Leeds psych four-piece The Venus Children write songs with a Rubik’s cube, an hour of transcendental meditation a week, and regular consultations with something they call the Chicken of Chance.
The first taste of that method lands May 8th with debut single “Rollercoaster,” ahead of debut album “The Ingredient,” tentatively slated for summer 2026. The band’s preferred shorthand for the result: “music to wet your pants to.”
The band formed in the winter of 2024 when drummer Cal โ by his own description a scrawny, vintage-shirt-clad drummer whose brain “bleeps and bloops in 3s, 5s and 7s” โ crossed paths with bassist Rob at Oporto in Leeds.
They started laying down the band’s core early: bass-heavy grooves, phased walls of guitar, hypnotic hooks, and a refusal to settle into 4/4.
They rehearsed wherever they could โ practice rooms, gyms, parks, music shops, public toilets. Liam came in on guitar, having played with Rob before and, per the band, already equipped to handle “his mad genius.” Alex rounded out the lineup on guitar and vocals, joining at a point where he’d been considering selling off his gear to prepare for the birth of his son.
They eventually settled into Old Chapel in Holbeck, sharing a wall with Leeds band Hooligan through the rehearsal rooms.
Writing sessions now include a standing hour of transcendental meditation, “plucking ideas out of the goop of the universe,” in the band’s own phrasing. Riffs come from a system they describe as mapping the notes of the guitar to a Rubik’s cube, then decoding and reorganizing until something useable drops out.
The Chicken of Chance, whatever exactly it is, apparently demands grooves and โ when asked for clarification โ “warned against defiance in an almighty shriek.”
“Rollercoaster” itself has its origin in a petrol station, involving what the band calls “the three primal elements of oil, fire, and an unhealthy dose of poor judgement.”
Rather than let the incident itself define the song, they pulled an “epic meditation loot drop” of scissors and surgical tape out of the sessions and built the track from there.
The ritualistic chorus โ “set me alight and cover me in oil” โ carries the imagery forward. Cal’s drums and Rob’s bass lock into a groove that keeps reshaping itself under the listener, meters shifting while the pocket holds. The band describes the song as “a Venusian masterclass in edging,” which tracks with how it actually moves.
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Recording happened over four weekends with James Atkinson at The Stationhouse in Leeds โ a producer who mostly works the harder-faster side of the underground. His credits include Fucked Up, Hi Vis, Higher Power, and Chubby & The Gang.
The band points to his ability to sit back at the right moments and step in only when a song needed a different direction: “James had a knack for setting the band up to be at their best and giving them the space and freedom to cook.” Mixing and mastering are in progress now.
Ask each member what they brought to the album and the answers don’t quite line up. Alex cites Wu Lyf’s “Go Tell Fire To The Mountain”:
“I’m not a particularly talented guitar player. I have no chops but I do have a good sense of FEEL and try to play emotively. Shredding is cool but it never moves me YA KNOW?” Liam lists his holy trinity as “Turnover, Title Fight & Taylor Swift.”
Cal offers a long, tongue-in-cheek story about learning rhythm from a dripping pipe in a childhood cellar โ before landing on “I really like Oceansize. Fuck Yeah.” Rob, who goes by The Creatureโข๏ธ, claims he doesn’t listen to any music at all: “All of this is quite a lot for me. I feel like a supplicant, bound against my will, enthralled to the vibrations of the universe. Venus spoke and I became its vessel.”
He signs off by noting he’s “partial to a bathe in the mudstation.”
On the live side, The Venus Children have been working their way through Leeds venues โ Oporto, Royal Park Cellars, and a headline at The Library.
Nick Simcock at Oporto gave them their first gig; Richard at The 360 Club has been booking them since and, per the band, helped “forge their live sound into a barrage of barely contained mayhem.”
Audience reviews the band collected themselves include “yeah they’re well loud,” “The Venus who?” and “I liked it when he got the weird book out.”
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They return to Lending Room on May 22nd under The 360 Club banner for a single release show. Second single “Amygdala” follows in June, with “The Ingredient” tentatively set for August.
“Rollercoaster” arrives May 8th.
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