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V E N O M

Nervous? Why should I be nervous? This is just another interview with another heavy metal band. But then again Venom is not just another heavy metal band are they? They are probably the most influential band to ever come out of the British scene after Black Sabbath. Some would claim that Iron Maiden should be mentioned in the same breath but since this is an interview with Venom we leave the accolades for Iron Maiden to a later date. With a new album Resurrection, the second since Cronos (bass and vocals) rejoined in 1996, Venom are hot news once again. This time there is a slight change in the line-up. Abaddon is out and Antonn is new behind the drums. Why this change happened and much more I hoped to find out when I spoke with guitarist Mantas.

-Anders Ekdahl

Is the title Resurrection a way of you saying that you have been away longer than expected?
-Oh definitely. The band has been laying low for at least the last two years. There have been a lot of problems within the band. This was the only logical conclusion the whole thing could have come to, with the departure of Abaddon (original drummer) and with the new drummer and everything. Cronos had not spoken to Abaddon for the last two years and I haven't spoken to the guy in 18 months and the relationships just weren't good, you know.
I don't know if you've heard Abbadon's solo album?

No, I've only read about it.
If you get a chance to listen to do so to form your own opinion but I mean it wasn't the direction we wanted to head in. Cronos and I have always been the main songwriters in Venom. We have always sort of paved the way in as much as we have always had control over the songs, we've always written what we feel for Venom and it was not a direction for Venom the one Abaddon was heading in.
We've never been the friendliest of bands. We have never been the best of buddies within the band. Over the 20-year period of time the band's been in existence Cronos and I have been the closet two members over that period. Mostly due to the fact that we write all the songs together and we are the front men of the band but Resurrection sort of summed it all up I suppose. It was a new beginning for us. We felt we had to say that with the year 2000 we have a new millennium and a new line-up.
We had 21 songs written for the album. 14 of them ended up on the album and one of those songs were called "Resurrection". While we were hunting for a name for the new album I said to Cronos "What about Resurrection?". It just seemed like the logical one with us having a new drummer and it almost feeling like a new band. It just says what it is a new beginning for Venom.

Was there something you feared about having been away for a while?
The one thing we were concerned about was how the fans would take it that we had another new line-up. We had the "Calm before the Storm" line-up, the "Prime Evil" line-up, the original line-up getting back together again when we got back together for "Cast in Stone". It was just supposed to be the Dynamo (famous Dutch metal festival - AE) and one album and we were surprised the reunion lasted so long. We expected the album and then that would be it because like I said the relationships in the band has never been that good. However it did last longer than expected but it had to come to an end.
We've had all the different line-ups and although "Calm before the Storm" the album itself was musically quite good it wasn't Venom even though Abaddon and Cronos were there. And then we had the "Prime Evil" line-up where I returned and we had The Demolition Man from Atomkraft and it was good musically but it still really wasn't Venom. The only way left to do was to for Mantas and Cronos to stay together and get a new drummer. Then all of a sudden everyone I've spoken to so far has said that it is the most complete Venom album they've ever heard because it is still Venom. So I think it will be easier for the fans to accept this line-up because the two main guys are there. When you have a band like Kiss that have survived and they've only done so because you have Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley that are Kiss. Ace can leave, Peter can leave but had either Gene or Paul left I don't think it would have been Kiss anymore.
I think we've proven a point this time that we are the main guys in the band. We're the ones that write the music.

