Mike Vennart is delighted that having the freedom to do what he wanted on solo album The Demon Joke resulted in the “stupidest” music of his career.
The former Oceansize man released the record in June via Superball Music and issued videos for the tracks Operate, Retaliate and a lyric promo for Don’t Forget The Joker.
Vennart tells Music Radar: “I’d had a hankering to do something a little more egocentric because Oceansize was very much a collaborative, painfully fucking democratic collective.
“It was a lot of fun in that respect: a very creative environment, but there were some things that were absolutely out of the question.”
He continues: “I’m from a trained metal, prog rock background and I wanted to fling a bit of that in, so there’s quite a lot of shredding in it – but it’s in a very ridiculous, shitty-sounding way.
“The solo in Retaliate is just the fucking stupidest thing I’ve ever done. It took me about 10 minutes, and I was really happy with it.”
Vennart will head out on a UK headline tour later this month including two with his British Theatre project. Support will come from Knifeworld and Cleft.