity to the sound of the band, his knowledge of
rock and metal drumming is exactly where the original Venom drummer's
influences came from. We've started writing the new songs for
the next album, although were
mainly concentrating on rehearsing the tracks for the live set, I want to
get this line up ready to get out on the road, I believe that if we get
out live then Dante will truly get the feel of what Venom is really a;;
about before we record an album. It is also important for the
Legions to see the band live so they can see and hear how amazing this
change is, I'm truly amazed at how well this line up has gelled in the
short time we've been together, its as if we've been playing for years,
seriously, I'm sure he's telepathic [laughs]. Were also having a
great time together and firing new ideas back and forth, I'd be prepared
to go out on a limb and say this line up is the closest to the original
members since the band started, I mean we have the same goals and
attitude, and most importantly are all in this for the right reason... the
music. I'm in talks with the management now to start negotiating our
live shows as I can't wait to get out there, I just know that were gonna
be awesome live, and were ready to go as soon as possible which will
definitely be before the end of the
year".
Venom get set for their "South American
Dates Of Hell Tour 2009".
This tour has been in the planning for
many years, and it has now finally came together thanks to the efforts of
the bands Management who contacted the South American Promoters, they have
been organising many tours up and down the country, the whole of South
America is opening up for bands to tour and the timing is now right for a
Venom tour.
The tour started in early December 2009 in
Mexico, then moved onto Colombia, Chile,
Argentina and then Brazil. Venom last toured in
Brazil in 1987 and Cronos said at the time that the Brazilian fans were
one of the most hardcore metal audiences he'd ever played for, so the band
were eager to play for the other Latin American countries, and they we not
disappointed, they were all just as hardcore as Brazil, in fact the
audiences were so loud at times that it was hard to hear the band over the
sheer volume of the crowds chants. In Argentina the crowd stopped
the show for several minutes while they chanted a modified football song
for Venom, leaving the band stood on stage in sheer disbelief, unable to
continue until the crowd had finished singing, "an amazing experience
and a fantastic honour" said Cronos, "the sheer volume and passion of
those fans sent shivers down my spine, they were so happy to see Venom and
had waited so long, that emotions were high, as the temperature rose and
the fans sang along with every word, it was such a satisfying feeling to
know how much these people appreciate what we do, I can't wait to return
to this incredible country".
During a radio station interview in Brazil, Dante and Rage
spoke about their time on the Latin tour and their thoughts on Venom's
Latin Legions; "It is truly mind blowing touring in South America" said
Dante, "I've played over here over the past few years with other bands but
haven't experienced anything like a Venom crowd, I have never heard such
loud audiences in all my life, the Legions here can sing louder than the
PA, and these guys are so dedicated to Metal, the rest of the world should
take note. This is my first tour with Venom and I'm hooked, apart
from really enjoying the shows with Cronos and Rage, I really feel that
what were doing is something special, I've never been as fired up about
playing as I have with this band and can't wait to start recording the new
album". Rage continued; "Our schedules have been very busy with all
long flights between countries and no sleep, [ha] but we were lucky enough
to still have a few meet-n-greets with the Legions, and they are the best,
the most honest people with a true love for all things Metal. I'm
honoured to meet the fans and really appreciate that they have accepted me
and Dante into the band, they speak from the heart and tell us of their
joy to finally see Venom live in their country, the feeling is mutual, I
can't wait to return to South America and play live for these very special
people again".
By the start of 2010 the bands management
announced the first of their concerts for 2010. Other virgin
territories are now on the cards to witness the mighty Venom live the for
the very first time, starting with Bulgaria in May then
followed by Poland and Russia.
Other festival
headline shows were confirmed for the Czech Republic, Sweden,
Finland and Norway, plus a surprise show in Germany at
the With Full Force Festival XVII, where the band played a very
special concert for the Legions. This show was recorded for a DVD release
and the band are now working on featuring footage from some of the others
shows they played this year also, and maybe even some footage from their
South American tour.
The band headed straight back into the studio
on their return from their last show in Ukraine, headlining the "Global
East Festival" to continue work on their next album, which the band
excitedly stated is "sounding killer and feeling
great".
"The band are really fired up for the recording of the new album" revealed
Cronos, "we've been concentrating most of our energy into the live shows
since we first announced the current line up wit Rage and Dante, and the
band have formed an amazing bond while touring live and are now so
incredibly tight, it makes everything feel and sound so much heavier.
So now we are gonna put the same energy into the new album, it does
however mean we won't be playing live as much in the coming year as its
been difficult to keep jumping from touring to studio work, and I want
everyone's concentration 100% on the new songs.
Venom took a break from recording in April 2011 to headline the
SWR Barroselas Metalfest XIV in Portugal, which is another territory
the band had never played live. The show was amazing, but after that
the band headed straight back to the studio to continue recording.
"We've
got a lot of fantastic ideas for this next release", said Cronos, we've
all contributed to the writing of the songs together as a group over
several months, I prefer to let the songs mature so they find their true
speed and feel etc, that way you get the best results. We've been
playing the songs in a live environment so we can add, subtract, tweak and
change the songs to achieve their full potential, and I've noticed other
bands opting for this method lately also, even Dave Grohl has recorded his
new album in his basement to get a real raw feel with a back to basics
approach, and this is because everyone is getting very bored with samples
and triggers etc, it's old hat now, were hearing the same old shit being
poured out year after year from many bands, whereas what people really
want is the true sound of a band, like live, so the best way to do this is
to put microphones on a real drum kit and record the real drum sound, duh?
throw away the samples, let's hear the real instruments". This is
the way we recorded the first albums, set up the equipment and play like a
live show, all together in the same room, and without a doubt the album
not only sounds a thousand times better, but it means the feel ad
intensity is raw and ferocious, I much prefer this by far. I have always said there are no throw away songs on
my albums, and that's because I always write more tracks than are needed
so I can then choose the best ones for the album, and this album is no
exception, all of the songs are being composed by all of the band members,
so everyone feels part of the end result".
The new album entitled
"Fallen Angels" is scheduled
for release in November 2011, there will be 13 songs on
the album, and 2 bonus tracks will be available on a 'Special
Edition'
release. The band are also currently working on a promo video
with one of the songs from the new album, which is something the band
hasn't done in a long while.
Venom quickly backed up the new albums release with a Live show in
Bucharest / Romania by headlining the 'Rock In Concert Festival'
on 12 November, then headed off to Lichtenfels in Germany to
headline the 'Christmas Metal Fest' at the Stadthalle on 26
November. The band were eager to play live again after
recording the new album, and to play the new album songs live for their Legions.
2012 will see the band hit the ground running with shows planned for
January, more on this soon......
Lay Down Your
Souls.........
to be
continued ............. |
