Recently, legendarily outspoken Venom frontman Cronos, never a man of few words or interesting stories, was kind enough to speak with us regarding, among many other things, the release of the highly influential group’s latest blasphemous masterpiece Metal Black…

Todd: What can you tell us about Metal Black? Do you consider this to be a return to the classic Venom sound?

Cronos: “…It is, yeah. What we’ve done is kinda come full circle on this one. When we put the original line-up back together in ‘95 to do (the) Cast In Stone (album), it was really obvious to me that the other guys had moved on. They weren’t the same people that I’d worked with in 1985, ya know? It really had me questioning where all of this was going. …For years, everybody said the only Venom is Cronos, Mantas and Abaddon… I agree, but that’s a bit of a difficult pill to swallow when you think about those guys not being the same people that they were. Of course we’ve all moved on…we’ve been on an incredibly journey. But at the same time, it’s weird for me when the guitarist wants to do Industrial stuff and the drummer wants to do Nu Metal and they don’t really want to do the music they helped create. …I’m Cronos from Venom and playing Black Metal is my job, ya know? All musicians go off every now and again. I did that project (Probot) with (Foo Fighters vocalist/guitarist) Dave Grohl, and he’s pretty much a commercial songwriter and there he was writin’ a heavy album. Usually people who write heavy albums go the other way…they want to write something more commercial. …At the end of the day, I don’t hear anybody else doing this. The likes of the Norwegians…to me that’s not Black Metal, it’s as simple as that. I’ve always said that Black Metal is Power Metal, Speed Metal, Thrash Metal…all of those… You don’t hear that from the Norwegians. They play Death Metal fast, like a Speed Death Metal. They should have called it Norse Metal or something… At the end of the day, what we’ve done is said Cronos, Mantas and Abaddon is Black Metal. I’ve got two guys in the band right now who are so Hard Core for playing that style, the style that Venom created for the first few albums. The style that actually made us famous and sorta gave us this career…the style that everyone says they like the best. So I thought ‘…let’s put a new spin on it yet again…’, make it controversial and change the rules a bit, ya know? Let’s give it a new stamp…and call it Metal Black. It’s Black Metal for the twenty first century. It’s Cronos, Mykvs and Antton, so there’s a distinction between the two bands. After we’ve released three or four albums, this whole concept will be a lot easier for people to swallow. There will always be people that say …oh, I prefer Abaddon’s sloppy drums and Mantas’s out of tune guitar…’ I prefer to listen to Master Of Reality and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath over the modern Black Sabbath albums. People should at least be able to make the distinction. We find that a lot of older people like the older Venom and a lot of the younger kids who would listen to Slipknot and whatever like Resurrection and Metal Black. It’s got more of a modern production, but it that older style, ya know? It’s really about giving Venom fans what they’ve come to expect, but staying true to ourselves.”

Todd: How do you respond to the controversy surrounding the decision to name the album Metal Black? It would seem some people feel the title is simply a rip off of the Black Metal name…

Cronos: “It’s our name to rip off (laughs). At the end of the day, it’s ours to do with what we want. I heard people say ‘…fuckin’ hell! Could you have thought of a better title…’ There are fourteen songs on the album, ya know? We could have called the album A Good Day To Die…we could have called the album Burn In Hell. Of course we could have thought of a different fuckin’ title. There’s a reason why it’s called Metal Black. It’s because it’s in the style of Black Metal. It’s Venom returning back to our roots after twenty five years. …I’ve heard all the different comments (about the different line-ups), and at the end of the day, people will always say there is no Venom like the Black Metal Venom. But we could never do that same thing again. We’ve moved on as musicians and studio technology has changed… We can’t make a muddy album, an album that sounds like crap. If people want that, they should take Metal Black, put it on the stereo, turn off all the treble, put all the bass on full and put their headphones in a bucket of water (laughs). Then it will sound like crap. Do they like it better like that? I think some people make comments about things without thinkin’ about what they’re sayin’. Nobody wants a crap sounding album. We put them out to the best of our abilities in those days. It was as good as it got from a seventeen year old Conrad, ya know? I’ve never been taught how to play. No one has ever dictated to me how the music business works. We kinda made up our own rules as we went along. That’s kinda what we’re doing again. This is us playing the best we can and doing the best we can. Fuck, man…everybody’s new album is always their best album, isn’t it? …Everybody says that because it’s good promo… We feel really proud about Metal Black and we’re also having some fun with it. We really enjoy playing the songs. It seems that a lot of doors are opening that had previously been shut. I don’t know if that’s because the band is a lot more professional now or if it’s because people accept the fact that we’re Venom and we’re not gonna go away (laughs).”

