Venom
8:45pm, Black Stage“We wanted to have more leather than Priest, to be more satanic than fuckin’ Black Sabbath, and heavier than Motörhead.”
Thus asserts Conrad “Cronos” Lant, Venom’s frontman since 1980. The Newcastle-spawned trio rode its pioneering shock-value Satanism atop a punk-infused, proto-thrash attack and Cronos’ guttural bark. All of extreme metal followed.
“Rock music was the big extreme, [sings] ‘Get your motor runnin’, head out on the highway!’ Hell yeah, let’s have a great fuckin’ time, enjoy ourselves and be free. Then punk came along and made it look so fuckin’ limp. Somebody put a match to it, you know? Rock music had a big act to follow!”
Thus inspired (“I loved the Pistols, the Clash, the Damned”), Venom, along with the rest of the era’s New Wave of British Heavy Metal, stepped up to the challenge. 1981’s Welcome to Hell and genre-coiner Black Metal (’82) lit a fire that still burns on this year’s From the Very Depths. The singer’s especially chuffed to bring Venom’s devilish thunder to Fun Fun Fun Fest for the band’s only stateside gig in 2015.
“We’ve heard so much about Texas, so it’s a pleasure for us to finally come to the fuckin’ metal capital of the USA,” says Lant about the trio’s first-ever gig in the Lone Star State. “I remember when I first met the Pantera guys, and they were like, ‘What the fuck’s up with you guys? Why aren’t you coming to Texas?’
“And I’m like, ‘Dude, give the promoters a kick up the ass!’
“We go where the calling comes from, and we’ve just never had an offer. I’m absolutely delighted we’ve finally had somebody who’s had the fuckin’ balls to order Venom. Texas is a special audience for us, so we wanna do something special for it. We’ll be blowing the place to merry hell.”
This article appears in November 6 • 2015.
