VENOM Is 'A Team Effort. It's Not Just The CRONOS Band'

In a new interview with Sakis Fragos of Rock Hard Greece, VENOM guitarist Rage (a.k.a. Stuart Dixon) and drummer Danté (a.k.a. Danny Needham) spoke about the band's latest studio album, "Into Oblivion", which came out in May via Noise/BMG. Asked about the perception from some fans that VENOM is largely the solo project of bassist/vocalist Conrad "Cronos" Lant and not a full-fledged band, Danté said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Every song, it's a group effort. We bounce ideas off each other. It's not just one person coming in and saying, 'This is the way it's gonna sound. That's what you're gonna play. Get on with it. Let's record.' No, no, no. We all have our own individual ideas, and sometimes we have a big jam... We just set the recorder going, and we just play and play, and the styles change. Don't get me wrong — there's a lot of shit we come out with, but there's also some little golden nuggets. There's times where we're, like, 'Ooh, this sounds good,' and we'll all be sort of chugging away on an idea. And it's not till you listen back and there'll be moments where you go, 'There,' like, 'Let's work on that part. Let's just...' And some of the songs we've had over these past 17 years on the albums we've done have come from those sort of jams, as well as ideas people bringing to the table and working on them like that. So it's a team effort. It's not just the Cronos band. So to those people who think that, they can think what they fucking like. But it's definitely not."

Added Rage: "And we didn't replace the people who played on the first albums. It's not as if we came in and stole the band that played on the first four albums' jobs off them. We didn't do that. We replaced other people. And people didn't want to be in the band. They didn't want to have anything to do with VENOM, and Cronos has carried it on. And that's all he's been interested in. I mean, I've been with the guy for 20 years now. And I think I speak for Danté as well. If we couldn't write songs or come in with ideas or what we think the band should be or about sets and stuff like that, we would have left ages ago… And we have arguments, but it's arguments about good stuff like music and how the songs should be and stuff like that, but they're not aggressive. It's just passionate. And to be brutally honest, he loves the fact that people say that about him because it makes it... We're not gonna sit here and say he's a teddy bear 'cause that he'd piss him off. [Laughs] But he's a human and he has feelings… I mean, we're all humans. We have feelings and we make mistakes, and we get angry, we get upset, we get happy, we get sad."

The guitarist continued: "When VENOM first came out, a lot of people said they were sloppy players, [that] they were 'the best worst band' and stuff like that. And that's hard when you're a young musician writing songs and putting albums out and people are saying that about you. It can make you quite not want to speak to people and stuff like that. So I understand if, in the past, if people have been a certain way, because putting albums out is putting your heart on your sleeve. And for people to be flippant and call people sloppy players and 'it's all noise' and stuff like that… But we can stand up against any band. We'll go on stage. We don't have any fear. We don't go, 'Oh, God, have you heard them? They're brilliant.' We just go up and we just do what we do, and kids enjoy it, so we just carry on doing it."

"Into Oblivion" is VENOM's sixteenth studio album and marks the band's first new recordings since 2018's "Storm The Gates" LP.

"Into Oblivion" consists of thirteen songs that are signature VENOM: heavy, evil and catchy. There's a combination of the band's classic 1980s sound adjacent to a more modern, progressive approach but without losing any of their fire and brimstone of old.

The album had been in the works for some years now, but a number of factors held back its completion until now; the COVID pandemic, recording setbacks and the hunger to nail it to perfection.

There are now three different bands using variations of the VENOM name for their live shows. In addition to the new collaboration between Jeff "Mantas" Dunn and Anthony "Abaddon" Bray, VENOM's iconic co-founders — who recently announced that they will celebrate the 45th anniversary of VENOM's classic debut album, 1981's "Welcome To Hell", at various festivals in 2026 — there is the Cronos-fronted version of VENOM, in which he is the sole remaining member from the band's classic era, and there is VENOM INC., which is led by Tony "Demolition Man" Dolan, who was a member of VENOM between 1989 and 1992, appearing on the albums "Prime Evil" (1989),"Temples Of Ice" (1991) and "The Waste Lands" (1992).

In June 2024, Cronos filed a lawsuit against Abaddon and Plastic Head Music Distribution Ltd in which he accused the distributor of selling merchandise with Lant's copyrighted VENOM designs and Bray of approving the infringement through a licensing agreement. The dispute revolved around the fact that both parties were licensing and selling official VENOM merchandise featuring the contested designs.

According to Law360.com, Lant testified in court last year that he joined VENOM in late 1979 and came up with the Satanic-themed designs used in the band's logo and album covers, which included goat heads, pentagrams and inverted crosses. Bray filed a counterclaim for infringement against Lant and Lant's distributor, Razmataz.com Ltd., arguing that Bray was the real author of the works. Because Lant was able to produce numerous sketches which demonstrated his design process and Bray was unable to do the same, Bray was deemed the owner of the original logo, while Lant was found to be the creator and copyright owner of all but one of the other artistic works in dispute.

VENOM's classic lineup trio of Dunn, Lant and Bray recorded four studio LPs, "Welcome To Hell" (1981),"Black Metal" (1982),"At War With Satan" (1984) and "Possessed" (1985),and live album, "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" (1986). Often cited by bands such as METALLICA, BEHEMOTH, CELTIC FROST and MAYHEM as major influences, they are one of the most revered bands of their generation.

Photo credit: Necrohorns