SPILL FEATURE: WHERE IS THIS JOURNEY GOING? – A CONVERSATION WITH RAGE OF VENOM

WHERE IS THIS JOURNEY GOING?

A CONVERSATION WITH RAGE OF VENOM

Venom is a band that has stood the test of time. With the band’s name having been active since 1979, and with releases going back to 1980, this band has earned their place as one of the metal ‘greats.’ Rage, who has been with the band since 2007, said that Venom has been a large influence on his life.

“I realized early on I was never going to be an iconic guitar player. But that was all right, because as just what all the guitar players say, ‘Well, listen and write songs,’ and that’s what I wanted to do,” he said, “When people are starting to sing back the songs that you’ve written, and it’s just the best feeling in the world. It’s just absolutely amazing. And you learn that you can’t be a fanboy, you know, you’ve just got to be a cool individual and get on with people.”

Metal as a genre has also had a major impact on Rage’s life since he was young. With bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Rainbow dominating his ears during the ‘70s, Rage mentions how much the metal scene has changed from then until now. He lamented how much he misses the old ways of the metal community, and how much the genre means to him. “If you see a young kid, you shouldn’t be going up to them asking them to name three Iron Maiden songs. You should be getting them into more music and, you know, educating people. That’s what it’s all about. It’s everything. I’ve not stopped listening to heavy metal for maybe 40 odd years. It’s been everything when I’m happy, sad, upset, excited. It’s the soundtrack of my life, really.”

Venom is currently preparing to release new music to adhere to not only those old school metal fans, but also to the new generations of listeners. Rage expressed that the band is evolving from just their classic sound to something that everyone will enjoy. “I think older fans won’t believe that the band that they listened to back in the day are still true to what this started with. And I think the younger fans who have just started to get into the band won’t believe that, you know that we can, we can keep up with all these younger bands coming out, be just as heavy.”

INTO OBLIVION ALBM REVIEW

Venom’s newest 13-track album, Into Oblivion, released on May 1st. Rage mentioned the long-winded process of how this album came to fruition. “I mean, it’s been eight years. I mean, we started it during COVID, so that knocked us back about two years, and then we actually recorded it ages ago…there was a microphone that we would use to record the drums, and hadn’t worked properly, so there was this little click that just kept coming in. And we tried for about two months to try and fix it, and we couldn’t. We had to start all over again from scratch, so we were devastated with that. But it worked. It worked out really well.”

For his personal songwriting process, Rage explained how he visualizes music to create concepts for songs, much like a movie playing in his head. He said David Lynch is a big inspiration to how he creates music. “It feels almost like a horror film’s music. So that’s what I try to do, just picture like, where is this journey going? You know, this is the start, and this is what’s happening, what’s going to happen next. So that’s what I tend to do… David Lynch is great, because not all scenes have to make it in, you know, a sort of linear sense.”

Rage continued to explain that while this album doesn’t have a narrative itself, the songs individually often do. “There’s some cool stuff, like ‘Legend’” That’s actually like a like a mythical story about these two giants who lived up in the Northeast of England and they were brothers on the River Tyne. So, the River Tyne is the river that sort of goes from Newcastle, and it goes out into the North Sea and in Europe. And these twin giants used to fight on the banks of the River Tyne, and so we’ve put that in.”

Rage had some words for the next generation of musicians that are going to follow in Venom’s footsteps. He advised that while playing music is a great experience, that it’s very important to keep your humanity and be humble, regardless of how large or small you or your band might be. “Listen. Don’t be an asshole. Don’t be a dick. You know, if you’re playing a gig and you’re not getting paid much money, just still, because people remember, you know, the nice people and the people who were who were cool, and that goes, that goes a long way. You don’t need to be the best musician. You just all need to get on.”

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Photo Credit: Necrohorns