Interview: Abaddon UK/Venom
My heart has been playing with the two guys from Venom. Everybody knows that I would love to get back together with those two guys. Even if it's only for live shows.
When it comes to metal bands, it can truly be said that there are few as influential as Venom. From inspiring bands like Metallica and Slayer to creating the whole genre of black metal with their album of the same name. The band were bolstered by the nuclear powered drumming of Anthony “Abaddon” Bray, who is now forging ahead with his new band Abaddon UK while still paying tribute to the past with Venom. After a series of serious health problems, Abaddon is thankfully back behind the kit and Gavin Brown had the pleasure of catching up with him to talk about his present with Abaddon UK, and his past and hopefully future with Venom.
E&D: First off, can you can you tell us a bit you health how are you doing today?
Abaddon: Not too bad. The cancer that I had is blood related, so there’s obviously a good chance of it coming back but I responded really well to treatment last time so I’m kind of expecting it to be the same if it comes back again but I’m back to a reasonable level of health.
E&D: How did your recent live shows go with Abaddon UK and how did it feel getting back behind the kit?
Abaddon: That was great. It wasn’t a big planned thing. It was just a thing that a couple of other bands were doing, Spartan Warrior and Avenger.I just said it would be great if we jumped on the bill. It’s a New Wave Of British Heavy Metal thing at Trillians in Newcastle. We had a great turnout and then we played at Mearfest. It’s been good but tiring. We did about 30/45 minutes but it was good getting behind the kit again.
E&D: You played a Venom set in Newcastle and more recently in Cardiff, how did that go and how was the experience of playing all those old songs again?
Abaddon: It was good. It was as a kind of a one off and I just mentioned to the lads, instead of going back over the Abaddon stuff, how about if we just rattle through a lot of Venom songs. Maybe 40 minutes or something like that. We were looking at the tracks you wouldn’t normally have heard like some B-sides along with the ones you’d consider the most obvious ones to play so we were looking at a completely different set.
E&D: What are your favourite Venom songs to play live?
Abaddon: I like playing ‘Seven Gates Of Hell’, ‘In Nomine Satanas’ when it goes into ‘Don’t Burn The Witch’, I love how that rolls together. ‘Countess Bathory’ obviously. ‘Witching Hour’ and ‘Black Metal’, they’re obvious songs that have to be in the set but they’re always great to play.
E&D: Have you got more gigs lined up for next year and would you look at mixing in the Abaddon UK stuff with the Venom material?
Abaddon: We’re looking at some studio stuff now. Then, we’re going to be looking at live stuff next year. At the moment, what we’re talking about is doing the full band and going out specifically doing that stuff. We always like making new stuff, you know.
E&D: Can you tell us about the status of the new Abaddon UK studio album?
Abaddon: Yeah, so that’s going very well. We’ve got a label in Italy doing the vinyl on it, because I always want to try and get a vinyl release if I can. It’s coming together really well and it sounds good.
E&D: Who have you got in the band that you can tell us about?
Abaddon: Dave Turner, our guitar player is back in the band, and of course, Steve Hoggart is singing and playing bass. Steve’s background is with punk bands and we’ve been working together for probably 10 years now, so it’s just the three of us.
E&D: What is the sound of the album like?
Abaddon: It’s very, very old school Venom. I can’t really help that! It’s got that punk kind of throwaway feel to it, especially in the drums. It’s all first time takes. We don’t sit in the studio for weeks on lodged. The guitar riffs are all pretty much logic in the 80s, we really want it to sound like fun and that’s exactly what it sounds like.
E&D: You obviously look back in your time with Venom with fondness. What were some of your favourite times with the band that stick out for you to this day?
Abaddon: The live shows really, I don’t remember enjoying being in the studio very much. I still enjoy playing live, that was always my bag, you know, the big stage setups in with the PA and big lightning rigs, this kind of thing. That was always what I was doing. It was the kind of stuff that I put together for the band, so any of the live tours. I feel like the fact that getting out and being with a crew, you know, like hanging with a crew quite a lot because you had a good laugh! It was like a large football team, going around Europe, North America and South America, Japan. It’s definitely been the live stuff that I remember the most. Getting things together for the reunion in 96 was good as well, because it took us about two years to get that together, to convince the other lads that we needed to do it with the help of the guy from the Dynamo festival in Holland. That was an incredible incredible time for over a year, playing live again.
E&D: Venom were supported by the likes of Metallica, Slayer and Exodus. How exciting and fun was it to play and your with those bands?
Abaddon: It was great because when you think about that time in the early 80s. All those bands, we were young and we were impressionable and let loose on the world! Metallica, they’re getting in trouble for throwing food around backstage and creating havoc! Everybody starting drinking and taking narcotics and what have you, it was just a case of, instead of growing up at home, we were staying up late and getting in trouble but in New York doing it, you know! It was really, really good fun.
E&D: Venom, Slayer and Exodus played at disco club Studio 54. Was that a strange experience for a band like yourselves?