Where did you find the drummer?
Antonn has actually always been around Venom since we started so he goes way back, I think the band been in existence some twenty odd years now. Antonn has always been there so it nice that someone who has been involved with Venom ends up in the band. It was just when we had lots of problems, the last gig we did was in Leipzig at the With Full Force festival. I think that was in 98. That was with the original line-up that couldn't get along so Cronos rang me up and said "What are we gonna do? Whats going on?". He said "Why don't we go into rehearsal and give Antonn a shot". So we went down, gave him a bunch of old songs to listen to and went into rehearsal and played some old songs like "Welcome to Hell" as well as, I think, "Bleeding" of Cast in Stone and it all sounded great. Wait till you hear the old songs played by Antonn. The new stuff is awesome but the old stuff has been given a kick in the ass. We were just rehearsing and it was an immediate sort of thing that happened.
The thing with this band is we always do what comes natural to us so we went into and Cronos sang and played bass, I played the guitar and Antonn hit those drums. It worked immediately so we thought. "Yes this is it". We had mentioned other names that we were going to contact but it wasn't necessary in the end. We had the guy and he's been involved with the band for such a long time that he's now actually a full time member.

In some reviews your new album has been described as power metal. Is this a description you feel fit your present sound?
Power metal, thrash, doom or whatever you'd like to call it. I've been asked this question a countless amount of times while doing interviews for this new album but the thing I think is that it all had it roots in black metal at the end of the day. Without the term black metal, we were the first to use the term black metal, there would never have been the thrash, the death or any other metal. It all comes from black metal I think.

How would you then describe your sound?
We are not just a black metal band. We do play thrash, we play death, we play speed. Power metal is just another term, a pigeonhole to put it all in. We have our roots firmly set in heavy metal anyway. We came off the back end of the punk explosion that happened back in the late 70s in England. You had all these guys who were just rebelling against the music industry and we wanted to put some of that into heavy metal. At the time in England everyone who had long hair and a guitar were considered to be heavy metal. So when you go back to the interviews in the early 80s REO Speedwagon, Foreigner and Journey, any band that was rock oriented and had long hair was considered heavy metal.
This guy who interviewed us many, many years ago, I think it was probably 1980, said we were all heavy metal and we were like: - Hold on a minute. If those guys are heavy metal we got nothing to do with it. So he said: - If you have nothing to do with it then what are you, because in England you got to be put into a category, so we turned around towards him and said that we are black metal. All of a sudden we had a huge explosion of bands calling themselves black metal. Everything has it roots in that one basic term. Once we said that we were black metal that opened a floodgate for everybody to call themselves anything they liked. We all encompass it all. As long as the people like our music I don't mind them calling it whatever they want.

So there wasn't any big ideologies behind calling your music black metal?
We termed ourselves black metal basically… The things we were singing about were the darker things like black magic. Combine black magic with heavy metal and you have basically black metal but getting back to your question.
In today's black metal, there are bands that I don't think we have anything in common with, like when you get into this ambient, orchestral type of thing. These guys have taken it a stage further, even with some of the guitar playing, it is different to the things we did. But at the same time it is good and it has in some part been influenced by Venom. Everything is all about evolving. I think it was the same with heavy metal at the time when we came out. Heavy metal was about to become a little bit stale and then we had the NWOBHM with Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Angel Witch and all of a sudden you had millions of bands coming out of that. And black metal really gave heavy metal a good kick in the ass.

What was it that influenced you?
If you ask me who my influence was I immediately say it was Judas Priest. KK Downing and Glen Tipton were the reason I bought a guitar and wanted to be in a band. In the same way that you can say that Judas Priest influenced me to form Venom, we got all these young black metal that say that they are influenced by Venom, even if don't always see the connection between Venom and what they are doing. They have taken it a step further. It is still there. Just like Glen and KK would be reading this interview and go: -Hold on. We influenced Mantas to form Venom. We took it a stage further than what Judas Priest was doing. We evolved what they were doing and it just a part of this whole evolutional process. We have spawn a whole new generation.
There will always be those who take it all the way to the edge. I myself am not a preacher, not a politician but if they get a message from my music then that is great. I've never purposely set out to put a message forward. I write about what I'm interested in and if they pick up on that and get an ideology out of it then great. That's the message that is for them but it is not purposely put there.

Are the lyrics to songs like "Black Flame of Satan" and "War against Christ" what they imply to be?
That is a question you would have to ask Cronos. Musically they are my songs and lyrically they are Cronos. I can see in what direction this is heading. You'd like to know if there is a religious aspect?

