The band was formed in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1978.[4][1] The original personnel came from three different bands: Guillotine, Oberon and Dwarfstar. The original Guillotine featured Jeffrey Dunn and Dave Rutherford on guitars, Dean Hewitt on bass guitar, Dave Blackman on vocals, and Chris Mercater on drums who replaced Paul Burke, the original drummer when the band was founded. Blackman and Mercater were later also replaced by drummer Anthony Bray and vocalist Clive Archer. Later, Hewitt was replaced by Alan Winston on bass. The band name then changed in 1978 to Venom. In late 1979, Conrad Lant replaced Dave Rutherford. Lant later switched to bass after the departure of Winston. The band members took on new stage names. Archer became "Jesus Christ", Lant "Cronos", Bray "Abaddon", and Dunn "Mantas".
Since the beginning of their career, Venom have often used "Satanic" lyrics and imagery. However, such references were mostly for shock value.[5][6]
In late 1979, Lant introduced the band to his original song ideas as he did not want to keep playing the same cover songs, and with Dunn he began writing new songs for the band. Lant had yet composed songs like "Sons of Satan", "Bloodlust" and "Welcome to Hell", while Dunn had yet composed songs like "Angel Dust", "Red Light Fever", "Buried Alive", "Raise the Dead" and "Live Like an Angel, Die Like a Devil". Dunn and Lant redefined together these songs with a mutual collaboration and then, after a few weeks, Lant recorded a rehearsal session on a basic cassette recorder which he played for the label he worked for, although as the band rehearsed in an old church hall the sound was not good. In April 1980, Lant was able to persuade the label to give him some free studio time and the band recorded a three-song demo. Soon after, six more tracks were recorded for just £50, with Lant taking vocal duties on the song "Live Like an Angel". Archer then left the band, and Venom's line-up became a trio.[7]
Welcome to Hell was a big influence on future thrash bands. Venom's music was faster and harsher than most heavy metal contemporaries and while Satanism and other dark topics had been featured in metal before, the subject had rarely been more prominent. Lant was quoted as saying that this celebration of evil subjects was inspired by the perceived need to out-do musicians like Ozzy Osbourne of Black Sabbath, who would "sing about evil things and dark figures, and then spoil it all by going: 'Oh, no, no, please, God, help me!'"[8]
Their second album, 1982's Black Metal, is cited as perhaps the most important influence in the development of black metal, thrash metal, death metal, and other related styles that are often grouped under the extreme metal umbrella.[1] Many defining elements of these genres are first found in the lyrics and song titles created by Lant, his unique singing style and larger than life presence. Venom's first two albums inspired cult followings to this day. While many of their new wave of British heavy metal peers (like Iron Maiden) had found measures of popular success or critical acclaim, or (like Def Leppard) were moving away from heavy metal towards hard rock, Venom were still regarded by critics as "a trio of buffoons".[9]
In 1984, Venom recorded the At War with Satan album, an epic 20-minute title track, with substantial influences of many different musical styles, which took up the first side of the LP. The title track written by Lant, was a deliberate way for him to rebuff the critics who said Venom could not play. The B-side was focused on the rapid-fire, three-minute "scorchers" Venom were known for, including "Stand Up And Be Counted". A live video, The 7th Date of Hell Venom Live at Hammersmith Odeon, was also released that year. In 1985, Venom released their fourth studio album, Possessed, which was recorded in a stately home, and saw a band enjoying their success with different chefs being flown in every day during the album's recording, lavish parties of sex, drugs and rock n' roll. By this time Venom had released several singles ("Warhead", "Die Hard" and "Manitou" among others) and live EPs (The Assault Series including Canadian Assault, American Assault and French Assault). Cronos and Abaddon appeared on the Combat Tour Live: The Ultimate Revenge video with Slayer and Exodus. Cronos cites the Possessed album as underestimated. "I don't think there's any songs that are kind of overlooked, I just think some songs maybe weren't recorded as well as we could have recorded them. Like say for example on the Possessed album, I still think there are great songs".[10] During March/April 1986, Venom the band seems ready to record the fifth album (then never released), called Deadline, but internal relationships begin to deteriorate. A live album, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and a second live video, Alive in '85, were released in 1986. Dunn then left the band to release a solo album.
Temporary break-up and Tony Dolan era (1987–1995)
Tony "Demolition Man" Dolan (pictured in 2013) fronted the band from 1989 to 1992.
Two guitarists, Mike Hickey and Jim Clare, were hired to replace Dunn. Their fifth album, 1987's Calm Before the Storm, moved away from Satanic themes in favour of "sword and sorcery" material.[11] This was a new direction for Venom, although it did not last long, with only a short Japanese and Brazilian tour in 1986, so the band decided to split, and Lant, Clare and Hickey all left to form Lant's solo band, Cronos.
