Venom's highly-influential 1982 album Black Metal is turning 40 this year and guitarist Jeff "Mantas" Dunn would like for that lineup to get back together to celebrate. The Black Metal lineup was Mantas, drummer Anthony "Abaddon" Bray, and bassist and vocalist Conrad "Cronos" Lant. Mantas left the band in 2002 and would eventually form Venom Inc. with Abaddon, who would leave the group in 2018. Cronos is still in Venom today and is the only remaining member of the Black Metal lineup.
Mantas said in a lengthy Facebook live statement that he's not taking back the things he's said about his bandmates, but ultimately their drama "fucking pales into insignificance" against the current events of the world and it'd be nice to get back together.
"I'll never retract anything I've said, because I'm sorry but it's true," he said as transcribed by Blabbermouth. "Regardless of what him or him thinks, it's true; it's just as simple as that. I'm not gonna go out there and blatantly talk a lot of bollocks like one of us did. What I've said is absolutely true, and I've put it in print — into the book as well. It's there. It's absolutely true. But we're at that age now — I'm 60; Bray's, like, 61; Conrad's what — 58, 59? We've just been through a massive fucking pandemic where nobody's done anything. We've got fucking a war in Europe at the minute. [All the issues we've had with each other], it fucking pales into insignificance; it's fucking bollocks.
"Like I say, I'll never fucking say 'sorry'; I'll never fucking turn around and go, 'Yeah, well, I didn't fucking mean that. What I said was fucking true. But we missed the 25th anniversary. We didn't celebrate the 30th anniversary. And it's, like, for a band who had such a fucking impact… And, again, my friends, I still find it difficult to take in myself, people saying…
"When I did the interviews for the 40th anniversary of Welcome To Hell — there's another anniversary we fucking missed; nothing done about it; it just passed. But the thing was, I got these interviews in, and people were saying to me, 'You just don't realize the importance of what you did.' I don't, because I suppose we were so close to it. I've said it a million times — I was just a fucking kid writing tunes in my fucking bedroom living with my mom, and I was lucky; people fucking dig them.
"But it's, like, could we not just fucking celebrate this for once? I mean, fucking hell — I've already died once. And fucking you haven't got long, and you haven't got long, because I know what you've fucking done to yourselves."
So far Venom Inc. is slated to play Black Metal on October 2 at the Keep It True festival at Posthalle in Würzburg, Germany.
