CONRAD Lant, better known as Venom founder, bassist and singer Cronos, has died. He was 63.
The extreme metal pioneer’s loss was announced by his band-mates Rage and Danté, along with his son Nathan, via Venom’s official social media channels. No cause of death has been disclosed.
Born Conrad Thomas Lant on January 15, 1963 in Kensington, London, he moved with his family to Newcastle upon Tyne as a child. There he developed an early interest in heavy music and played in school bands including Dwarfstar and a short-lived project called Album Graecum.
In 1979 he adopted the stage name Cronos and joined the group Guillotine as a guitarist, where he met Jeffrey Dunn, later known as Mantas. When the original bassist departed shortly before a church hall performance, Lant switched to bass.
The band soon changed its name to Venom and the following year he also assumed lead vocal duties after Clive Archer left, establishing the classic three-piece line-up with drummer Tony “Abaddon” Bray.
Venom’s debut album Welcome to Hell appeared in 1981, followed by the landmark Black Metal in 1982, whose title helped define an emerging subgenre. Subsequent releases including At War with Satan (1984) and Possessed (1985) featured raw speed, occult imagery and a deliberately unpolished sound that influenced thrash, speed and black metal acts worldwide.
After the band paused in the late 1980s, Lant launched a solo project under the Cronos name, releasing Dancing in the Fire (1990) and Rock n’ Roll Disease (1991). He also contributed guest appearances to recordings by Warfare, Cradle of Filth, Massacre and Dave Grohl’s Probot project.
The original Venom line-up briefly reunited in the mid-1990s, producing Cast in Stone (1997) and Resurrection (2000). A climbing accident in 2002 left Lant unable to perform for nearly two years, during which he studied computing and multimedia engineering.
He later reformed the band with new members, releasing Metal Black in 2006 and continuing with a stable line-up of Rage on guitar and Danté on drums from 2009 onward.
In May 2026 Venom issued their 16th studio album, Into Oblivion, their first full-length release since Storm the Gates in 2018. The group remained active on the festival circuit until shortly before Lant’s death.
Throughout his career Lant was also responsible for much of Venom’s distinctive visual identity, designing the band’s logo and many album sleeves. His work helped shape extreme metal’s aesthetic and sonic vocabulary, earning recognition from artists ranging from Metallica and Slayer to later black metal pioneers.
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