Interview

Venom Inc. Discusses Carrying On The Original Black Metal Sound, Atomkraft, Debut Album "Avé" And Making Grown Men Cry

Heavy metal has grown enormously from its humble beginnings in the late sixties/early seventies to encompass a wide variety of sub-genres. The origins of all these different takes on the genre are most often traced back to the early eighties when Michael Jackson's, "Beat It" made the British heavy metal charts thanks to a guitar solo from Eddie Van Halen and a young band from Newcastle decided that if that was heavy metal, they were something else. That band was Venom and their first three albums, "Welcome To Hell," "Black Metal"and "At War With Satan" would become monumentally influential, with the sophomore effort even spawning a genre of its own.

Fast forward to 2018 and the world now has two incarnations of the band. Namely; Venom, fronted by Conrad "Chronos" Lant from the classic lineup and Venom Inc. featuring the other two members of the legendary trio, Mantas and Abaddon, along with Tony "Demolition Man" Dolan, the Atomkraft frontman who replaced Chronos for a time in the late eighties to the mid nineties. With a superb debut album, "Avé," under their belts, Venom Inc. are taking to the road with plenty to prove and a lot to offer. I had the privilege of speaking with Demolition Man and Mantas on the first stop of their Bloodstained Earth tour, which also included Suffocation and Nervosa to discuss their debut album, the progress of other projects including Atomkraft, Dryll and Mpire Of Evil and why, in a sense, Venom were always the only black metal band.