In a recent interview, co-founder and former guitarist of the iconic band Venom and current guitarist of Venom Inc. Jeff “Mantas” Dunn talks about his brief but unforgettable stint in 2006 with the German techno band Scooter as a live guitarist. In fact, here’s what he said:
In 2005 I had German management and I had a band called Drill. So I was talking to the management one day and they said, “Oh, we’ve got a request.” And I, “Okay. What’s this?” And they went, “Scooter want you as their live guitarist.” And I went, “Who the fuck are Scooter?” I had no idea. Now, at this point, I had a martial arts gym in Newcastle; I was a professional instructor for 25 years. So one of the guys who used to teach for me, he used to play this song when he used to do the fitness classes, and it turns out that this song was “Fire” by Scooter. I used to come out of the office and go, “Paul, for fuck’s sake, will you turn that shit off?” And that was one of the songs I ended up playing live with them.
The thing was when I got asked to do it, every fiber of my being was going, “Nooooooo.” But I’ll tell you what — it was one of the best times I’ve ever had. We started in Hannover. Every gig was a stadium. Then we did all the huge European dance festivals, and we ended up in Ulaanbaatar, in Mongolia, in a football stadium.
The members of Scooter were the nicest guys? they were all rock fans. We were sitting at dinner one night, and I went, “So you’re rock fans, really.” I mean, they loved Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and stuff. And I went, “So what the fuck went wrong?” But it was great. They had rockets firing up. So I had the whole Ace Frehley trip, I had the whole thing going on. It was like firing rockets off the guitar. The stage show was amazing. It was a great time. A great time. And you know what? As the tour went along, there was more and more metalheads in the audience.
As for Venom Inc., they will release their second album, There’s Only Black, on September 23 on the Nuclear Blast label. The follow-up to 2017’s “Avé” marks their second record under the name Venom Inc.
