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Interview: Cronos of Venom

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The first time I met the Amebix guys was at a crowded club in Antwerp in 2009. They were playing what was being billed as one of their last gigs ever, so I finagled the promise of an interview, scraped up some pennies, and made my way over. After getting terribly lost en route to the venue, I came across a white van surrounded by amp and cab-wielding men with long hair and tattered black pants. It was parked out front of a squat, nondescript building I’d assumed was a warehouse, but which, lo and behold, turned out to be Antwerps’ premier rock club.

After initial introductions, I was left to my own devices while the band set up and soundchecked. I was shy, caught in the throes of hero worship, and Rob, Stig, and Roy were terribly polite, if a bit reserved. They went onstage and killed it, but we didn’t really get a chance to bond until afterwards, when we all crowded into a small pub and got silly on too-strong-for-my-own-good Belgian beer. The next morning, we had breakfast at a sidewalk café and I pestered Rob with a few hazy interview questions. The defining moment of that conversation came when he noticed my Hellhammer shirt, and proceeded to tell me about what things were like back in the day when he and his brother used to trade demos with Tom G. Warrior, and how they’d sent a copy of their Winter single to a much younger Abaddon. I can’t remember his exact words anymore, but the mere notion made me grin.

Turns out, Cronos doesn’t remember all the specifics of those early days either, but he’s got a lot of other thoughts about the ties binding extreme metal and punk rock.

I mean that in the best possible way, too, and am delighted to have convinced the old bastard to answer the questions below. When you see the man who coined the term “black metal” and unwittingly launched a thousand trips to the hardware store for nails and black paint refer to himself as “the original Metal Punk”, you really can’t help but smile – and maybe reach for a Newcastle Brown Ale in tribute.

— Kim Kelly

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Venom is one of the most important heavy metal bands ever – that goes without saying – and it’s been interesting watching your influence filter through into new sounds and genres. When the band first started out, were you interested in or involved with punk rock at all? Did it have any effect on what you were doing?

Yes without a doubt, in fact, even though I started listening to Rock music from a very young age, as I lived beside bands like the Who and the Rolling Stones in London during the 1960s, I’d say the music that gave me the biggest awakening that I could really identify with was Punk Rock in the 1970s. The musicians were of my generation and I totally understood their attitude. To me Punk Rock reflected a lot of the feelings that people of my age group had at that time, so I think being influenced by both Rock and Punk gave me the ingredients to create Black, Thrash, Speed, Death and Power Metal.

Rob Miller was telling me about how Amebix, Hellhammer, and Venom all used to tape trade and send each other letters back in the day. With that in mind, where do you think this “punk vs. metal” divide first started in the first place?

I don’t remember that? I think he may have likely been trading with the Venom fans not the band; we’ve always had hardcore followers [The Legions] who try to collect everything. I do recall being at a press conference in Switzerland in the early 1980s, and a fanzine journalist mentioned that other bands around the world were being influenced by Venom and forming with similar dark ideas about Satanism, Witchcraft and the Black Arts etc. I said “yeah like the band you are in”, [as ajoke really] and I was right, he promptly handed me his bands demo cassette, and the name of his band was Hellhammer, he was a very young Tom Warrior.

I used to get a lot of cassette tapes [demos] sent to me at Neat Records [Impulse Studios] by young bands looking for deals, and apart from working at the studio as a sound Engineer, I also ran the A&R department, so I’d check out all the demos and recommend any bands for the label to sign, but I don’t remember trading tapes with anyone. I still have boxes full of the demos we received, including the old Hellhammer cassette.

Regarding what you ask about the Punk vs Metal divide… In my opinion, when the Punk trend first appeared it was the reverse of everything the Rock bands [or hippies as they put it] stood for, and ‘Metal’ didn’t exist, there was only Rock Music in the early to mid 1970s. Rock music had already split into different areas by this time with the older bands becoming AOR, Prog Rock and Glam Rock bands, but this scene didn’t progress much until after the Punk scene had lost it’s momentum by the end of the 1970s, and then bands like Judas Priest, AC/DC, Motorhead etc started to gain popularity, and I’d say this was the real start of proper ‘Heavy Metal’ in my opinion.

When I first started playing I used to say I was a Long Haired Punk playing Power Metal. Then by the early1980s I coined the terms Black Metal, plus Thrash, Death and Speed Metal to describe the styles I played – people couldn’t put my styles into a category, so I had to invent new ones.

I mixed the ingredients of Punk Music’s aggression and the heaviness of the Rock and Metal Music to make Black Metal, a combination of all the extreme elements of each style. A lot of Punk fans got into Venom and it was awesome for to see both Punks and Rockers at our shows in the early 1980s, the divide was gone, they both were there to see Venom, and now the ball was well and truly rolling.

