Cronos from Venom Says Henry Rollins is “a Fool” and “Not a F*cking Musician”
What do you prefer: Heavy metal, or hardcore? Black Flag, or Black Metal? These are the wholly unnecessary question fans across the internet will be asking themselves today as they choose sides in the ongoing war between Henry Rollins and Venom.
The feud stretches back for decades: in his 1994 autobiography, Get in the Van, Rollins recalls Blag Flag playing with Venom in ’86, comparing them to Spinal Tap, criticizing them for having roadies (as opposed to being 100% DIY) and being poor musicians who are overly concerned with their physical appearance, and ultimately concluding that “Venom suck. They are so full of shit. What a bad joke. They don’t sweat and they probably don’t even fuck.” He also takes aim at metal as a general genre, asserting that the music is “bullshit” and the bands are “all lights and makeup.” And on top of all of that, just to add injury to insult, he misspells Cronos’ name as “Kronos.”
Now, in a new interview on the podcast One on One with Mitch Lafon, the Venom frontman strikes back (transcription courtesy of Brave Words):
“Those guys were such fucking children. For all this how ‘we stood around and watched the Venom show’ you know, couldn’t stop watching with his friends, after they finished playing, they got in their vehicles and left so I don’t know what show he watched, it certainly wasn’t the Venom show and also if you read the book, he got the dates wrong of the gig. This is why Henry Rollins writes books and is no longer in a band because he’s not a fucking musician, he’s a fool.”
As forefathers of their respective genres, I respect both of these dudes, but I gotta say: this beef really seems like it’s leftover from an era long gone, when metal dudes with long hair weren’t supposed to like hardcore dudes with short hair, and vice versa. I mean, it’s pretty ridiculous for Rollins to condemn an entire genre based on his experience with one band, but that kind of thinking wasn’t uncommon when he was in his prime. It’s hard to imagine, say, Scott Vogel taking a similar stance today, when there’s an entire subgenre that melds the styles of Venom and Black Flag, and hardcore bands like terror routinely tour with metal bands like Lamb of God.
Really, you’d think that Cronos and Rollins would get along based on the simple fact that they both come from bands now sell more t-shirts than they ever did records or concert tickets. Oh well.
You can listen to the entire Cronos interview below.
