Conrad Lant, the British heavy metal musician who fronted Venom and ensured the Newcastle band became a huge influence on the genre, has died aged 63.
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band → front → 63
“For more than four decades, Conrad’s voice, bass and vision were at the heart of Venom,” reads a statement from the band.
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statement → read → band
“He created something that changed heavy music for ever.
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that → create → music
Venom never followed the rules.
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Venom → follow → rules
They forged their own path.
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They → forge → path
No cause of death was given.
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cause → give → death
Using the stage name Cronos, with an eerie pallor and dressed in showboating leather ensembles as he made theatrical declarations about witches, Satan and the underworld, Lant brought great showmanship to the group, for whom he also played bass.
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he → use → bass
While they never reached the commercial heights of forebears such as Black Sabbath or the thrash bands that followed – they reached the UK Top 75 only once – Venom had a big impact, and their album Black Metal ended up giving a name to one of metal’s most important subgenres.
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album → reach → subgenres
Lant was born in Chelsea, London but moved with his family to Newcastle aged seven.
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Lant → bear → Newcastle
His brothers were also musicians, one a drummer who joined Prefab Sprout (“they were shite,” Lant would later opine), and another who drummed for Venom in the band’s 21st-century period.
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who → join → period
Venom began as Guillotine, which Lant joined aged 16, initially on guitar, then bass and graduating to vocalist after a previous frontman left.
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frontman → begin → vocalist
Renamed Venom, the lineup solidified around Lant, guitarist Jeff Dunn (AKA Mantas) and drummer Tony Bray (AKA Abaddon), and they released their debut album Welcome to Hell in 1981.
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they → rename → 1981
It featured the controversy-baiting single In League with Satan, which featured reversed speech about the devil and helped bring satanic imagery into metal.
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which → feature → metal
Inspired by punk, Venom intensified the heaviness of early British heavy metal bands by playing at a furious pace.
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Venom → inspire → pace
The Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne “was singing about the devil”, Lant said.
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Lant → sing → devil
“I wanted to be the devil.”
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I → want → ?
He told the Guardian in 2019: “I had that snot and piss and shit element, which I wanted to put back into metal.
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I → tell → metal
I saw more and more bands shoving socks down their pants and putting lipstick on, and I just was disgusted by that, to tell you the truth.
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I → see → truth
Fucking hell, if heavy metal was anything it had to be raw and dangerous and in your face.
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it → have → face
That impulse came to bear on five more albums during the 1980s, including Black Metal, whose demonic cover art and raw, hellish sound “carved in stone some of the essential features” of the black metal genre, according to scene historians Michael J Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind in their book Lords of Chaos.
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art → come → Chaos
Lant, who co-
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who → co → ?
said the making of it was “pure mayhem from start to finish”, with instrumentation including steel plates being cut into with a chainsaw, and a makeshift coffin having earth dumped on to it.
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earth → say → it
Venom went on hiatus in 1988 and Lant – after pondering a career change in forestry – went solo as Cronos, putting out two early 1990s albums.
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Lant → go → albums
Venom then reformed for another seven LPs, the most recent being 2018’s Storm the Gates.
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recent → reform → LPs
There was another, shorter hiatus in the early 2000s while Lant recovered from a climbing injury.
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Lant → be → injury
He trained as a fitness instructor in the 1990s (“I did loads of classes, I played rave,” he later said) and also began parallel careers in computer engineering and graphic design, though Venom continued to tour, including at festivals in summer 2026.
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Venom → train → summer
Venom’s pace, ferocity and darkness all proved seductive to a new generation of metalheads in the 1980s, particularly thrash bands such as Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax.
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pace → prove → Metallica
This was a new kind of insanity,” Scott Ian of Anthrax said admiringly of Welcome to Hell.
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Ian → say → Hell
Lant collaborated with another admirer, Dave Grohl, for Grohl’s metal supergroup Probot in 2004.
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Lant → collaborate → 2004
Lant’s son Nathan thanked Venom’s fans after his father’s death.
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son → thank → death
“I know he really appreciated you all.
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he → know → you
He has laid down his soul, and his music will live on.
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music → lay → soul
The legend of Cronos will never die.”
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legend → die → Cronos
The Aporia
