Venom Frontman Conrad 'Cronos' Lant Dies at 63

Conrad "Cronos" Lant, frontman of the British heavy metal band Venom, has died at 63, according to a post on the band's social media accounts and the Guardian. 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 a statement. "He created something that changed heavy music for ever. Venom never followed the rules. They forged their own path. And Conrad was there at the centre of it all — uncompromising, fearless and unmistakable."

Lant anchored a group whose theatrical extremity once invited dismissal — and whose influence proved vast. When Venom released its first album in 1981, the band's imagery of skulls, bondage gear, swords and pseudo-Satanism, combined with flamboyant stage antics, struck many observers as too over the top to take seriously. The impact on heavy metal, particularly thrash, was nonetheless far-reaching, reaching bands such as Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax — and Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, who worked with Lant on the Probot project in 2004.

Venom's 1982 album "Black Metal" gave its name to an entire subgenre, one later pushed to even greater extremes by Scandinavian bands.

Lant was born in London into a musical family and moved to Newcastle as a child. At 16 he joined a band called Guillotine, which eventually morphed into Venom. He began as a guitarist, switched to bass — his instrument for the rest of his career — and finally took over as lead singer as members cycled out. With the name and image settled, the trio, completed by guitarist Jeff Dunn (Mantas) and drummer Tony Bray (Abaddon), released "Welcome to Hell" in 1981. Its single "In League With Satan" even featured a speech about the devil recorded backward.

The group kept that course across five albums in the 1980s. Mainstream attention arrived with "Possessed," released in April 1985. Its timing could hardly have been better — or more combustible. The Parents Music Resource Center, led by "Washington wives" Tipper Gore, Susan Baker and others, was testifying before Congress about sexual, violent and Satanic content in popular music. "Possessed" landed at No. 14 on the PMRC's "Filthy 15" list, alongside songs by Prince, Madonna, Sheena Easton, Judas Priest and Cyndi Lauper. The listing carried Venom's music to thousands of listeners who had never heard of them. The PMRC hearings ultimately succeeded only in attaching warning stickers to certain CDs and vinyl — and generating publicity.

Venom went on hiatus in 1988, and Lant pursued a solo career as Cronos through the 1990s. The band reformed and recorded seven more LPs, the most recent being 2018's "Storm the Gates." Venom continued touring until this past summer.

Lant leaves a catalog whose reach extends well beyond his own discography: every band that has played black metal since has, in name at least, followed a path he helped forge.