Yes.
I don't have any particular religious beliefs whatsoever. You are free to believe in what you like to. There is always this thing within Satanism of "Do what thou wilt…" and to me 99% of the Worlds population lives the way they want to without being Satanists. The religious side of all of this is something completely different and you could write a completely different interview about this, you could write a book about it. You could debate this for months and years and we've always said that what we believe in are personal to us and we are not going to go out there and discuss it. We have our own personal beliefs but they are gonna stay there. We've always said that if anybody is gonna write a book about Venom it will never tell the whole story because we will never tell the whole story. Some of what goes on with this band is so intensely private that nobody gets to know about it.
There are things that have been asked since we started, like if we are Satanists. I believe that people should judge for themselves. I'm not gonna say yes or no. Whatever you think is your opinion but we have things like I've said that stays within the band.

Does this mean that we will never see a memoir type of book about Venom?
Yes you can actually. This is actually gonna happen this year. We've been contacted by a writer who's gonna write the book and we are also gonna do a video history kind of thing. But like I said it will tell a lot, we are in the process of putting it all together now and we will tell a lot of the stories but a lot will be left for the reader to work out for himself.

Where and with whom did you record the album?
The recording of Resurrection. The album was recorded at a studio, which is about a 45 minutes drive outside of Hamburg, Germany with Charlie Bauerfeind. He actually did the Cast in Stone album too but this time it was great to get back in the studio with him. The recording process took three weeks in total. We had rehearsed for the album from March to September and then we went over in September to Germany. We actually lived at the studio so we were there all the time. It was a little bit different to the way we normally work. It had not been an active two years for us. We had had a lot of problems within the band so we didn't know what to expect.
I think it was the same for the German record company. Cronos and myself had not even met Rainer (the label boss? - AE) less even spoken to him. There were a lot of things that went on that we couldn't get the upside on. So everybody were weary of each other when we got there, not knowing what to expect. We got there and it was a really, really positive experience but it was hard work, the hardest we have ever worked. Charlie had us working from 12 noon to four in the morning. It was very, very mentally and physically exhausting. It was the hardest we had ever worked.
We have always put one hundred percent into all albums but working with Charlie really made a huge difference. I think it shows on the album. The playing is better, I think Charlie has captured Cronos' voice perfectly, the guitar sound, everything, just the way he made us work. It was really, really good. We will most probably work with Charlie again.
A lot of the time there were frustrating moments but this band has always argued and fought but this time I mean that the arguments has been for the good of the band. Cronos and myself argued during the recording process. There was one time we argued and then went into the control room and shook hands and started to work. That's what is good with the band now. We can argue and it's all for the good of the band.
At the end of the day we really enjoyed the recording process. When Charlie sent us the first mix we were fucking blown away. Everybody I've spoken to says it has a killer production. I can't say enough about the work Charlie has done.
On the bands point of view this is the best rehearsed we have ever been. Antonn brought so much with him being younger than us making us having to keep up with him. It was a good experience.

The production is amazing.
Yeah, everyone I've spoken to has said so too, and may I thank you for saying so. Everyone has said that the production is amazing. Like I said before there's a lot of people who have said to me that this is the most complete Venom album ever because there are elements of old Venom. "Firelight" is the closest you'll ever get to early Venom. Then you have the more modern sounding songs like "Vengeance". One guy I played it to said that it sounds like classic Venom unlike with Cast in Stone, where everyone seemed to pick up on only one song "The Evil One". With this one I get everybody mentioning different songs, which proves that we have got a really strong album. One guy from the States that I did an interview with said that we could have a hit single with the track "Thirteen" in the States. That's the first time I heard anything like that being said about Venom.
Then you have tracks like "Leviathan" that you could say is a new "Seven Gates to Hell" so there is element of Venom new and old all the way through the album. I think we sound more like we have aimed to do than ever before, if you understand what I mean.