Bray was left as the only group member, but he was able to convince Music for Nations for a deal to release a new Venom album on the Under One Flag label, using Deadline demo tracks which were recorded with previous line-ups but never released. In 1988, Bray offered a vocals/bass role to Tony Dolan (The Demolition Man) from Atomkraft. Bray and Dolan wrote new material prior to Dunn's rejoining the band along with rhythm guitarist Al Barnes. Together they recorded Prime Evil (1989), Tear Your Soul Apart (1990) and Temples of Ice (1991). Barnes then left the band, and Steve White from Atomkraft was hired as his replacement. They released The Waste Lands in 1992, also without success. Music for Nations refused to release any more Venom albums, so Dolan and Dunn quit, effectively disbanding Venom. Bray continued to release compilation and live albums up to 1995. Nonetheless, Dolan, Dunn and Bray continued performing as a trio.
In 1995, Lant, Dunn and Bray reunited the "classic" line-up, beginning by headlining the Waldrock Festival on 24 June 1995. They recorded and self-released the Venom '96 EP with four re-recorded old tracks and one new song, resulting in a record deal with the SPV label. Following this was a live CD/video box set, The Second Coming, composed entirely of songs from their classic era such as "Welcome to Hell", "Countess Bathory", "In Nomine Satanas" and "Black Metal". An album, Cast in Stone, was next released in 1997, split between two discs which was one of all new material and the other with re-recordings of popular early-'80s songs.
By 1999, internal conflicts in the band delayed production of the second album in their deal with SPV. Band manager Eric Cook and Abaddon decided not to work with Cronos again. Abaddon wrote a letter to Cronos, with the intent of firing him. In response, Cronos communicated the situation to SPV. The record company refused to work with Venom if Cronos was not part of the line-up. Cronos answered Abaddon telling him: "You can't kick the Devil out of hell, I'm firing you!"[12] Despite this, the band tried to invite Abaddon to play with them again but Bray did not want to perform on the album and he was replaced by Conrad Lant's younger brother, Anton. This line-up released Resurrection in 2000 on SPV. However, in 2002 Dunn was next to leave the group and Lant replaced him with an American guitarist, Mike Hickey, who had already taken part in the 1987 release, "Calm Before the Storm," and Cronos solo albums. In late 2005, Venom released a career-spanning four-disc box set, MMV, which includes an exclusive mini-poster of the band's seven-date tour of Europe with Metallica and a 60-page picture book, with interviews and pictures. The set includes all their best-known songs, along with rarities like live tracks, demos and outtakes. This line-up of the band released the Metal Black album in 2006.
In 2007, Mike Hickey left the band and guitarist Stuart "Rage" Dixon joined the band and this line-up released the record Hell the following year. In 2009, drummer Danny "Dante" Needham joined the band and Lant wrote that this will be known as "The Epic Line-Up of Venom", and they set off on a full South American tour. After headlining festivals around the world for the next couple of years gaining in popularity, they released the Fallen Angels album on 28 November 2011.
Venom released their fourteenth studio album, From the Very Depths, on 27 January 2015.[13] The band also played one song, "Rise", they were working on in the studio, live for the audience at Rockfest 2014.[14]
Venom released a three-track EP, 100 Miles to Hell, on 22 December 2017.[15] Their fifteenth album, Storm the Gates, was released on 14 December 2018.[16]
In April 2015, in anticipation of a date of M-pire of Evil (band of Mantas and Demolition Man) at the Keep It True Festival in Germany, the organisers of the festival asked Mantas and Demolition Man if they could play the songs of Venom with Abaddon.[17] Mantas had not talked to Abaddon since 1998. After thinking a bit, the two former Venom members played along with Abaddon without having done any rehearsals for the show. At this point, the three brought together the Venom line-up of 1988–1992 under the name of Venom Inc. for the sake of the fans (instead of the name "Iron & Steel", that was initially conceived by the members themselves). Abaddon was eventually replaced in 2018.[17] The group has released two studio albums.
