Venom Frontman Conrad ‘Cronos’ Lant Dies at 63

Conrad "Cronos" Lant, the bassist and unmistakable frontman of British heavy metal pioneers Venom, has passed away at the age of 63. The band shared news of his death through social media, and the Guardian subsequently verified the loss. A specific cause of death was not made public. In their statement, the group stressed that across more than four decades, Lant's singing, bass playing, and creative vision served as the foundation of Venom's very being. They gave him credit for forging something that forever redirected the trajectory of heavy music, observing that Venom rejected orthodoxy and that Lant embodied that defiant spirit—relentless, bold, and wholly original. Lant, whose first album with Venom in 1981 helped establish the bedrock for extreme metal, stayed a pivotal force in the genre's development.

Venom's 1981 debut introduced a shock-rock persona centered on skulls, S&M attire, blades, and generous helpings of faux-witchcraft and Satanism, matched by stage performances so over-the-top that numerous observers initially dismissed them as a mere stunt. That assessment was misguided. Venom's impact on heavy metal—especially thrash—grew enormous and enduring, influencing everyone from Metallica and Slayer to Anthrax. Even Dave Grohl, the drummer for Nirvana and leader of Foo Fighters, teamed up with Lant on the Probot project in 2004. Their record Black Metal famously gave its name to a whole subgenre, which Scandinavian acts subsequently took to even more extreme territory. As one music historian put it, "The PMRC inadvertently did more to promote Venom than any marketing campaign could have."

Lant was born in London to a musical household but relocated to Newcastle during his childhood. At 16, he became a member of a group called Guillotine, which in time evolved into Venom. He initially played guitar, later moved to bass—the instrument he would wield for the remainder of his career—and eventually assumed lead vocal duties as other members departed. With their name and visual identity settled, the trio—guitarist Jeff Dunn (Mantas) and drummer Tony Bray (Abaddon)—put out Welcome to Hell in 1981, which included the single "In League With Satan," featuring a backward-masked message about the devil. The band stayed on that course through five albums during the 1980s, but the record that genuinely catapulted them into the mainstream limelight was Possessed.

Released in April 1985, Possessed arrived at an ideal moment, intersecting with the emergence of the controversial Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), an organization spearheaded by "Washington wives" Tipper Gore, Susan Baker, and others, which testified before Congress regarding sexually explicit, violent, and Satanic lyrics and imagery in popular music. The PMRC, whose 1985 Senate hearings ultimately produced warning labels on some CDs and vinyl but little else besides publicity, ranked Possessed at No. 14 on its "Filthy 15" list—next to songs by Prince, Madonna, Sheena Easton, Judas Priest, and even Cyndi Lauper—introducing Venom's music to countless thousands who had never heard of them. Venom went on hiatus in 1988, and Lant pursued a solo career as Cronos throughout the 1990s. Yet the band reunited for another seven LPs, the most recent being 2018's Storm the Gates. Venom kept touring right up until this past summer.