Newcastle upon Tyne Heavy Metal band GUILLOTINE would be an early port of call for a pre-VENOM guitarist Jeffrey 'Mantas' Dunn. GUILLOTINE would re-brand themselves VENOM in 1979. The inaugural line up of this group being Dunn, vocalist Dave Blackman, second guitarist Dave Rutherford, bassist Dean Hewitt and drummer Chris Mercaters. Both Blackman and Mercater lost their places in August of that year to former OBERON members drummer Tony Bray ('Abaddon') and singer Clive Archer.

The new look VENOM, also with a fresh bassist Alan Winston, were to pull in Conrad Lant as replacement for Rutherford in November. However, mere days before the band's debut gig in Wallsend Winston bailed out forcing Lant (a.k.a. 'Cronos') to take over the bassist's role.