Conrad Lant

Cronos

Cronos performing with Venom in 2013
Background information
Birth name Conrad Thomas Lant
Also known as Cronos
Born (1963-01-15) 15 January 1963 Kensington, London
Origin London, Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Genres
Occupation(s) Musician, songwriter
Instruments
Years active 1979–present
Associated acts
Website http://www.venomslegions.com

Conrad Thomas Lant (born 15 January 1963),[1] also known by the stage name of Cronos, is an English musician. He is the vocalist and bass player of the influential Thrash metal/black metal band Venom, from 1979 to 1989 and from 1994 to present.

Biography

Early life

After playing in a couple of high school bands; Dwarfstar and Album Graecum, Conrad Lant known as Cronos, joined Guillotine as a guitarist in 1978, where he met Jeffrey Dunn (with the stage name Mantas). In 1980, the original bass player left one week before a gig. Instead of not playing the venue, Cronos took up the bass and they changed the band name to Venom. He continued to play the bass throughout his career in Venom. In 1981, the band's vocalist, Clive Archer, left, leaving Cronos to take over this role too.

Cronos was working in a recording studio after he left school, and as the members of Venom could not afford the studio time fees, Cronos was able to talk the studio engineer into letting him have some free time in exchange for staying back late after work and carrying out other unpaid work. Cronos sent many copies of the Venom demos to various record labels and also the rock press, where a journalist for the 'Sounds' magazine [Jeff Barton] featured 3 Venom songs in his playlist, which got the attention of the label 'Neat Records', who then agreed to release the first Venom single. 'In League With Satan' c/w Live Like An Angel (Die Like A Devil).

Solo career

Cronos left the band in 1988 to pursue a solo career and occasionally featured in many other bands of a similar genre, including Cronos, Enthroned, Cradle of Filth (Cronos contributed a monologue to the end of the Cradle track "Haunted Shores," from their 1996 album Dusk... and Her Embrace), Warpath, Massacre and Necrodeath. He also produced some of the albums for other bands.

Venom tried to continue without Cronos, but only managed a couple of releases before halting their efforts in around 1993 due to lack of sales and poor concert attendances. Cronos reformed the original Venom line-up in 1995 and headlined the Dynamo Festival in 1996 to 90,000 fans. Venom tried to continue with the original line up members but the magic that had worked for them in the early 80's was gone, they only managed to play 1 show per year for the next few years. They had signed a 3 album deal with CBH/Steamhammer in Germany, but when they took the option for the second album after 'Cast In Stone', certain members didn't want to continue. So like rats from a sinking ship, the first to depart was the drummer who refused to play drums on their next album (Resurrection) leaving Cronos and the guitarist the job of finding a drummer (Antton). After this next release they still only managed 2 shows, [Wacken and Holland] so next to jump ship was the guitarist. Cronos enlisted his 'Cronos band' guitarist 'Mykas' and in 2004 set about rebuilding the bands reputation with the album 'Metal Black' in 2006, and a sold out UK tour in the UK and 4 headline shows at major European festivals. In 2007 Cronos replaced the guitarist with 'Rage, releasing the album 'Hell' in 2008 and again touring to sell out shows. By 2009 'Dante' joined the band, and starting with a full South American tour, Venom continue to headline many various festivals each year. 2016 Current line up: Cronos, Rage and Dante, with 2 albums 'Fallen Angels' and 'From The Very Depths'.

Recent developments

In 2000, the band went on to headline the Wacken Open Air Festival in Germany and play a one-off show in the Netherlands before they were forced to take a break after Cronos was injured in a mountain climbing accident in 2002, which left him unable to play bass or sing for nearly 2 years.[2] He took to the computer to pass the time and studied computing and games programming, he learned 3D software skills and worked as the main multimedia engineer for the computer and internet solutions companies K-Class Systems and Globalfibre.tv, where along with company owner Scott Toward, they created the first computer models for streaming media for the internet, as well as programming and building gaming maps and developing internet access via satellites.

Cronos again reformed Venom in around 2003, temporarily recruiting an unknown basic nu-metal drummer and guitarist, as he just needed a couple of average players to help him kick start the band while he looked for professional permanent musicians. Cronos had asked guitarist Jeef Mantus to rejoin the band, although he declined his offer releasing a statement on Blabbermouth saying he would never rejoin Venom as he was working in a new direction with his new band 'Zero Tolerance' and was in the process of recording an album. He also made several interviews stating that he would never work with drummer Abbadun again after financial disagreements. After Cronos spent the next couple of years of planning and intensive rehearsals, Venom released their album Metal Black in early 2006 on the Sanctuary Group label Castle Music, and they embarked on a sold out world tour. Venom played the classic single "Die Hard" along with Phil Anselmo (Pantera, Down) in the Gods of Metal 2006 in Italy, where they headlined. Cronos appeared on Dave Grohl's heavy metal side project Probot in 2004, and guest starred on the track Knights of the 21st Century on HammerFall's 2005 album Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken.[3]

Equipment

Bass guitars

Cronos also owns both Aria and Ibanez acoustic basses. He had two other basses which are seen on the DVD which comes with the deluxe version of Black Metal. These basses have been destroyed.

Cronos owns various 6 string guitars also which he plays to compose his songs with.

Amplifiers

Discography

with Venom

with Cronos

other appearances

References

  1. ↑ "Interview with Venom". Karsmakers.nl. Retrieved 2014-07-29.
  2. ↑ "Blabbermouth.net". Roadrun.com. 2013-04-17. Retrieved 2014-07-29.
  3. ↑ "Lords of Metal interview with Cronos of Venom by Ramon van H". Lords of Metal. Retrieved 2013-10-11.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/28/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.