Todd: At this point in your career, what are your feelings on Satanism? Do you feel your beliefs have benefited your career?

Cronos: “…I live my life kinda how people would imagine the Devil living his life. I make my own rules and choose to do with my life what I please. I don’t follow no fuckin’ church dogma about believe this, say that…jump when I say jump. The whole point of Satanism is to have your own head. We’ve taken that through every aspect of our career. I used to go see bands, I used to sleep out for tickets, I used to stand in the audience and dream that I would be onstage one day. We used to say to people that if they wanted a career in music it was attainable. Don’t just stand there worshipin’ me when you could be up here. Now that there’s a million fuckin’ Death Metal bands, it’s kinda like people got that message. We’re very proud people. We’re very headstrong. You need to be to live your own life. You’re born alone, you’ve got this life and your going to climb into a box one day. What you do in the middle…you gotta get it right, ya know? …There’s too many people who are like fuckin’ sheep and just follow along. You can make a difference with your life. That’s the biggest sign of success for me with Venom…the fact that it was so radically different and was what we wanted to do, not what other people wanted us to do. I kinda feel proud that we created something completely different. You need to be so fuckin’ headstrong because people are gonna tell you ‘…oh, you’re doin’ it wrong. you gotta do it like this…’ Everybody thinks they’ve got great ideas. …Fuck them. The whole point of being a Satanist is not running a round attacking people and being an idiot. That’s where the Norwegian guys got it all wrong. Burning churches has nothing to do with Satanism, really. …One of the laws is responsibility to the responsible. That’s so easy to understand. Walk down the street and bother nobody. If somebody stands in your way, tell them to move. If they don’t move, destroy them. How easy it that to understand? Live you own life, indulgence instead of abstinence. People don’t even believe in God anymore. The churches are being used as community centers for children who come from poor backgrounds. They’re learnin’ how to do woodwork and a little bit of metal work…how to build fences and how to look after themselves. They aren’t used to pray in anymore. You see it in the English newspapers. …It’s as if there’s something wrong with you if you believe in God, ya know? People need to empower themselves and believe in themselves. …If I did something wrong to you, I’d apologize because I’m a nice guy. Then you have these Christians who go around shitin’ on everybody because all they have to do it go repent their sins on Sunday, ya know? It makes them into nasty pieces of shit. At the end of the day, you wouldn’t trust these people with fucking anything. The whole Satanic image is perfect for Heavy Metal. This is the Devil’s music. I don’t like all of these lame bands that call themselves Metal like Saxon and Sampson. Shoving’ stuff down your pants and putting lipstick on. Metal is supposed to be how it was predicted back in the Steppenwolf days…bikes, chains, leather and studs. The whole point of being a Hells Angel is that he’s being his own man. He’s free and not being chained down and told what to do. All of this is what is behind the power of Satanism with Venom. It’s not like we walk around with pointy teeth or something stupid. We’ve always said that some little old lady with warts on her nose isn’t necessarily a bad person. It’s some guy in a fuckin’ suite who’s gonna fuck you over. It’s about puttin’ things into perspective. …We’re not gonna get burned as witches for talkin’ like this today. That’s why this scene is so huge. It’s a wonderful image, it’s great fun, it’s fuckin’ harmless and at the end of the day, it gives you empowerment. It helps you to live your own life. …We’re doing absolutely nothing wrong. Fuck the other people…we give others empowerment.”

Todd: What are your current touring plans?

