It may feel like the genesis of heavy metal should have been sparked when a lightning bolt hit a mountain, but in reality, the birth of the song would not have made for a great fly-on-the-wall documentary. As momentous as this event was, something that happened over a period of several weeks punctuated by many arguments over who was making the next round of brews and interminable conversations over exactly which take of the line was the most convincingly terrifying and how loud the bell should be in the final mix, would not have made for great cinema. This is one of the reasons why full credit should be given to , the mainstay of extreme metal pioneers Venom for refusing to mystify the making of their iconic second album, , in 1982, no matter how influential and important it went on to become.
He’s quite candid about what is arguably the most important album in the birth of extreme metal ever recorded. “We had no idea what we were doing was going to become such a big thing. So many bands were in the studio at the same time as us.
How the hell could I have presumed that it would be my band who would be the lasting name? We weren’t trying to be the next or the next this or that. We just wanted to do what we enjoyed. You had a band like [fellow Geordie NWOBHM outfit] Tygers Of Pan Tang always dropping Purple references; you know, ‘We want to be the next Deep Purple.
’ Well, Venom never did that. We never said that. We said, ‘We are now, we are new, we are Venom.
’ Ve.
