VENOM history by Greg Moffitt 1991

BLOODY CHRISTENINGS
At this point the hand appropriately assumed names other than their own - Conrad (bass and vocals) became Cronos. Jeff (guitar) became Mantas and Tony (drums) became Abaddon. At last they were set to assault the car drums of the record buying public.
Suddenly in 1981, the first Venom album Welcome to Hell appeared. I need not point out that it was an enormous shock to both the collective and personal system. God only knows what inspired their brand of total mayhem, but it was good, boy was it good! It was an extremely raw, erode and brutal body blow, and I maintain that it was the first thrash metal I.P. I state here and now that Venom are the original thrash metal band and furthermore I challenge anyone to argue convincingly to the
contrary. The sleeve was a black and gold affair, more blatant m its satanic symbolism than even the likes of Black Sabbath had ever ventured. `here was a distinct lack of production on the vinyl, but the stripped back harshness lent itself well to what Venom had been trying to achieve. The songs arc base in nature. yet survive repeated plays exceptionally well, and the majority of them survived the band's live set throughout the years. Indeed, the title track with its overlaid psalm recital, the driving 1000 Days In Sodom and the utter holocaust of Witching hour with its full moon atmospherics, are among the hand's finest moments. The two cuts front the first single • the fairly self explanatory ln League With Satan and ripping flip side Live Like An Angel. Die Like A Devil were also included on the LP.
METAL NOISE
1982 dawned, a good year for Austrian wine, a better one for Venom. It saw the release of album number two, the previously mentioned Black Metal, which spawned a thousand imitators and a whole new breed of bands. Even halay, young bands such as Morbid Angel and Deicide are frequently referred to by commentators as purveyors of 'black metal'. To the album itself .., words almost fail me. For most. it's an unsavoury 40 minutes with one's brain inside the world's largest cement mixer, for the Venom legions it's unadulterated ecstasy; a whirlwind trip of slashing riffs and hammering drums; an orgasmic excursion through aural violence! Heaven's On Fire, Buried Alive. Raise the Dead, To Bell And Back. the titles tell it like it is. Downing instruments seemingly in favour of pneumatic drills and chainsaws. the band bulldoze out of your speakers and all over the goddamn place! Another hellish sleeve, a tasteful black and silver job this time. rested uneasily in record racks awaiting the unsuspecting punter. I stand back and laugh, for I know the truth.
e/rwch to the gratitude of fans, Venom did not lift singles from their albums, opting instead to record something new. often as many as three or four tracks, a (subjectively!) welcome item between LPs. In this instance, the single was Die Hard. not, as I said, on Black Metal. It featured an extremely grating production, a near line in sleeve photographs. and remains to this day a much-requested oldie. As innovators, the early

Venom work did receive relatively good press, only occasionally tending towards indifference, and maybe more often, bemusement on the part of certain joumos. "An enthusiastic slaughter-house" proclaimed metal rag Kerrang! upon the release of Die Hard.
1982 also saw the creation and release of what must be the ultimate video experience, a 2 track video EP featuring Bloodlust and Witching Hour. Difficult to obtain now, it's a hysterical glimpse of the black trinity in their early days. Bloodlust you ask? The next single no less, with the same crushed-ice cube mix and a steam-rollering lack of hit potential!

IN THE FLESH
So gargantuan were Venom's plans for a stage presentation, 1983 dawned with still no sign of a live gig. Soon though, soon! Under the circumstances, '83's At War With Satan album was something of a risk. One side consisted of just the title track, a sort of conceptual experiment. It was well produced, if lacking a little of Black Metal's monstrous bottom end, and very well executed. The band explored avenues of dexterity and subtlety never before touched upon. The other side however was more traditional fare: Rip Ride, Stand Up And Be Counted, Women Leather And Hell, the amusing Aaaaarrghh! and the truly stunning Cry Wolf. Although critically acclaimed, it was not the huge commercial success of it's older sisters. It is nonetheless an excellent record and a brave experiment which worked then and continues to work surprisingly well given the self-imposed restrictions of the band's burlesque bedlam. An elaborate leather- look sleeve, of gatefold nature was employed and slightly distorted quotes from Shakespeare adorned the back. But other than a name check in the title, where was Satan I hear you cry? No Satan? Of course there was Satan, shut up and listen! The front showed a large inverted cross - simple but effective. The whole business caused a stir about Satanic influence in metal but happily for Venom it was no more painful than stepping in shit in the street. They had always attracted the laughable hypocrites from the bible waving fire and brimstone set. Everything these moral crusaders say and do amounts to nothing and by their own self- righteousness they render themselves impotent. They were not a problem. Finding clean socks might be; they were not a problem. Unperturbed, therefore, the next single Warhead was unleashed. A classic record in its own right, this really is one of the best things the band has ever done and is blessed with the most powerful, knee-trembling production ever. Only the deadly distortion of Black Metal can rival this baby, and considering the fact that the 12" also contained Seven Gates Of Hell, I can safely say its immortal status is well. deserved.

