VENOM's CRONOS: 'DAVE GROHL's Not A Rock-Star Dick'

February 7, 2004

VENOM frontman Conrad "Cronos" Lant recently spoke to Rock Sound magazine about his involvement with the PROBOT project, the one-off metal album put together by ex-NIRVANA drummer/current FOO FIGHTERS guitarist/vocalist Dave Grohl. "Fuck, [Dave] is a totally down-to-earth guy, not a rock-star dick or nothing!" Cronos said. "We were hanging out an and having beers and talking about music, typical of what I would think of as a musician, not someone like Elton John or bloody Phil Collins. You get these people like them who are always singing about love and this, that and the other, and to me they are nasty bastards in real life. They have too many issues. And you meet these people who sing about reasonably nasty things with their music — and when you meet them they are really good eggs!

"I turned up and he has a [VENOM] 'Welcome To Hell' T-shirt on and he is humble enough to respect what I have done without him sitting there and saying, 'You know, you're not a patch on where I have been.' It doesn't mean that at the end of the day, not to someone like him. He wouldn't look down his nose at someone despite how much fame he gets. Even the likes of METALLICA — I have heard some really horrible stories about people they have looked down their noses at — and it's like, 'Fucking hell, I remember dragging those crying little babies out on the road!' And that's the shit at the end of the day when they get a big head about it, it's like, 'Shut the fuck up and get in the back of the van!' "

In the same issue of Rock Sound, CATHEDRAL mainman (and ex-NAPALM DEATH frontman) Lee Dorrian remembered the time he let Grohl's former band SCREAM sleep in his apartment after a gig in Coventry that he had promoted.

"I was about 18-19 and I'd just got my first council flat and there was fuck-all in it — there was half a curtain or something, no furniture, no carpets. I think I even ended up staying at my girlfriend's house instead! I remember I had robbed a little table from a squad down the road and there was a really old radio with a cassette player on it and only one speaker worked. It was on the eighth floor in the roughest part of Coventry, hookers next door, drug dealers, all that kind of shit. NAPALM had just done our Peel Session and I remember playing it to them and Dave found that quite intriguing — and then I remember him talking about CELTIC FROST all night!

"Dave seemed like a nice chirpy character, he was always cracking gags and stuff, not much different to how he is now, really. It is quite amazing — the amount of personal and musical success he has had, to remain such a level-headed guy is quite remarkable. It is inspirational."

Find more on
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).