Abaddon: I didn’t really get the relevance of it until somebody said it was a big disco club and I didn’t really catch on how big it was and the relevance until afterwards. There was a video that came out called The Ultimate Revenge, revenge against what?! I didn’t understand! Obviously nowadays I do!
E&D: What other bands did you love touring with?
Abaddon: I got into tour management during Venom and I got to look after bands on the road like Nasty Savage, Nuclear Assault and Atomkraft. That was great, because, again, they were just young lads coming over to Europe, American bands coming over Europe and just letting rip! Going through the red light districts in Holland and Germany, they’d never seen anything like it! All that was an eye opener!
E&D: You also played with bands like Black Flag and Cro-Mags. Did you live playing with different bands like these punk and hardcore bands?
Abaddon: Yeah, because we didn’t think we were a heavy metal band, we thought we were more than that but that was the kind of scene that we saw sort of coming through from Motörhead, Judas Priest, that sort of thing, but the punk side of it, Black Flag and Cro-Mags, that really jumped out when they were opening up for us. The fans that they were bringing to us were a different set than what we were used to playing. When we played Hammersmith Odeon, there were bikers, there were punks, skinheads, hippies. There was a real cross of fans who wee interested in this style of music.
E&D: Did you feel a connection to the punk and hardcore fans because of the heaviness of your music?
Abaddon: Yeah, leading up to that, for the long haired kid walking down the street, if there was a lot of skinheads in the street you’d get beaten up, you know, I’d get jumped on and of a sudden I’m looking out into a crowd and there’s a lot of punks and skinheads enjoying the music we were playing and I’m thinking something we are doing is getting across, and it opened peoples ears a bit.
E&D: How does it feel to be such an influence on so many bands and so many people?
Abaddon: It’s outrageous, especially with social media now,because you see stuff every day and you’re thinking, wow, that’s amazing. I mean, there’s one guy who stands out, a South American guy and he told me that he had struggled at school, to a point of just about getting ready to be kicked out and he learned English due to reading the lyrics off Venom albums, and he went onto pass his exams and he’s now an English teacher. That will live with me forever.
E&D: Do you look back and find it laughable about the backlash that Venom received because of your songs and the satanic imagery?
Abaddon: I think at the time, we were angered by It and it wasn’t just the imagery. It was really the English press who said we couldn’t play and never had a good thing to say about us, and it was only the English press, in Germany and Holland, everybody understood about the band and the Norwegians got it and the Americans got it. They knew it was something kind of experimental, kind of outrageous, kind of different but l the English press just wanted another clone of Motörhead or Iron Maiden and we wanted more than that. Lemmy used to came and see us a lot because of what was said about us. I feel a lot of people who rubbished us then, now say we were the second coming, so it’s quite funny seeing people changing their words!
E&D: How does it feel birthing black metal and the massive genre it became?
Abaddon: Again, I’m quite proud of that. I think the whole idea with us, was that we took up this kind of British heavy metal thing and we took it into new places. I think when we came up with black metal, the Scandinavians in particular picked up on that and then they took it to new and different places. I think that massively speaks of us doing the right thing. You can look at bands like Pantera or Mayhem, and they’re completely different bands yet when you take their roots back, they come back to Venom. They’re completely different bands and then bands like Kreator, Sodom, Destruction, they all sound different to each other but each of those, again, come back to Venom. It’s amazing to see that right around the world. Sepultura, Slayer Exodus. It’s amazing,
E&D: That must make you proud.
Abaddon: Yeah, absolutely and it wasn’t something we set out to do. What we set out to do was just to have a good time and be as heavy and as fucking fast as we could be. Looking back, it makes you seriously proud that you had something to do with that which presumably will last long after I’ve gone you know,
E&D: How do you feel to be still doing it after all these years and still having that same passion and fire to make the music that you do?
Abaddon: I’m kind of lucky, because somebody of my age I could be in a wheelchair or worse, especially with what happened last year and the year before but to be able to get up and still go on the bike and go for walks and and then go and rehearse with me mates. I’m very lucky and I just hope I can carry on doing this.
E&D: Who are your biggest influences as a drummer both past and present?
Abaddon: Definitely Ian Paice and Cosy Powell. In modern days, people like Dave Lombardo and Gene Hogland because these guys are taking what I did further and I was only only doing what Cozy Powell did with the double bass drums and these guys did what I was doing and took it to another level.
E&D: What have been some of the highlights of your music career so far and what do you still want to do in the future?
Abaddon: I don’t think it’s any secret that, although I love the guys I play with now. My heart has been playing with the two guys from Venom. Everybody knows that I would love to get back together with those two guys. Even if it’s only for live shows. If we don’t make any new music, I don’t really care. ImI just want to get out and play live again on big stages with those lads. Everybody knows that.
E&D: Do you think there is a possibility of that?
Abaddon: Never say never. The arguments and disagreements are always very petty. It just does nothing. It takes a good manager. Eric Cook, who managed Venom for years was like a fourth member. He was good at looking after the three individual personalities, and I think we need another manager who can do that. I just think I need to get somebody who has got the balls as a manager to see the potential to make that happen again and whatever it takes to work to make it happen. I can’t see why it couldn’t happen. I really can’t.
