Cronos: RIP

Rushonrock is still reeling at the news that Conrad ‘Cronos’ Lant, the frontman of the hugely influential Venom, has died aged 63.

Editor Simon Rushworth spoke to BBC Radio Newcastle about the extreme metal pioneer’s passing on the Anna Foster show.

And we’d like to express our heartfelt sympathies to Conrad’s family and friends across the North East and beyond.

The bassist and vocalist was a driving force behind a band whose uncompromising sound helped shape generations of extreme metal musicians and whose influence stretched from Metallica and Slayer to the pioneers of the Norwegian black metal scene.

Venom were formed in 1978 and Lant (pictured above, far right) drew inspiration from some of rock’s biggest names. A huge fan of Motörhead, Kiss, Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper, his ambition was to create something that combined elements of all four — only darker, heavier, more evil and even more flamboyant.

The band’s North East roots remained central to their early story. Venom recorded their debut album at Wallsend’s Neat Records, owned by Dave Wood and home to much of the emerging heavy music coming out of the region at the time.

But it was their second album, 1982’s Black Metal, that changed everything.

Recorded in just six days, the record gave its name to an entire genre and established Venom as one of the most important early influences on the extreme metal movement.

Metallica and Slayer both cited Venom as an influence, while bands including Mayhem, Emperor and Darkthrone took direct inspiration from the sound and imagery Lant and his bandmates helped create.

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich summed up Venom’s place in heavy music history when he said ‘Venom started it all’.

The relationship between Venom and Metallica stretched back to the latter’s earliest days. In the early 1980s Metallica opened for Venom, before the tables were subsequently turned and Venom opened for a band rapidly emerging as one of metal’s biggest names.

Lant’s career with Venom was not without turbulence and included fallouts with fellow band members but Cronos remained synonymous with the band and its uncompromising approach to heavy music. Jeff ‘Mantas’ Dunn and Anton ‘Abaddon’ Bray have both paid tribute to their former band mate.

Earlier this year Venom released Into Oblivion, proving that more than four decades after Black Metal, Lant was still determined to push the band’s trademark sound.

Rushonrock named the album its Record Of The Week, describing Into Oblivion as an album that ‘mixes speed, thrash and black metal to quarry-blasting effect’.

From Wallsend’s Neat Records to stages around the world, Cronos helped take a raw metal band from Tyneside and turn it into an influence on generations of musicians.

His legacy can be heard across thrash, death and black metal — genres which owe a considerable debt to the sound Venom forged more than 40 years ago.