Venom Frontman Conrad ’Cronos’ Lant Dies at 63
The Newcastle band’s frontman, whose 1982 album Black Metal gave the genre its name, was 63. No cause of death was announced.
Conrad Lant, the bassist and singer known as Cronos who founded the Newcastle band Venom, has died at 63. The band announced his death Thursday in a post on its social media pages.
No cause of death was given.
“For more than four decades, Conrad’s voice, bass and vision were at the heart of VENOM,” the band said in its statement. “From the first dark rumblings of ‘Welcome to Hell,’ through ‘Black Metal,’ ‘At War With Satan,’ ‘Possessed’ and beyond, he created something that changed heavy music forever.”
His son Nathan posted a message with the announcement. “I want to thank all of the Legions for all of the support you have given my dad over the years,” he wrote. “He has laid down his soul, and his music will live on. The legend of Cronos will never die.”
The bassist quit a week before the gig
Lant was born Conrad Thomas Lant in London in 1963 and grew up in Newcastle. He took the name Cronos in 1979 and joined a band called Guillotine on guitar, where he met future Venom guitarist Jeffrey Dunn.
A week before a church hall show, the bassist walked out. Cronos picked up the bass instead, and the band renamed itself Venom. When the singer left in 1980, Cronos took the microphone too.
He worked days at Impulse Studios. He talked the studio’s owners into starting a rock label, Neat Records, which released Venom’s first single.
The album that named a genre
Welcome to Hell came out in 1981. Black Metal followed in 1982. The title stuck, and it became the name of a whole genre.
Venom’s speed, noise and occult imagery shaped everything that came after it. The band’s influence ran through thrash bands like Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth, and black metal bands like Mayhem and Bathory.
Venom went quiet in the late 1980s, and Lant recorded two solo albums as Cronos before reforming the band in the mid-1990s. A climbing accident in 2002 left him unable to play or sing for nearly two years. He came back, kept making records, and kept headlining festivals for the next two decades.
He also played on Dave Grohl’s metal side project Probot in 2004, and appeared on a HammerFall record in 2005.
Venom’s sixteenth studio album, Into Oblivion, came out in May. The band’s last concert was July 19 in Cremona, Italy. The final lineup had Cronos alongside guitarist Stuart “Rage” Dixon and drummer Danny “Danté” Needham.