Where does a new Venom album fit into today's metal market?
Well like I said I think we stand a hell of a good chance. I think that by the sheer nature of what the band stands for, we have never ever done a long tour and I don't think we will ever, but having said that we are firmly committed to doing a hell of a lot more tour work. The first thing we will do this year is headlining the Wacken festival August 6 and we got a lot of surprises planned for that one. Then we want to go across Europe. Even if it has to be done like with The Seven Dates of Hell tour where we visited the major cities in Europe. We have also been offered the Milwaukee Metalfest but that one is I think too close right now. The guy do have another one in Los Angeles in November that I think we will be doing. Japan is another place we never really went to. They did for Calm before the Storm but that was not really a true Venom thing. So there is that to do. Of course then there is Sweden, Norway and all the Scandinavian countries. We want to get in everywhere now. I do not think that there will be a problem with fitting in, not now when the bands sounds so good, so I think we will fit in.

You've released records for the last three decades now. How have the conditions for heavy metal changed since you started?
The one thing I think of straight away that has changed is that I think it is much easier for a young band to get a record deal. When we started it was so much harder. Of course we were the first to play this extreme kind of metal and no one really wanted to hear it. We got no airplay, nobody wanted to listen to us. They thought that is was too noisy or too extreme. I still believe to this day that Neat Records released the first single as a way of keeping those quiet. They were like "OK we will release it to have them go away" and that really opened the gates for everyone to come through. It takes just one band for it to happen.
Now I can go into any record store in Newcastle and go to the metal section and see bands that I have never even heard of and they got one record out and even if we never get to hear of them again they still got one record out. It just proves that there are record labels out there that are willing to give new bands a chance. There is a lot fans that turn their knowledge and experience into doing things like that, forming a band, starting a label or doing fanzines.

So it wasn't like it is today when you started?
When we first started you had your big bands and that was it. You had the likes of Judas Priest, Kiss, Motorhead, Scorpions, all bands that were considered established and then you had the smaller bands that had to struggle. Now it is a lot easier. You can send you demo to a record label and even if it is an independent they will be getting thousands of demos. I think it is a lot easier today. That's a good thing. The one thing that I've noticed is that is spoils the fans' loyalty. Back in the 80s it seemed to be much more loyalty towards one particular band. I don't think we have that now. Everyone had a certain band that they followed. It is not like that anymore. But it can only be a good thing for metal with more bands and audience. It is about time that metal was brought back in front because the music scene in England sucks. Everything is fucking boy bands, Spice Girls, Boyzone, Take That and shit like that. There is no room for metal in Britain anymore. You don't see people into metal anymore. I remember I used to go up to the city square in Newcastle on a Saturday afternoon and it would be full of metal kids and it is not like that anymore. Metal has taken a huge loss all over England. It is the same for Venom. We have done interviews all over the world but the only place we haven't done interviews is in England. I think I've done two (2) interviews in England.

Why do you think it is this way with England?
I don't know what it is with England. We have got to get a good metal scene going again.
The trouble with Britain is that there are no venues any more. We used to have a night-club here in Newcastle called the Mayfair. You could go and see bands there. I used to go there every Friday and Saturday and you could see local bands or we used to get AC/DC, Blackfoot, Scorpions, Judas Priest, Uriah Heep. Then when the NWOBHM happened I remember I saw Iron Maiden and you had all the rest of them follow. But now the Mayfair has been demolished into a car park and that just about says it all.

To me as an outsider it seems as though when the rest of Europe is progressing Britain is regressing.
Yes you are absolutely right. We don't even have Donington any more. I remember I went down to Donington in, it must have been 96, to see Kiss when they reformed the original line-up and I think that was the last time Donington happened. It is bad in England for metal right now.
One thing that really surprised me was when we did the Metal Invader thing in Athens, Greece in 97 and it was like being back in 1982. Metalkids everywhere. It was great, really, really good.