Crust punk, d-beat, and speed metal all blur the lines between metal and punk, and Venom are a perfect example of prototypical metal/punk fusion. Clearly, there’s not too much of a disconnect there. What similarities do you see between the two types of music?

Differently the same! Both musical styles are made with musicians playing real instruments; Drums, Bass, Guitars and Vocals, with few or no keyboards, so the format is the same, that’s why Punk was called Punk Rock. In our early years a lot of Punks told me they thought Venom were a Punk Band until they saw photos of us with long hair, but then when they saw photos of me wearing Doc Martin boots, they figured out the connection. I was the original ‘Metal Punk’.

How about in their imagery, lyrics, and fashion?

Fashion was a big influence on Punk, in London especially I knew people who enjoyed dressing up with the entire make up, safety pins, spiked hair and ripped clothes etc, but they didn’t listen to any Punk bands or go to the shows. Some girls I knew were scared to go to any shows because of the threats of violence or rumours or disturbances at the shows, but they were happy to just dress up and hang out.

If you look at Punk bands and Punk fashion in 2013, I’d say the fashion is still more alive than the bands. I’m not talking about the music, as there are a lot of Punk influences in many bands today, but the actual Punk bands are very few compared to the 1970s, although the fashion is still widely seen around the world. Rock or Metal is the opposite, as this music is bigger and more widespread nowadays than it has ever been; it keeps growing all the time.

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Our conversation with Cronos of Venom continues….

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Let’s talk stereotypes for a moment. Generally, punk rock is generally seen to be pretty vocally left wing, while a good amount of extreme metal (though far from all of it) can tend to skew more towards the right, or ignore politics altogether. I know Venom are more concerned with blasphemy and Satan, but in general, do you think metalheads should aim to be as politically and socially aware as some punks try to be?

Punk lyrics seemed to be a lot about attacking the establishment or venting their anger at aspects of society they didn’t like, but there was no real politics, no solutions. We wanted Johnny Rotten to start the Punk Party and run in an election, then ultimately become Prime Minister, although I have no doubt in my mind that none of the politicians were worried that some band could possibly win enough seats, no matter how cool that would have been.

I think it would be very naive to say that people who like Rock or Metal are in anyway less politically and socially aware than people who like Punk. I agree that a lot of Punk bands write songs about political issues, but that is the style of the music, and it has never been something that Rock or Metal has concentrated on very heavily, but there are political opinions in some Rock and Metal bands lyrics.

Politics are a personal opinion, and maybe it was the Punks trying to use their songs as a political soap box that lost them a lot of popularity, no fun eh! Whereas Rock and Metal are more about escapism and don’t intend to preach.

Do you think it would benefit the genre and the community to look past zombies and Satan and into the more real and immediate evils that the world contains?

I do actually, that’s the idea behind Black Metal, I write songs about the world we live in, good and bad. I never wanted to just write Venom songs about drinking whisky and your wife leaving you with the dog, so I have the freedom to write about many different subjects, but as the saying goes . . . the Devil has the best tunes.

I often use Satan as a metaphor, and this enables me to write about subjects that make people think and ask questions. Black Metal is not just about fire and brimstone, and I don’t write about Zombies.

Punks aren’t always open-minded towards metal folk either, and clashes frequently arise when imagery is misinterpreted or politics come into play. Just look at Antifa for proof of that. Did you ever get into any scrapes with punks back in the day for being into metal?

No, I still wear my 22 hole Doc Marten boots, I have always got on with both Punks and Rockers, I’ve produced albums for Punk bands and Metal bands, and hung out in both Punk and Metal gigs, without incident. I think the main issues that started a lot of rumours about clashes between the Punks and Rockers were the fights between the Skinheads and the Bikers. In Newcastle especially there were often clashes between these groups, although Skinheads are portrayed more as Soccer Hooligans than Punks, but I guess from an outsider’s perspective they see them as the same.

How do you see the two scenes coexisting – do you think metalheads and punks are more or less the same by now, or that the two are still living in different worlds

I think all of the scenes co-exist now, there are lots of cross-over bands and styles, many of the metallheads like punk music and vice versa, so its cool to like various styles, not just be a Punk or a Rocker, and to also like a bit of Jazz or Hip Hop or whatever. I’ve always been very open and honest about liking lots of different styles of music, from Jethro Tull to David Bowie, or Kate Bush to Rush, I just like what I like, and I think it’s more common now to like different types of artists, without just saying I only listen to Metal for example.

Do you have any other thoughts to share?

We are in the studio working on the new album and also getting ready for our 2013 concerts, a big hell yeah to all our Legions for burning the flag bright and staying loyal to our music, we hope to see you all soon, stay wild. Visit our website for news, videos, photos and concert updates etc at www.venomslegions.com