Oct 1, 2026 · 1 hr 21 min · 13 segments
It's real highs and lows in the news for rock music this week, with incredibly exciting reveals from Disfear and Repugnant, the 2027 line-up announcements from Slam Dunk and ArcTanGent, but also the…
Sam DignamHostAnd you are quite right in terms of where we have to start because a moment of... significant loss of this degree as we have had in the last few weeks with the likes of Chad Gilbert and Andy Williams and as you say in the last like two or three episodes we've had to come in and you know speak to the passing of someone who's significant in this kind of way but this one just came out of left field for me and has really knocked me for six and it's uh it's obviously it's always so sad when we lose a titan like this but my least favorite kind are the ones that very selfishly i know the ones that come in right when we're about to go and record an episode because it means that i haven't got my thoughts straight about it It's like the Significance of this My brain is scattered On this matter But I'm going to do my best to try and speak to The significance of this Which is that Kronos, aka Real name Conrad Lant Kronos, the legendary frontman Of Venom Has passed away this week And You said this might not On a personal level of your connection With the music for you Sam Be as strong as it is Certainly in my case and the case of many people In my scene But what I'm going to try and lay out today Is that even if you've literally never heard A note of Venom's music This is significant To you Even if you don't like Venom If you have heard it and gone, that shit doesn't matter.
Because when we come on here and we cover all things rock and metal, we try to speak for or in some way connect to, speak to people from all areas of the rock spectrum.
But I also have to this time come forward from a very personal place and say that extreme metal is my home.
And in that sense, that subcultural community that I am most connected to, out of all the ones that fall under the TNM banner, has lost its godfather figure this time.
After the release of the debut Black Sabbath album in 1970, there has never been a moment of radical musical arson to the significance of what Venom did when they arrived, ever.
And the question that always comes up with Venom that has been down the years is people go, were they or were they not really a black metal band? Were they the first black metal band or were they just a band who gave their name to it but didn't really belong? And that's always been, for me, it's like not being able to see the woods for the trees.
What they did is they gave us the tools to open up that box of what metal could do.
And the belief that, you know, you as a regular person, maybe not a virtuoso, you could do this too.
And the entire underground ethos of heavy music, essentially, takes a massive leap forward and spills forth with the birth of Venom.
Because imagine coming into a metal landscape in the UK that for the prior, you know, couple of years prior to when Venom released Welcome to Hell in 1981, It's the new wave of British heavy metal, right? That's the movement with which Venom were a part.
Think about what metal is prior to December 1981 when Venom released Welcome to Hell.
Who are the legendary bands up to that point? What do they sound like? What do their singers sound like in the case of Kronos? And to come in not singing high, not being a Halford or a Dio or someone of that kind of lineage...
And in the case of Welcome to Hell, this is literally true, they put out the demo recordings just labelled as the debut album.
It wasn't meant to be the final album, but it's just the demos that they recorded.
And you are quite right in terms of where we have to start because a moment of... significant loss of this degree as we have had in the last few weeks with the likes of Chad Gilbert and Andy Williams and as you say in the last like two or three episodes we've had to come in and you know speak to the passing of someone who's significant in this kind of way but this one just came out of left field for me and has really knocked me for six and it's uh it's obviously it's always so sad when we lose a titan like this but my least favorite kind are the ones that very selfishly i know the ones that come in right when we're about to go and record an episode because it means that i haven't got my thoughts straight about it It's like the Significance of this My brain is scattered On this matter But I'm going to do my best to try and speak to The significance of this Which is that Kronos, aka Real name Conrad Lant Kronos, the legendary frontman Of Venom Has passed away this week And You said this might not On a personal level of your connection With the music for you Sam Be as strong as it is Certainly in my case and the case of many people In my scene But what I'm going to try and lay out today Is that even if you've literally never heard A note of Venom's music This is significant To you Even if you don't like Venom If you have heard it and gone, that shit doesn't matter.
Because when we come on here and we cover all things rock and metal, we try to speak for or in some way connect to, speak to people from all areas of the rock spectrum.
But I also have to this time come forward from a very personal place and say that extreme metal is my home.
And in that sense, that subcultural community that I am most connected to, out of all the ones that fall under the TNM banner, has lost its godfather figure this time.
After the release of the debut Black Sabbath album in 1970, there has never been a moment of radical musical arson to the significance of what Venom did when they arrived, ever.
And the question that always comes up with Venom that has been down the years is people go, were they or were they not really a black metal band? Were they the first black metal band or were they just a band who gave their name to it but didn't really belong? And that's always been, for me, it's like not being able to see the woods for the trees.
What they did is they gave us the tools to open up that box of what metal could do.
And the belief that, you know, you as a regular person, maybe not a virtuoso, you could do this too.
And the entire underground ethos of heavy music, essentially, takes a massive leap forward and spills forth with the birth of Venom.
Because imagine coming into a metal landscape in the UK that for the prior, you know, couple of years prior to when Venom released Welcome to Hell in 1981, It's the new wave of British heavy metal, right? That's the movement with which Venom were a part.
Think about what metal is prior to December 1981 when Venom released Welcome to Hell.
Who are the legendary bands up to that point? What do they sound like? What do their singers sound like in the case of Kronos? And to come in not singing high, not being a Halford or a Dio or someone of that kind of lineage...
And in the case of Welcome to Hell, this is literally true, they put out the demo recordings just labelled as the debut album.
It wasn't meant to be the final album, but it's just the demos that they recorded.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
