BraveWords has published a section of an interview it recorded with Venom at 70000 Tons Of Metal in 2015, held back until now, in which Cronos goes through the writing of five songs. He died on 29 September, at sixty three.
The one that named a genre was about a stage. "'Black Metal' is about the Venom live show. That was the original idea behind it," he said. "It was describing 'black', being the night, and 'metal' was the power set to explode. That was us onstage." He drew the line against the bands before them without naming an insult: "You have all your other rock bands, your Deep Purple's, and you sit back and tap your feet, and it's great, but we wanted to have people freaking out."
Witching Hour came out of horror comics and then out of something more deliberate. "Really, it's about how the church depicts satanism. I wanted to do something based off exactly that ideal the church has of it." Die Hard, he said, "is about the legions, the fans. It's about their dedication to the music."
Manitou was the exception. "I'm fifth generation Cherokee Indian, so I wanted to write a song about the spirit of the Indians. I wanted to create a song that was a little more about me than just the devil."
And At War With Satan, the twenty minute side, came from a manuscript. "That song is about a book I've written. I just took the lyrics from the story. It starts kind of where the bible ends, and depicts the war against heaven and hell. I'd really love to finish the book one day." He and the band had planned a two hour show built around it. The book was never finished.