Formed as Venom in 1979 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. And coming to prominence towards the end of the new wave of British heavy metal, Venom’s first two albums—Welcome to Hell (1981) and Black Metal (1982)—are considered a major influence on thrash metal and extreme metal in general. Venom’s second album proved influential enough that its title was used as the name of an extreme metal sub-genre: Black Metal.
For the first time ever in the history of the band, Venom Inc. is hitting our shores for their Avé Australis tour and I had the pleasure to speak with vocalist Tony “Demolition Man” Dolan to discuss the upcoming tour and past experiences in his life.
Xavier: So, I guess the first thing I wanna ask you is, as well as being a world-renowned musician you’ve also acted a bit in the past, playing the role as Mr Lamb in Master and Commander.
Demolition: I did which was directed by a fellow Australian, Peter Weir, which a lot of American’s think is a Kiwi but he’s actually an Aussie, and that was great. We shot for five months in Baja in Mexico, it was amazing so really good movie.
Xavier: How did you find yourself in that position?
Demolition: Well you know my day job was working in theatre as a technician and I ended up being in charge of a couple of theatre shows and I worked my way up to be an assistant engineer and then I did automations, so I’ve done quite a bit of stuff for quite a lot of shows, including Queen and all sorts of stuff. And then I was working with a Shakespeare company in India and there was no extra actors, so the acting troop was just small, and there was an assistant director and if anybody got sick the idea was they would all move around the roles and he would step in, and we were doing a play called Comedy Love, and I really love Shakespeare so I used to be caught in the play at the time, behind the scenes and anyway that was in New Delhi and somebody got sick, the assistant director wasn’t available, he had gone to Bombay to see Mother Theresa and the stage manager came to me and said “Fuck we’ve got somebody sick, what are we going to do?” and I said, “I dunno maybe we can find somebody to do the part.” And he said “Well, we had an idea. You’re always caught in the play, so you know the play.” And I said, “Yeah.” And he went, “Why don’t you go on?” and I was like, “Really? Fuck, what?” because I was the master carpenter of the show, and I said, “Yeah why not?” You know, opportunities come in your life, so you might as well go for them. And so, I did it and I enjoyed it and they thanked me and everything else and at the end of the tour we went back to London and I get a phone call from the assistant director of the theatre and he said, “I heard what you did, thank you so much.” And I said, “That’s fine.” And he said, “I’ve got a similar situation now and someone’s sick and we’re in London and I was just wondering if there’s someone we could get to cover a role for a few days.” And so, they called me, so I was like “Fuck, I’m not an actor.” But he said to come down, so I went and I did the work and so I did some workshops to learn properly and about a month later I went out and got two agents and one that could take me on and a month after that I was in Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone and Armand Assante and then a month after that I was in a T.V. show and it just went on and on and on.
I was actually, when I got Master and Commander, I was setting up We Will Rock you, the Queen musical for a guy named Roger Taylor and I was to be one of the lead tech’s on that, and I got a call from my agent to pop up to Park Lane in Hyde Park to meet a director and a casting agent, and I went up there and I met Peter Weir and found out they were casting for a big Hollywood budget movie for Twentieth Century Fox and I thought, “Well fuck, I’m never gonna get that.” It was a bit out of my league, and so I went back to work, you know, and my agent asked how it went, and I said, “Well it went ok, but I mean fucking hell it’s like a MOVIE movie, not just what I’ve done before, bits and pieces, It’s like a proper movie and a proper character.” And so, I said, “I won’t get that.” Three weeks later I was just about to sign a contract to do We Will Rock You for the first five years, and my agent called and said, “Don’t sign that contract, they want you to go to Mexico on the fifteenth of June for five months and do the movie, he wants you to be Mr. Lamb.” So really it was kind of like fate, so, you know, I guess the lesson to be learnt is always say yes, because if you say yes, go for it. you never know what’s going to happen. You can always say no later, but if you say no first, you’ll never know if you could have done it.
Xavier: Yeah, I completely agree, you always have to believe in yourself. I also wanted to talk about your new album, Avé, being the first release as Venom Inc. after being signed to Nuclear Blast Records on the 3rd of February last year and the first time playing in Australia, are you excited to be playing in a new country as a newly formed chapter of Venom?