HOLIDAYS IN THE SUN
1984 was quite a significant year for the lads, for it heralded the onslaught on Europe that was their first tour, the cleverly dubbed Seven Dates Of Hell, which took in seven (natch) cities around Europe such as London, Paris and notably Zwolle in Holland, where the gig was the annual Aardshok Festival, once the speeder's Glastonbury, but these days gone to the dogs somewhat. It was a legendary show with the band destroying absolutely everything at the climax in true Venom style. A recording of the show can be tracked down in the form of a bootleg LP called Doomed to Hell, wherein, trivia freaks, you'll also find the song Venom which appears nowhere else on vinyl of any description, written as it was, especially for the band to destroy their equipment while performing! The tracklist is a typical live set of the period: Die Hard/Leave Me In Hell/Countess Bathory/Seven Gates Of Hell/Teacher's Pet Part
2/In League With Satan/Warhead/Stand Up And Be Counted/Rip Ride/Schizo/Venom. On non-festival dates where a longer set was required, often tracks would be added such as Witching Hour/Black Metal/Buried Alive/Bloodlust. Support for the band was none other than Metallica - many sceptics aren't convinced when I tell them this! Halcyon days indeed. The London (Hammersmith Odeon) show is also noteworthy as it was the scene of a video shoot, the band's first full-length concert release. It show-cased the outrageous Venom live spectacular. Very few bands had attempted anything on this scale, let alone three northern nutters with such humble origins. The stage set consisted of huge ramps, enormous risers and simply mountains of amplifier stacks, masses of lights and enough pyro to blast the roof clean off the Odeon. Air raid sirens, church bells and a bellowing demonic voice announced their imminent arrival on stage. When Venom hit that stage, they literally exploded in your face with dozens of bombs going off before they had even played the first note. It has to be said that live, the emphasis was very much on showmanship and creating a spectacle as opposed to duplicating the sound presented on vinyl. Mantas summed it
up: "If you wanna hear Venom, go home and listen to your fuckin' LP's cos tonight you are gonna get one and a half hours of pure fuckin' mayhem..." Manitou was the next record; a strange single, with weird sparse construction and a whining chorus. Probably the most bizarre thing they ever committed to vinyl.
1985 was another busy year for the band. Although underground thrash and speed metal was becoming increasingly widespread and popular, Venom could still hold their own at the head of the field. A new year, a new album - Possessed was spewed forth. Reviewed alongside new releases by new gods Slayer, Bathory and young upstarts such as Razor and Kreator, Possessed the album did not fare well. Hampered by a muddy sound, positive responses were few and far between. A great pity in my view, as it is an album with much merit and some truly remarkable songs. It combined the relentless attack of earlier work with a keen ear for melody only hinted at within the confines of At War With Satan. However, a cop-out album it is not. The satanic bluster still comes through on turbo thrashers like Voyeur and Satanachist, whilst Hellchild, the memorable Moonshine and the stunning Mystique allow the new atmospheric nuances to be felt. Additionally, tracks like Flytrap and Possessed combine the best of both worlds. Thirteen great songs, one duff production. The punters still partook (well, I bought it anyway!). A high point in '85 had to be their notorious performance on Channel 4's weekly metal show of the period E.C.T. Their stint prompted a flood of complaints to the press, as some felt that in view of the fact that E.C.T. was acting as a public face of metal, it should feature acts likely to show the genre in a rather better light than Venom had. "It'll put people off metal..." moaned the moderates. Who? Middle aged men? Old ladies? All the anti-Venom arguments were utter nonsense. The E.C.T. studios that week were jammed beyond capacity, Venom attracting the largest audience of any of the shows and making a mockery of the whole glossy image of TV. Given barely ten minutes, they ripped through Too Loud For The Crowd, Nightmare and Die Hard, with devastating ferocity, detonating more explosives than all other bands in the entire series put together. It was a monumental performance.

VIDEO VANDALS
Off they then went on their World Possession tour, to a varied response. The London show was again filmed and released on video. Another high point in '85 was the release of Nightmare as a single. Once again, not on the current LP, it was well produced, had chart success, was well received (e.g. "the solo is the best thing since the Jeff Beck album") and was generally excellent. In fact the only voice of dissent belonged to Jon Bon Jovi who said: "This is the sort of shit that gives Heavy Metal a bad name." The ultimate compliment in my book. It was the last single to emerge from the Venom camp, though at the time I was of course unaware of that fact! At that stage, I felt rather like a member of the band, wondering what the next move would be. Busy as I was with this pursuit, 1986 crept up unnoticed...