Cronos: “Quite a lot, actually. I’m good friends with the guys in Slipknot and Pantera… One of the things that struck me was Slipknot’s video for “Disaterpiece”. There’s pyro everywhere, it’s a huge show and it’s fuckin’ really crazy. …The fans are lovin’ it. To me, it seems that the band going to the fans is more important than the band havin’ all these huge fuckin’ shows. We’ve always believed that people didn’t want see Venom if we didn’t have the show. It just seems that so many people’s opinions have changed because there are some many places where Venom has never been. Not all of our fans can travel a thousand fuckin’ miles to come see us. It just seems so odd that after twenty five years, there a just so many places that we’ve never even been. It’s time for us to open our ears and take in a little bit of what’s going on around us. If there is some territory where they only have a thousand or two thousand seat club, but that’s where everybody like Judas Priest and Marilyn Manson play, then that is there fuckin’ venue. These bands go there because that’s where their fans are. It’s okay that they don’t have pyro, hydraulics and the whole fuckin’ nine yards. The fans are appreciative that the band came to their town. We think Venom should be there as well. We’ve got a lot of festival dates lined up and of course we’re gonna do all the pyro and the whole shebang, but I think we should also try to do some of these other concerts as well, just to see how it goes. When we went out as the Cronos band, we just went out and played clubs and had a good time. I’m no stranger to a smaller stage. It’s just about whether or not people want to see Venom on a smaller stage…that’s what we’ll find out. The offers have been comin’ in fast and furious so far. We’ve got some U.K. lined up for the end of next month. There not particularly big gigs, but people are quite excited about us being there, so let’s get out there more. We’ve never been to Sweden, Norway, Scotland or Spain. Fuck! A lot of these places are right on my doorstep, ya know? …Some kid who can barely afford the price of the ticket can’t come a long way to come see us. We’re gonna try to get the best of both worlds when it comes to playin’ live.”

Todd: I think you’ll find that a lot of people have been waiting a long time to see you…

Cronos: “We live in a very different world now, as well. The whole nine eleven thing has changed a lot. We can’t have forty foot trucks full of bombs out on the road, ya know? Let’s say it got stolen. That’s just a horrible scenario, isn’t it? …If that amount of detonation equipment fell into the wrong hands. There’s question marks over the whole live pyro thing anyway, simple because you have to cart that sort of stuff around. In America, the message we’re getting is that nobody has any pyro. It’s so rare to see a band in America that has pyro because they’re clampin’ down on the whole thing. We have to be realistic about the whole thing. If we just sit here and say where not gonna do anything unless we have everything, we’re gonna end up doing fuck off. …It’s not a case of changin’ completely… Venom will never ever loose the show. That’s not what we’re sayin’. We’re just tryin’ to get out to more fans. I think that will be an experience for us as well. It’s something that Venom has never done. As long as it’s what the kids want, then let’s fuckin’ do it.”

Todd: And it is what the kids want. I can clearly remember finding Venom to be very mysterious, simply because it wasn’t all that easy to get your hands on your albums or see you live.

Cronos: “…The mystery has always been a good thing for Venom, but not to the point where we’re such a mystery that we don’t exist.”

Todd: What is your overall opinion of the current state of the Black Metal genre?

