I was playing my acoustic guitar and the phrase ‘We’ve got Venus over our heads’ kept ringing in my head… I really wanted to avoid writing a typical acoustic tune so I started playing with a drum machine to come up with a loop that would contrast it but compliment it at the same time. I’ve always been a big Prince fan. His music was certainly an influence on this song.
When I started writing the words, it took me a bit to finally be satisfied with where it was headed. Everything I was writing just felt too aware for the song. It was a beautiful summer day so I went out side to take a nap… many times when I’m stuck on something I’ll think of the goal, lay down and somewhere between awake and sleeping rethink my ideas with less boundaries. Very often I’ll be half asleep jotting down notes here and there. That is how all the words for Venus were written… This is also where the title of our album came from.
Venus was the first song we finished recording and probably the first time the whole band got together in the studio where everyone was adding ideas and bringing it to life for the recording. It was also the first song I laid vocals on for the album and I remember feeling so relieved to have a song done and proof we were moving forward.
Root joined the band just as we were starting to record the album so this happened to be the first bass line he recorded with us. As perfectly matched as it may sound in the end I had been struggling over direction for this song’s bass line the whole time I was demoing it. By the time we were tracking I just assumed I’d have to compromise and have bass in the song even though I didn’t think it was working. He not only found the missing link but he brought the song to the next level! …in fact everyone did.
Since Venus was stylistically a step in a new direction for us, as well as the majority of it having been written in the studio, it really pushed us as a band when we were working out a live version and I think we’re better because of it.
We had two big plans for this song. We were planning to record the chorus just above the earths atmosphere by a very creative means and we were aiming to have the song ready by January 1st to share… the deadline and the rest of the record crept up fast and we had to postpone the first idea. Perhaps we’ll revisit it with another song!
– Nathan