HEAVY COMPETITION
'Things weren't what they had been, and I was among the number that felt the band were being overtaken. The year saw the release of Metallica's Master of Puppets and Slayer's Reign In Blood, two landmarks in the thrash arena. Two monster albums that catapulted their creators into relative superstardom. I think the general consensus within Venom too was that the new album would have to kick heads in a major way. That was the theory anyway. The band seemed aware of what had gone wrong with Possessed, despite being pleased with the songs, which they had reason to be. They were determined to resolve and rectify it all. The second half of the previous year's tour was under way in the States during March/April of '86. Venom then went into the studio to work on the new LP. Tentatively called Deadline, it is the last Venom album that never was. Ten tracks with Possessed-type tendencies were laid down. Then nothing. Not a thing. Until, that is, the bombshell hit that my guitar hero for all those years had only left the band! (boo hoo!) Mantas had upped and headed for pastures new.

'The legions were convinced it was the end, the wind cut up and the vultures gathered.
But no pickings would they have - Cronos and Abaddon intended to continue. One local lad and one American were to replace Mantas. So Mike H. and Jim C. appeared on the scene. The resultant album Calm Before The Storm appeared in 1987, and was a disappoictment, It was, in retrospect, a very commendable effort. It featured six songs originally intended for the Deadline LP and five new compositions, almost entirely the work of Cronos. The title track itself was from the old Deadline sessions, and along with tracks like Black Christmas, Deadline and Metal Punk (also of '86 origins) they formed the best cuts on offer. Released on Filmtrax due to a split with Neat records, it was still stylistically Venom, but it bore little resemblance to the damnable cacophony that everyone wanted to hear! The last nail in the coffin seemed to come when Cronos buggered off with the two guitarists. Surely there was not, and could not be any Venom now? After a pensive silence, Abaddon announced his intention to preserve the Venom name and carry on in some form. Just as press reached as covering Cronos' intentions with his new band, so did rumblings that Mantas would return to the fold for a new Venom album in late '89. This was in early '89, and before long the pieces began to fall into place. Another fellow Geordie was recruited from a local thrash band called Atomkraft, in the shape of Tony `Demolitiott Man' Dolan, who was to handle vocal and bass duties. This met with some approval, as the man's performance on old Atomkraft vinyl such as Future Warriors was suitably acidic.
Then in the latter stages of 1989, Venom gave to the mortal world Prime Evil, significantly bound in black and gold. Thankfully the album was greeted with open arms by almost all and it was without doubt their most consistent work since At War With Satan. Indeed, the general view was that this should have followed At War..., and then perhaps the lean years would never have been such. Despite vocal alterations, once again, it's distinctly Venom, blending the savagery of earlier material with Possessed-era technicality, all iced with a crunchy production for the '90s. Parasite and Carnivorous are brutally mangling affairs with lethal performances in every department. Skeletal Dance is as fast as you dare wish it ... it's somehow appropriate that the highest velocity offering on Prime Evil is a re-recording of Live Like An Angel, a breakneck version that takes you back a few years! A masterfully dark Blackened Are The Priests and worthy cover of Black Sabbath's life threatening Megalomania also nestle in the heart of this most welcome return to form.Sales os Prime Evil were encouraging and things looked brighter than they had for a long, long time. Club goers were then 'treated' (subjectively speaking) to scaled-down Venom appearances as the boys did a few low-key warm up gigs in smaller venues under the moniker Sons Of Satan (the first track on Welcome To Hell).

JUST DESSERTS
Two more vinyl offerings have emerged from the band, namely the Tear Your Soul Apart mini LP and their latest full studio album, Temples Of Ice, which continues the progress made over the last couple of years. Venom plan to start a European tour in late October till early November , moving onto the US and Japan in the new year. This album celebrates ten years of a band who changed the face of metal in the '80's and who are proving themselves more than capable of forging on into the '90's and beyond. So get ready for the next ten years!
'They stamp a huge bootmark on the metal genre that neither time nor tide may erase, and they can lay claim to the illustrious title, instigators to the thrash movement, with phenomenal sales at one point making them the biggest selling independent band in the world. I miss the old days when you merely had to dona Venom T-shirt to feel invincible, but slip on Black Metal and it all comes smashing back; louder, blacker and more incomprehensible than ever before! Listen in pain ...