‘There's A Lot Of Full-Circle Moments’: Meet Previous Future, The Restarted Party Machine

When Craig Selak got off stage at The Hills Are Alive festival back in 2018, he was meant to feel a sense of validation and closure. 

He'd just played his final show with The Bennies, a band he had co-founded almost a decade prior that had taken him around the country and the world with an adventurous blend of punk, ska and psychedelic rock. 

Surely this last hurrah, then, would be the victory lap he deserved. All he could feel in that moment, however, was utter exhaustion. 

“I was really, really tired,” the vocalist and bassist says – speaking to The Music from his hometown of Melbourne. “I couldn't fully appreciate what was occurring. 

“I'd finally come off this hamster wheel, and I was just so worn down. We went super hard as a band. There was one year where we were out on the road for 10 of the 12 months – and those two months we were off weren't together. That's from a day here, two days there, stuff like that.

“It really wears you down over time, and I think it got to a point where it started interfering with our lives.”

The same year Selak left The Bennies, he co-founded alt-rock band LOSER alongside former members of Apart From This and The Go Set. Although the band found some success across their six years together, and Selak remains proud of the work he did within it, he also notes it was never a band that could quite get on the good foot. 

“It was difficult,” he says. “We put in the miles, for sure, but there was a lot of interruption – if it wasn't COVID, then it was band members leaving at crucial points. We'd get on a roll and then bang, something would happen and we'd have to rebuild. The music kept the whole thing alive for as long as it did.”

At a loose end towards the end of 2024, Selak turned to David Beaumont, a fellow Bennies co-founder who had exited the fold in 2021 alongside longtime guitarist Julien Rozenbergs. The drummer, affectionately nicknamed 'Bowie', had been out of the game since then raising a family, while Rozenbergs had turned his attention to a new band dubbed Lonely Gods. 

A few texts and a few beers later, the three of them were back in the same room for the first time in six years – instruments in tow. 

“It was supposed to just be a jam session,” Selak recalls. “We just thought it'd be fun to drink some beer and play some music. We ended up having such a good time that we booked in a second one, and at that one we ended up writing a couple of songs. 

“That's when we realised this could maybe be something.”

Roughly a year later, the trio announced themselves to the world as Previous Future – a none-too-subtle nod to the fact that this is a brand new band, but simultaneously an instantly familiar one. The band name had been in circulation amongst the three for quite some time, originally surfacing as the working title of a song written for 2015's Wisdom Machine that was ultimately scrapped. 

“It's kind of mystical, but it's also kind of silly,” says Selak. “We envisioned it as this sort of concept that was beyond reach, and we took that energy into the songs. It's all a bit more creative – we're taking cues from bands we love like Rush and Dream Theater, and it's been really fun to tap into that together.”

Today sees the band officially launching with the release of their debut singles, Sweet Mist and The Boy Who Cried Time. The former, a rollicking skate-punk number, was the very first completed work that came out of the trio's fateful second jam session, and – per Selak – “fell out” of the band with little to no editing. 

“It was the first real sign to us that we should keep going,” he says. “We literally just plugged in and played, and this is just what started happening.” 

The latter, meanwhile, feels like a proper Bennies throwback, from its wah-pedal workouts to its zig-zagging groove – not to mention songwriting that reflected all three members.

“Back in the Bennies days, it was very all-in,” says Selak. “We were all writing lyrics together, and it was very unthought. That's something we all enjoy – that Tom Petty method of just putting out the rod and waiting for songs to come to you. 

“We're all in it together, and I'm just so happy. We are fans of The Bennies; we're proud of what we did, and we're stoked for them and what they they continue to do. We don't want to shy away from whatever element or DNA we make up of that. 

“We were there, and if that naturally comes out when we're back together? Awesome.”

Later this month, the trio will finally make it out of the rehearsal space and play their first-ever show as Previous Future. 

On Friday, November 28th they'll head to Shotkickers in Thornbury for a show with old friends Divers and another new band, Future Primitives – featuring members of Area 7, the veteran Australian ska band for which Selak has served as a touring guitarist. His excitement is palpable. 

“There's a lot of full-circle moments,” Selak says. “This whole thing has felt like putting on an old pair of shoes and realising they still fit. It's been really serendipitous. It feels like the beginning, even though it's obviously not.

“I can't bloody wait to play this show, especially doing it with such good friends.” 

Beyond that? “I don't want to look it in the eye,” says Selak. “I don't even want to know how the three of us got here again. 

“All we want to do now is enjoy that it's happening, and just let it happen.”

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