Demolition: Yeah absolutely, you know the Venom Inc. thing all happened as an accident, a happy accident. And the intention was to play four, five songs at a festival just for fans and then walk away and myself and Mantas carry on with our M-Pire of Evil project. But it hasn’t worked out like that and fans and everybody wanted us to be a band and tour, so that’s what we did. We didn’t have any new material and we didn’t particularly want to write any, we thought the legacy of the band, Venom, the catalogue was so rich and so many songs hadn’t been heard by fans and so many places that the band never went to. I thought why don’t we just do that, go to those places and play the songs that people wanted to hear and never had the chance to. So that was a kind of idea and then Jon Zazula came in with Chuck Billy from Testament as part of our management and they were insisting that we should do some new material and I was trying not to do that but I conceded in the end so, you know we ended up with Avé and Nuclear Blast wanted it and so the whole thing happened and now we’ve got an album and that was good. But I think that for a long time I had my sights personally on areas where the band Venom never got to, and we have a whole lot of fucking fans there and I thought you know Australia is one of those places. I mean coming to Australia, Tasmania we even play Tasmania, Hobart and then New Zealand and I mean we’ve got fans there, some are new fans some are old fans, but they’re still fans and they wanted that chance that they get to be able to embrace the band live, and so for me it was very important to be able to get down there.
As far as excitement we go next week to Japan, play two shows then we go Singapore, Bangkok and then we come to Australia, and I’ve gotta tell you it’s a place we’ve never been, none of us, on a personal level or as the band so the idea to be able to bring classic Venom and some new material to a new place that I’ve been trying to get us to for fucking years and for the first time in the history of the band is incredible and our level of excitement is beyond me. I think we’re gonna give the best show we could possibly give, and I hope everybody has even thought, “Eh why not I might come”, I hope all shows are crammed and people go away with the biggest smile, cause we’re gonna kick the living shit out of it together and I can’t wait.
Xavier: I have no doubt in that and I’m glad that you’re able to come to Perth, people like me probably wouldn’t have the chance to see you live if you didn’t come.
Demolition: Yeah exactly and you know it’s one of those things, it’s like people think you know Nuclear Blast is a European based label, of course and we’re all European based and then there’s America and so people think straight away, “Oh well you know, go to Europe and go to America” and it’s like right, ok and what about Israel and stuff like that you know. I mean I’m quite happy that I managed to get to China the year before last and Taiwan and to Japan of course and I would definitely try to push it down towards you guys and I just failed so I thought, right I’m gonna keep trying to be able to do this, I mean Euro people forget that portion of the world sometimes in the industry, they’re so focused on this and that but to me it was like, you know it doesn’t matter where your fan is, it could be half way up the Andes in a little tin hut but if he’s a fan then he has a right to be able to hear us in his lifetime, to see us, to meet us if he can but certainly to partake in a live experience of a band that he loves and so that’s why it was so important for me. It just means everything in the world to me, I can’t tell you. I’ve got loads of friends down there, old friends and new friends and then there’s the fans of the band and the music, I feel so honoured that we get to come down and play and to be welcomed by Australia and you know the world is yours and this band is your band and so it’s amazing to be able to have this opportunity.
Xavier: Well we feel honoured to finally be able to have you here to play for us. It’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you and I can’t wait to see you dominate the stage in Perth.
Demolition: Thank you so much for your time, thank you so much for your support and to everybody who’s in Perth and beyond, please come, even if you’re on the fence and you think, “Oh I dunno”, come. I promise to god you will experience something you’ve wanted to experience for most of your life and do it with us as one.
AVE AUSTRALIS TOUR 2018
supported by Desecrator
Thur 22 Feb – Canberra – The Basement
Desecrator + Reign Of Terror – event page
Fri 23 Feb – Sydney – The Manning
Desecrator + Murderworld – event page
Sat 24 Feb – Brisbane – Crowbar
Desecrator + Laceration Mantra – event page
Wed 28 Feb – Hobart – Republic Bar
Supports TBC- event page
Thur 1 Mar – Melbourne – Max Watts
Desecrator + Black Jesus – event page
Fri 2 Mar – Adelaide – Enigma Bar
Desecrator + Hidden Intent – event page
Sat 3 Mar – Perth – Amplifier
Desecrator + Psychonaut – event page
Tickets: www.hardlinemedia.net