When you released your first two albums Welcome to Hell and Black Metal did you ever imagine that they would become as influential to new generations as they have?
A good question, a really good question. No, we didn't know what the hell we had started. When I formed this band… I put it together because I had gone and seen all these other bands like Judas Priest and I just got to think that there has got to be something heavier. I was continually searching for something heavier. I remember when I was a kid the first single that I bought was "Schools out" by Alice Cooper. I then looked for anything heavier than that. At that time there was not anything heavier than that. I can remember going into a store with my mom and buying this album by this band called Kiss, it was actually "Alive 1", and I looked at the front of it and thought that these guys looked cool. I then bought the "Hotter than Hell" album and that started me off again going looking for something heavier.
A friend of mine that I played a little guitar with, which actually makes him the guy I started the band with, bought two tickets to go see Judas Priest. I didn't have any Judas Priest records at that time but I went along to see Judas Priest and they blew me away. That was on their "Killing Machine" tour in the late 70s or something. The very next day I went out and spent as much money as I had on every Judas Priest article I could find. I was still always looking for something heavier and then I discovered Motorhead, early line-ups, like "Overkill", "Ace of Spades" and stuff like that but I was still looking for something heavier. I met up with the other guys. I met Abaddon in a record store and he just came along to the rehearsal. The bass player I had at that time said that he didn't want to play with Abaddon so we got rid of him. I met Cronos at an old, old girlfriend's house. He was going out with her mate. He came along and joined us as a rhythm guitarist and we got rid of all the other members and the rest is as they say history.
When we got together we were going into the press saying we were the heaviest and fastest, the loudest and most extreme band. I think Welcome to Hell established that in a time when the music scene was looking for something new. Especially in Europe. At the same time we just went into the studio and did what came naturally to us. We didn't go in with any sort of advanced technological knowledge. Welcome to Hell was recorded, mixed and packaged in three whole days. We went down to the studio one time just to do some demos, this was right after the In League with Satan single had been released. The guy at the label said "How do you fancy doing an album". We were like wow. Any young band would jump at the chance to make an album. He said, "OK then, you have three days". It was as quick as that. Some of the songs were written in the studio. The song "Welcome to Hell" was written in the studio. We didn't have an album title or anything. We just went in to the studio and did what came naturally to us. I played guitar the only way I knew at the time with the only sound I had. Cronos played bass and sang the only way he knew and Abaddon drummed the only way he knew. That became Venom. We didn't know what we started at that point. We had no idea that we would become as influential as we did.
We took a little bit longer on making "Black Metal". I think we spent about a week to ten days on it. We have never spent much time in the studio. That is one thing about this band. We like to capture everything live. We go and we play what feels right.

So there has to be some rawness to the material?
If we feel excited at what's coming right back at us when we record that is good. I don't want to sit there and listen to something that is clinically perfect. That is not what Venom is about. Venom is about feeling, about aggression and that you put the album on and go "Yeah! That's Venom". You don't sit there going "He is playing an augmented D over a C". We are not that kind of band. We played what came naturally. Like I said everybody at that time wanted to sound like Venom, we never did know what we were at that time. We were Venom and we were a band. Here's our album Welcome to Hell and everybody went Wow. It wasn't pre-planned that we were gonna do this.

Do you think it would be possible for a band like Venom to start up today?
What a question! That is one I've never been asked before. Eh, The thing is that we do not know how the music scene would have evolved had not Venom happened twenty years ago. We definitely would not have had black metal. There would be no black metal around today. That term would not have been heard today. There has been nothing really different over the last twenty years. Everybody has been following in everybody else's footsteps. I think if metal had continued in the direction it was going in… We better ask ourselves… If you look at the early photos of Pantera they look absolutely ridiculous compared to how they look today. Was that due to what Venom was doing? With dirtier image and everything. You have to look at in perspectives of that. You had all the bands coming out with their hairstyles and spandex trousers and then we came along with our studs and leather and all that stuff. Every time you see Phil Anselmo now he wears a Venom T-shirt. He and Cronos are very good friends now. Would a band like Pantera necessarily have turned into what they are today without having a Venom twenty years ago. Would Metallica have been as big as they are now? We were the first band to take Metallica into Europe. Metallica actually supported us in the States too. Another band that we took along was Slayer. All these bands like Slayer, Exodus that came out of what the Bay Area. I do not know if Venom… If metal had continued the way it is today and somebody had decided that they wanted to do something heavier then a band like Venom could have started off today. But I think we had to look at metal being the same as from the year 1980 up to 2000. I think just at that time metal was ready for something different and that is why we succeeded.

