Behind The Tracks: Brother Venus - Singles (2026)

1. Hit The Ground:

Kurt: This song musically came together pretty quickly. We wanted to do something rhythmically interesting, but groovy, which is how that opening lick came about. The idea for the chorus was to do something very anthemic with the guitar line, but still leave enough space for the vocals. Once we got to the bridge, we knew we wanted to have a classic “big riff” moment. The triplet figure going into the last chorus was entirely Clayton’s idea! I think it turned out really killer, and provides the perfect ramp up into that last chorus. As far as the ending, I thought it would be cool to leave it unresolved, which is why I went to that last chord based around the B2 of the key. We chose it to be the first single because we felt like it picked up where the first album left off, sonically.

2. Faith:

Kurt: ‘Faith’ was a bit of a new sound for us. We’d done some uptempo stuff before, like ‘SubT’ and ‘No Time’, but this was the first time we flirted with pop-punk. The goal was to try to capture some of that sound from the early 2000’s, but put our own spin on it. We also wanted each part to feel like it was building on and contrasting with the part preceding it. For the bridge, we took things in a “new-wave” direction. This section is one of the parts in the live show where we have an extended jam that isn’t featured on the record.

3. Stories:

Kurt: ‘Stories’ is a special song for us because it marks the first time that we actually had four guys in the band creating the arrangement together. Nick had joined the band after we had recorded ‘Hit the Ground’ and ‘Faith’, which were Clayton’s first recorded appearances with us. Though the basic guitar arrangement had been around for a while, it was so cool to be able to create the full arrangement with all four of us in the room, like a real band. The opening of the track was another step in a new direction for us. We wanted to go after a little bit of a progressive sound with the guitar playing a repeating pattern while the rhythm section decorated things around the bar lines. None of the other three singles released so far have a guitar solo in them, but we managed to put two in here!

4. Just a Friend:

Kurt: This song had been kicking around for a long time. The first iteration was tuned to Drop Db and had a completely different bridge section. I decided to change the tuning to Drop B when we started reworking it. I was always a little lukewarm on the original bridge section. It was kind of a placeholder and felt too boring. I had probably two or three different reworked versions of it before I landed on the final part. We were also lucky enough to get Stephen Versaevel (who played auxiliary percussion on several tracks on Woodgrain Ocean) to come in and play on this track. It always adds so much to the atmosphere of the song. Arrangement-wise, this one took a little longer to nail down. Sometimes, the shorter, more direct songs can be a little more difficult to assemble. Once we figured out what we wanted to do with the opening section, the rest came together pretty quickly, though.

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