Our music is Power Metal, Venom Metal, Black Metal not Heavy Metal cos that's for the chicks.
Venom interview, Kerrang!, 1982
VENOM released their iconic second album, Black Metal, on this day in 1982 through Neat.
Satan is power and Venom is power so we write about Satan.
Venom interview, Kerrang!, 1982
VENOM created Black Metal just by actually saying we are Black Metal. We could have called it anything, and that's what it would have become. But at the end of the day, SABBATH was an influence, BLACK WIDOW, so there were bands playing with the Satanic side of it, they just didn't stuff it in everybody's face like we did. But then you take it even further back, you go back into the 1920s or even earlier, and there's some guy sitting on a porch in the Delta with a beaten-up old acoustic singing about the Devil. The Devil's been around in music forever. He's got all the best tunes, he's always fucking mentioned in it, every Rock band has got something to do with the Devil in it somewhere or the word Hell is mentioned in somewhere. We were the ones who just went, right, you want Devil, you've got it, you want Satanic, you've got it, and we just stuffed it in everyone's face... was it for shock value? Absolutely! Did it work? Absolutely!
Mantas / Venom interview, Voices from the Darkside