More fuel for the Venom argument

[Cynical]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/Stormy23/2595.jpg

"Venom are killing music...Hellhammer are killing Venom..."

The "Hellhammer just wanted to be Venom" argument doesn't seem to be holding up...

[Hyvolgen]

"Hellhammer just wanted to be Venom"

Who said that?

[Cynical]

A common pro-Venom argument is that "Hellhammer just wanted to be like Venom!"

[Arctic Sun]

That's merely a single argument that attempts to dismiss Venom as being of any importance in the evolution of metal.  The (i.e. the most predominant) string of arguments are more or less that a lot of artists acknowledged Venom's material, expanded upon what they were hearing, and subsequently gave rise to several new branches of metal's phylogeny - some of which harbored works of lasting importance.

Finding any one consensus among the creators of something as feral and fragmented as metal is not possible; a general trend, on the other hand, is certainly well within the scope of hindsight.  And, as it so happens, an impressive number of artists who were familiar with the works of Venom appear to have used what they heard - stupid as it may seem by standards set in the years that followed - as a stepping-stone of sorts in the development of their own creative output.

What you found is pretty interesting.  The push to eliminate Venom from the evolution of metal, on the other hand, is dubious at best.  They made some sub-par albums that happened to have inspired a lot of artists: considering how much is already written on the subject of metal, devoting a few extra sentences towards putting Venom in their rightful - albeit less exciting - place in history doesn't seem terribly demanding.  Maybe I'm missing something here...

[More Celt Than Sassenach]

well i think the most reasonable conclusion is venom are more joke like then any of the contemporaries (who were light heated and bordering on joke like) but carried the base for which a seriousness could emerge out of. They influenced many bands at the time but then lost influence as the bands they influenced, influenced others.  

From all the circle running of the many venom arguments i have read recently this is what i got out of it.

[Thamuz]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/Stormy23/2595.jpg

"Venom are killing music...Hellhammer are killing Venom..."

The "Hellhammer just wanted to be Venom" argument doesn't seem to be holding up...

Hellhammer's implication was that they wanted to be a more extreme version of the envelope that Venom (amongst others) were pushing at the time.

After all, at the time the extreme Metal bands considering themselves to be anti-musical (hence the reference to killing music).

[Horrific Prophecies]

Where's born for banning?

[41|>5]

Hellhammer's implication was that they wanted to be a more extreme version of the envelope that Venom (amongst others) were pushing at the time.

After all, at the time the extreme Metal bands considering themselves to be anti-musical (hence the reference to killing music).

So, it was a "compliment"?  

It kind of reminds me of early Norwegian BM scene with the anti-everything/hate your idols attitude.

[More Celt Than Sassenach]

Where's born for banning?

Wheres Wolfgang?

Anyway in response to 41I>5 it could either have heard venom but are unimpressed with their musical aesthetic considering there notoriety or that they loved what venom had done and wished to carry on with that legacy. There wasn't enough said there to really say either way, at least for me.  

[▓]

"Killing music" is used in a positive sense.

Hellhammer copied Venom:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAL5kfpRMR4

[born for banning]

No artist had a single inspiration, and I think musicians got lazy and pointed to Venom as it was easier than listing others.

Musically, Motorhead did everything Venom did without being goof-offs with no practical purpose in life. When you listen to Venom, it's dumbass hard rock played by a punk band. Why not just give credit to the punk bands?

"British heavy metal and punk is what we are" - Jeff Hanneman

Bathory clearly wasn't Venom-motivated.
It's not certain that Hellhammer were either, despite the video link above.

[▓]

Bathory clearly wasn't Venom-motivated.
It's not certain that Hellhammer were either, despite the video link above.

No. The video states that clearly Hellhammer were motivated (that choice of word is significant) by Venom's act when they started out.

What isn't made clear is whether they were positively motivated: to be like venom, and continue with the Venom style/outlook. Or, did they see Venom as potentially undermining extreme music? If so, then they were negatively motivated to surpass Venom and make that band obsolete.

The elaboration in that video hints at the latter: they repeat the "Hellhammer wanted to kill Venom" line: "And we did. And the rest is history". He's acknowledging there that Hellhammer have all but supplanted Venom from their place in metal history as birthing modern dark metal imagery. He's saying that Venom did it first, but Hellhammer did it better. Seems spot on to me.  

[GS]

This will, I think, manage to appease both sides:

From Are You Morbid? by Tom G. Fischer

Pg 64.

