Metallica’s Kirk Hammett was asked on the Toucher & Rich show for his thoughts on Venom and whether the band ever “seemed super corny to you,” to which he replied (transcribed by UG):
“Love ’em.
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“Maybe [they were super corny]… I don’t know. Speaking very realistically and soberly, you know – why would I do something like that?
“With Venom, they’re just like a bad horror movie.
“You suspend your disbelief, you lower your quality a little bit. And once you do that, you’re in for a really great time.
“And that’s how I see Venom.”
Asked if there are bands he was really into as a kid, but that now seem kinda lame, Kirk replied:
“Yeah… some of those bands are still active now, so I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut. [Laughs]”
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Venom is often cited among Metallica’s top influences. Back in 2006, frontman Cronos has some not-too-kind words about ‘Tallica, saying that “they’re crap. I think they need to take the word ‘metal’ out of the name.”
More recently, Cronos told EMP Live about Metallica in early 2017:
“They put in the hard work, and they did eventually develop their own style.
“People say that first Metallica album sounds like the first Venom album. That’s where they started to get their ideas from.
“Then they developed their own style and went out, put a lot of hard work in, and fucking the rest is history. So it’s great that they started off wearing ‘Welcome to Hell’ shirts.
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“We used to find it really difficult finding bands to tour with, because there wasn’t a lot of bands like us.
“So when the Metallicas and the Slayers and the Exoduses, when they came along, it was great, because then we could put a package together that we knew the crowd would be into.”