Conrad Lant dies aged 63 in a Cronos Venom death that ends more than four decades at the centre of Venom. The frontman and bassist shaped the band’s sound under the Cronos name, with no cause of death given.
Venom said Lant’s voice, bass and vision were at the heart of the band for more than four decades. The group added that he created something that changed heavy music for ever, calling him uncompromising, fearless and unmistakable.
Venom and UK Top 75
Lant’s death lands hardest because Venom sat in a strange commercial place: hugely influential on thrash and Black Metal, yet only a single release took the band into the UK Top 75. That split between impact and chart reach is the real story of the group’s career, and it is why his name still carries more weight than the numbers suggest.
Born in Chelsea, London, he moved with his family to Newcastle aged seven and joined Guillotine aged 16, later becoming Venom’s vocalist after starting on guitar and then bass. The band’s 1981 release Welcome to Hell and the reversed-speech venom of In League with Satan helped build the template that later listeners and historians kept pulling apart.
Cronos in the 1990s
After Venom went on hiatus in 1988, Lant went solo as Cronos and released two early 1990s albums, while also training as a fitness instructor in the 1990s. He later began parallel careers in computer engineering and graphic design, a reminder that even the most aggressive metal image can sit beside ordinary work and retraining.
Venom reformed for another seven LPs after the hiatus, and Storm the Gates arrived in 2018 as the most recent album named in the record here. Lant also recovered from a climbing injury during a shorter hiatus in the early 2000s, so the absence of a cause of death now leaves the only open question that matters: what caused Conrad Lant’s death?