“Our drummer is perhaps 15 and I am 17 when we make a pilgrimage to London. We simply have to go. After one or two days, though, we are completely broke --  we have bought the latest NWOBHM singles and the first two issues of a new magazine called Kerrang! This trip changes much. I’ve made the mistake of discovering a single by a band that looks even more outlandish and heavier than Motorhead: Venom."

"…Our singer begins to skip rehearsals, and Steve turns out to be the only guy who’s as fanatical as me and listens to the same radically heavy stuff, so he stands in as the vocalist. He can’t really sing, and that’s why we now start to resemble Venom more closely."

"…Our new thing is a three piece, believing that ‘only trios can be heavy’. Motorhead, Venom, Raven – they all have it, so we want to have it too. As absurd as this is, the period that follows in the next two years represents both the time I will later relish least in my musical career and also the time during which we create work that enables us to sign a recording contract."

Pg 74.

“So far, Hellhammer have mostly copied the short-sighted approach of our idols Veom, following their pattern of writing asinine lyrics for the sake of extremity. I will later often wonder how we could have sunk so damned low to write such brainless material, why we went through that period as ignorant morons."

Pg 102.

"A contemporary notion that isn’t entirely unjustified is that satanic themes in heavy rock are widespread enough to be considered an issue by the observant part of society in 1985…It casts a very unfavourable light onto the form of music we are a part of and fuels our determination to succeed on a much more challenging, perhaps intellectual level. As part of our project goes, we often publicly criticize such tendencies. We are entitled to comment: we have – still extremely bleak in ideas ourselves – strayed into this area, too, when early Hellhammer copied Venom to appear desperately more extreme."

[Thamuz]

In the early 80's as the walkman was being used, more and more people copied their records on to cassettes so they could listen to music wherever and whenever. Then they let their friends borrow the tapes and those friends would tape that and make mix tapes and etc. Some record companes thought this was destroying music much like napster is doing today. So albums were released one in particular Anvil's Metal on Metal which had on the bottom right hand side, a pirate symbol with the crossed bones and a tape instead of a skull and written above was "home taping is killing music". So along comes Venom and since they were along with Discharge as anti-music and brutal as it got back then (and it was a competition with all the hardcore bands), thought it would be cool to write "Home taping is killing music.... so is Venom!" on the bottom of the Black Metal LP. So Tom G. loved Venom and was obviously influenced by them. He wanted to outmetal them so it was a cool note to put on this groundbreaking demo. It was a nod to Venom's quote, that they were continuing where Venom left off, and was also a brag about the brutality that was about to occur in underground metal.

I took this from a post on another forum that the inspiration for this thread was most likely derived from.

I think it's a nice account of the tale and worth sharing.

[Heydrich]

This will, I think, manage to appease both sides:

From Are You Morbid? by Tom G. Fischer

Pg 64.

“Our drummer is perhaps 15 and I am 17 when we make a pilgrimage to London. We simply have to go. After one or two days, though, we are completely broke --  we have bought the latest NWOBHM singles and the first two issues of a new magazine called Kerrang! This trip changes much. I’ve made the mistake of discovering a single by a band that looks even more outlandish and heavier than Motorhead: Venom."

"…Our singer begins to skip rehearsals, and Steve turns out to be the only guy who’s as fanatical as me and listens to the same radically heavy stuff, so he stands in as the vocalist. He can’t really sing, and that’s why we now start to resemble Venom more closely."

"…Our new thing is a three piece, believing that ‘only trios can be heavy’. Motorhead, Venom, Raven – they all have it, so we want to have it too. As absurd as this is, the period that follows in the next two years represents both the time I will later relish least in my musical career and also the time during which we create work that enables us to sign a recording contract."

Pg 74.

“So far, Hellhammer have mostly copied the short-sighted approach of our idols Veom, following their pattern of writing asinine lyrics for the sake of extremity. I will later often wonder how we could have sunk so damned low to write such brainless material, why we went through that period as ignorant morons."

Pg 102.

"A contemporary notion that isn’t entirely unjustified is that satanic themes in heavy rock are widespread enough to be considered an issue by the observant part of society in 1985…It casts a very unfavourable light onto the form of music we are a part of and fuels our determination to succeed on a much more challenging, perhaps intellectual level. As part of our project goes, we often publicly criticize such tendencies. We are entitled to comment: we have – still extremely bleak in ideas ourselves – strayed into this area, too, when early Hellhammer copied Venom to appear desperately more extreme."

Fischer has engaged in Venom worship before all this. He stated clearly that "Welcome To Hell" was a profound influence-in the Hellhammer days. Why must we continue to pretend otherwise?