Conrad “Cronos” Lant, lead singer of Northern Britain’s legendary heavy metal band Venom, has passed away, according to a post on the band’s social media sites and in the Guardian. No cause of death was stated; He was 63 years old.
“For over four decades, Conrad’s voice, bass and vision have been at the heart of Venom,” a statement from the band reads. “He created something that would change heavy music forever. Venom never followed the rules. They forged their own path. And Conrad was at the center of it all – uncompromising, fearless and unfailing.”
When Venom released its debut album in 1981, the band’s imagery and flamboyant stage antics, including skulls, bondage gear, swords, and all manner of alleged witchcraft and Satanism, were so over-the-top that most people didn’t take them seriously. But their influence on heavy metal, and thrash in particular, was huge and far-reaching; On bands like Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, and even Nirvana drummer/Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, who collaborated with Lant on the Probot project in 2004. Venom’s album “Black Metal” even gave birth to the name of a subgenre that was taken to the extreme by many Scandinavian bands.
Lant was born in London to musical parents but moved to Newcastle with his family as a child. When he was 16, he joined a band called Guillotine and eventually evolved into Venom; He started out as a guitarist, then switched to bass (which he played for the rest of his career), and eventually moved to soloist with the departure of various members. The aptly named trio, guitarist Jeff Dunn (who favored Mantas) and drummer Tony Bray (Abaddon), released “Welcome to Hell” in 1981; this single included “In League With Satan” and even included a speech about the devil (recorded backwards).
The band continued this track for five albums in the 1980s, but it was “Possessed” that really caught their attention. Released in April 1985, the album’s timing dovetailed perfectly with the rise of the controversial Parents Music Resource Center, led by “Washington wives” Tipper Gore, Susan Baker, and others who testified before Congress about overtly sexual, violent, and Satanic lyrics and imagery in popular music. “Possessed” ranked No. 14 on the organization’s “Filthy 15” song list, alongside songs by Prince, Madonna, Sheena Easton, Judas Priest, and even Cyndi Lauper, and brought Venom’s music to the attention of countless thousands of people who had never heard them before. (PMRC hearings were successful in getting warning stickers placed on certain CDs and vinyl, but little else happened other than publicity.)
Venom went on hiatus in 1988, and Lant began his solo career as Cronos throughout the 1990s. But Venom reformed for seven more LPs, the most recent being 2018’s “Storm the Gates.” The band continued to tour until last summer.