Cronos: “Well, it’s certainly gone in some weird directions. For me, I think the whole genre should have gotten a new tag anyway. I’m very humbled that Venom has gotten credited with being the influence behind it all. I really think a lot of these guys invented something of their own. For years, people have talked about how Venom has started this and Venom had started that. We don’t necessarily look at it like that. We look at is as if we were more of a catalyst. …It was going to happen anyway, we just came along and kicked it in first. We just kicked the door down and everybody ran it after that. When we first came out, there weren’t very many people who agreed with what we were doing. There were all these other Rock bands that were considered very acceptable. Venom was just a bunch of noise to them. A lot of those bands are defunct now and there are so many Black Metal bands out there. It kinda proves that we had the right idea all along. …Every scene has it’s peaks and it’s troughs. I don’t think the scene has gone completely, I just think it’s waning a bit. It’s going to be up to the bands that are involved with it to either make something of it or roll over because shit happens and nothing last forever. Every extreme scene kinda looses it’s impact after a while. Venom is a lot more acceptable then we were in 1978. We couldn’t keep that kind of extremity up because reality kicks in. …As soon as you show people how the magic trick works, it’s no longer magic, is it? …That’s kinda how the Death and Black Metal scenes are goin’ at the minute. …These bands haven’t come up with anything new. It’s just the same old, same old. …But I’ve never, ever lost faith in Metal. Back in 1978, there wasn’t a lot for me to listen to. I think the most exciting thing from that time was probably Motorhead. The Punk thing had came and went in a period of like twelve months. I loved Punk, but it simply went straight away. …Everything else I thought was like watered down piss. When you think about how spoiled for choice we are and how much Metal there is out there…and I mean the really extreme shit that you know is going to piss off your neighbors, we really are spoiled. …The scene has many arms. It’s like a big fuckin’ octopus. You can definitely say that Venom are a Metal band and you can definitely say that Pantera are a Metal band, but we sound very different. …This is the thing with Metal. There are so many bands out there that you would tag as Metal, yet they are all very different sounding. A couple of years ago, everybody was talkin’ about the whole Nu metal thing, but that didn’t do anything, really. It came and went like a fuckin’ fart, really. It lasted like two seconds. The Norwegian Black Metal scene has been goin’ good and strong for a long time now. People just need some new inspiration. …It just needs a good kick up the ass. People look back when things like that happen anyway. One of the things that has been getting’ talked about is a tour of the states with Venom, Slayer and Exodus. How cool would that be? When people start talkin’ about things like that, things they haven’t seen in forever…we’re just like ‘…get Slayer on the phone so we can set it up…’”

Todd: I think that tour would do very, very well…

Cronos: “I do believe so… We could even see if Metallica wanted to open for us. Actually, we couldn’t do that because they’re crap (laughs). I think they need to take the word Metal out of the name…”

Todd: Musically, what are your influences?

Cronos: “…We’re influenced by stuff from the ’70’s. We come from a very different place. Even stuff like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and AC/DC…Status Quo… That’s the kind of stuff we were listenin’ to. For me, it was the image of Rock that I liked…the denims and leathers. I just love the spit and the snot of it all. The middle finger, basically. My Mother used to tell me that when Rock ‘n’ Roll first came out in the ’50’s, her parents were so shocked, so I occasionally wanted to shock my parents, too. I take my new albums home and let them hear it. I could tell by the looks on their faces that they were thinking ‘…what the fuck is this shit…’ so I’d kind of feel triumph, ya know? For me, Rock music has kinda gotten lame. It’s the Devil’s music and it should be all things heavy, not all things homosexual. …That’s for Pop music, this is Metal, ya know? I don’t mean homosexual as a physical thing, but as an image thing. Take Rob Halford for example. He’s homosexual, but he’s got this Metal image. It’s not about their sexuality, it’s about the Hard Rock guy, ya know? Ron Halford isn’t standin’; there in a pink skirt wearin’ lipstick. He’s all leather, studs and fuckin’ tattoos. You could even go back and say the same thing about Freddie Mercury. Freddie Mercury was homosexual, but he didn’t stand there on stage like some kinda fuckin’ fairy. He came across with dignity and passion, ya know? …I just think it’s a very passionate type of music that stays with you forever. Once you’re Rock fan, you’re a Rock fan for life. I used to say Black Metal isn’t for the chicks, but now I got so many girls givin’ me shit (laughs). It’s all taken out of context, ya know? You make one statement and people jump all over ya for it. I still think women look odd holding a guitar ya know? When a guy holds a guitar, he looks cool. It’s definitely a fuckin’ guy thing.”

Metal Black (2006)

Resurrection (2000)

From Heaven To The Unknown (1997)

Cast In Stone (1997)

Black Reign (1996)

Old, New, Borrowed And Blue (1994)

Kissing The Beast (1993)

Skeletons In The Closet (1993)

The Book Of Armageddon (1992)

The Waste Lands (1992)

In Memoriam (1991)

Temples Of Ice (1991)

Tear Your Soul Apart (EP) (1990)

Prime Evil (1989)

Calm Before The Storm (1987)

The Singles 80-86 (1986)

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (1986)

Nightmare (EP) (1986)

Possessed (1985)

At War With Satan (1984)

Black Metal (1982)

Welcome To Hell (1981)

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