Musical style and influences
Venom were one of the first incarnations of extreme metal, influencing many thrash metal, black metal, death metal, and other extreme metal bands.[18] They are considered one of the premier influences on black metal, and their 1982 album Black Metal gave the genre its name.[19] Venom's exact genre has been a topic of debate. They have been labelled various genres by the press, most prominently thrash and speed metal.[20] Cronos insists on calling it black metal, without passing judgment on the genre that later would flourish in Norway:
...It's one of the things when I first saw when I saw the Norwegian scene beginning in the early nineties. I thought: ok, I know they said Venom are an influence, etcetera, etcetera; let's see where these guys are coming from. And then when I started to read the lyrics, read the interviews and see they were kind of saying the same thing, but about their country, they had their religion, with all the Norse gods like Wodan and Thor. And then all of the sudden the Christians came in and they tried to destroy their religion. It's great that they stayed within in their country's beliefs for their lyrics as well. So, they're not the exactly the same things as Venom, they invented something of their own, which I think is fucking great...[10]
Welcome to Hell influenced several later bands.[18] Venom's music helped shape the development of thrash metal bands like Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth, who in turn were influential. Metallica opened for Venom on an early 1980s tour,[8] Venom opened for Metallica and Slayer on the Ride the Lightning tour, and Slayer played with them and Exodus on the Combat Tour in 1985. Both Kerry King and Tom Araya have cited Venom as an important early influence on Slayer's image and music,[24][25] while Dave Mustaine of Megadeth said he and James Hetfield of Metallica were fans of Venom.[26]Lars Ulrich of Metallica said of Venom's first album: "Welcome To Hell was a classic! Black metal, speed metal, death metal, whatever you want to call it, Venom started it all with that one record!"[27]Mille Petrozza of Kreator stated that Venom was one of his favourite bands early in his career, alongside the "Big Four".[28] Canadian band Voivod covered seven different Venom songs on their early demos.[29][30]
Venom would also be of importance to the black metal scene and the early death metal scene. Swiss band Hellhammer (later to become Celtic Frost) and Norwegian band Mayhem[31] are among the acts influenced by Venom; Quorthon, the frontman of Swedish band Bathory, called Black Metal "one of the best albums ever made" in an interview, although he downplayed Venom's influence on him.[32]Possessed and Repulsion,[33] two bands which went on to influence much of the death metal and grindcore to come, were both influenced by Venom, with Jeff Becerra of Possessed often asserting Venom and Exodus as the two main influences on his band.[34] Music critic Bradley Torreano wrote that Venom "caught the attention of both metalheads and punks, the band was emulated by the former and turned into camp icons by the latter."[6]Henry Rollins once compared the band to Spinal Tap.[35]
Although they did not make it to MTV's top 10 heavy metal bands list, they were given an "honorable mention".[36]
Reflecting on Venom's 40th anniversary, Cronos said that without Venom, bands such as Metallica or Slayer would not exist. He explained, "We were the band that was influenced by Motörhead and the Sex Pistols, but we took their sound and made something completely new out of it. We were completely new; no one had heard anything like us. And of course, unbeknown to us, in America there were these kids who were listening to our records and then shaping what we were doing into their own thing. Slayer would be an example of that. And I agree, without us those bands either wouldn't exist, or would sound very different from the way they do." He also cited the line-up consisting of himself, along with guitarist Stuart "Rage" Dixon and drummer Danny "Danté" Needham as "the best one we've ever had."[22]
Criticism
A Venom song was included in the so-called "Filthy Fifteen" list compiled by the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) during 1980's hearings on musical content.[37] The title-song from the Possessed album was criticised by the PMRC for having "occult" lyrical content. The efforts by the PMRC resulted in the inclusion of Parental Advisory labels that became ubiquitous on physical music media.
Venom's biggest criticism is regarding Satanism, which is the main driving force behind the band's music and album covers. Cronos explained in 2008 that the reasoning behind it is for entertainment purposes.
I've always been interested in Satanism, but we're entertainers, and we used subjects like Satanism and paganism to entertain people, like horror movies do. Listening to a Venom album is the same thing as watching an Evil Dead movie. I don't go around murdering virgins in my spare time. It's frustrating when people can't make that distinction; I mean, David Bowie's not actually from Mars, is he? But we were always being misquoted in the press. Venom admit to dancing around a campfire with virgins? Nonsense.
Critic Eduardo Rivadavia of AllMusic writes that even though Welcome to Hell influenced "literally thousands" of bands, Venom were "critically reviled".[18] Critic James Christopher Monger, however, declares that the members of Venom "grew as musicians" as their careers progressed.[39]EthnographerKeith Kahn-Harris argues that Venom's limited technical skill, particularly early in their career, was a profound, though inadvertent factor in the band's influence: being unable to mimic more technically proficient metal of their predecessors or peers, Venom instead opted to focus on sheer speed, creating music that was inspired by earlier metal, yet simultaneously innovative.
^"Slayer's Kerry King: My 10 Favorite Metal Albums". Rolling Stone. 14 July 2017. Slayer looked like Venom early on. We were impressionable and trying to find ourselves and we were probably a cross between Venom and Mercyful Fate, maybe a little bit of Priest, maybe a little bit of punk. That's where we came from.
^"Possessed". Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 16 July 2011.
^Rollins, Henry (1994). Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag. 2.13.61 Publications. p. 232. Venom took almost an hour to get onstage. They had roadies tuning their guitars and shit. Finally, they hit the stage. They were hilarious. It was like seeing Spinal Tap.
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