Robert Williams of Metal-Rules.com conducted an interview with British black metal pioneers VENOM at this year’s Fun Fun Fun Fest, which was held earlier this month in Austin, Texas. You can now watch the chat below.
Without directly mentioning VENOM INC. — the new band featuring original VENOM members Jeff “Mantas” Dunn (guitar) and Anthony “Abaddon” Bray (drums) alongside ex-VENOM bassist/vocalist Tony “Demolition Man” Dolan — VENOM guitarist Rage (a.k.a. Stuart Dixon) said: “Don’t be fooled by pale imitations.” VENOM bassist/vocalist Conrad “Cronos” Lant added: “Yes, indeed. Check out the real VENOM. We know that there’s been some sites who’ve been putting our photographs and our VENOM logo up for a whole load of dates that don’t have anything to do with us. VENOM play one-off shows, and that’s the way we’ve always done it. And we like to have it as big and as best as we can. We don’t do little club tours; that’s never been the VENOM way. And we’re trying to contact some of these sites to say, ‘Look, you’re misrepresenting the band. We don’t know who this band is that you’re talking about, but we’re not coming to America to play thirty shows. Please get your shit together and sort it out.’ But these web sites must just wanna put any shit on their site.”
Cronos also talked about VENOM’s musical evolution over the last three and a half decades. He said: “The thing is, the way I’ve always seen VENOM is… VENOM needs to be a band that evolves. You know, I don’t wanna play the same songs fucking year after year after year. I wanna evolve this band. I wanna stay with a slightly commercial… Rock and roll has to be something that you remember, and a lot of the death metal stuff that’s all based on the same sort of [fast rhythm], to me, it doesn’t have a hook. And I’ve always found that with songs like ‘Welcome To Hell’, it’s something that stays with you. I know people think ‘commercial’ is a dirty word with metal, and [they] can fuck off, because commercial just means something that stays with you, that you like, that you enjoy. And that’s something that we do well. We come up with songs where you’re still thinking about them weeks later, months later after you’ve heard them. They stick with you. They’re not throwaway songs. We don’t want any throwaway songs. If the song doesn’t move you, and if you don’t remember it, you don’t wanna keep playing it in the car or wherever, then we throw it away; it’s goodbye. We want the stuff that stays hardcore and evolving. You know, still being a bit controversial as well. You know, the song ‘Smoke’, I’m sure people didn’t expect that one out of VENOM; it’s a little bit different. But we’ve always done that. We got shit for ‘7 Gates Of Hell’ back in the day. ‘What the fuck? That’s not like ‘Angel Dust’.’ But that’s what I love about this band. We have the ability to just keep trying out new ideas and retaining that ‘Black Metal’ stamp. So fucking long may it continue.”
VENOM’s latest album, “From The Very Depths”, was released on January 27 via Spinefarm.
Source: Blabbermouth