Does this not put a great burden on your shoulders knowing that you've been this influential?
I get asked this a lot, how it feels to have started this whole thing and it is… I'm very, very proud of it but sometimes I step back from it and go "Wow. We've done that. We've actually influenced all these bands". That we have actually started all these new generations of all these new bands. Fucking hell. To go back to your previous question. Would it have happened without us? It is a real heavy responsibility at the end of the day. But like I said we didn't know what we had started. Somebody was on our side, you have to put like that.

It is strange that you in countries like Germany and Greece are treated with the outmost respect and then get laughed of almost as a joke in England.
Britain has never been kind to Venom. In 1985 that was when Venom hit a peak in Britain. We played the Hammersmith Odeon twice and those gigs were packed. It has always been the same for British bands. The classic example is The Beatles. They had to go to Germany to be recognised, to be a band before England sat up and took any notice of them. And now we are talking about one of the biggest British bands of all times. It has always been the same that bands have to go elsewhere to be famous before Britain goes "Oh, we have a band over in Germany that are doing well" or "We have a band in America that are doing really well".
There was a time in the 80s when Venom was in all the press whether they liked us or not. But it has never been a friendly country to Venom and to be perfectly honest it has never bothered us. This is where we live so it is nice to able to walk down the streets without being recognised. We go away… When we went over to Greece we got limousines and stuff and we get looked after and things. We are always well treat and looked after and we appreciate that. It is nice to be respected like that way. And when we get back to Britain we don't get recognised. We got two extremes.

When you toured back in the 80s you only did so if you could put on a larger than life stage show. Is this still something you abide by?
Oh yeah. We have just had a new stage designed for us. New pyrotechnics and Cronos got new personal effects designed and so have I. The show will be even more outrageous. It is going to be bigger and more pyro. The problem with the pyros has always been the pyro licenses. It is what the fire marshals say at the end of the day that goes. The first date we played in London we made a video of. There were a lot of pyro in that video but that was only half of what we had planned to set off because the fire marshals had come into the hall and said, "You can't have that and that and that". This is a problem we've encountered all around the world were the fire marshals come in and they look. I don't think that there has ever been a complete Venom show yet. The gig at Wacken will be it. The one at Dynamo came close to it. We got a lot more ideas. It is just a question of putting them towards the right people. We are most definitely gonna continue with the show. That is what Venom is all about. I could never go on stage wearing sweat pants and a T-shirt. We always want to make the band look special and present a good image. That is what I remember about going to see bands. I remember Judas Priest coming on looking like a metal band and having a real metal stage. Somebody got to continue the tradition and we are the ones to do it.

Do you consider the album Black Metal to be your greatest achievement ever?
I would have to say so. Black Metal was the album that started it all. It is the one that frequently gets mentioned as a classic. Every band that records an album at any point says that the album they've just done is the best. I would have to definitely say that about Resurrection that I really, really firmly believe that this is the best work we've ever done, but I agree with you that Black Metal is a classic album. Every now and again you have in England these Top 100s of different sorts of music, rock, pop or whatever and in the metal section Black Metal is always there. It goes in the Top 100 of all time classic albums. It is not just a thing that happens once a week or something like that. It is the all time classics Top 100. I would really like to see Resurrection get there too.
I would agree with you that out of the old ones we did, the four we did in the 80s Welcome to Hell, Black Metal, At War with Satan and Possessed, out of those four albums I would have to say that Black Metal is the one that stands out.