TRACK BY TRACK: Velociraptor’s ‘Computer Future’ Album Is Goofy Garage Pop Incarnate

Beloved Brisbane garage pop-rock outfit Velociraptor are back, this time with their first full-length album in over a decade: Computer Future. The self-proclaimed “goofballers”, made up of George Browning, Julien James, Jeremy Neale, Lauren Jenkins, Corey Herekiuha, Joshua Byrd, Jesse Hawkins, Jake Grossman, Ruby McGregor, and Simon Ridley, dropped their 14-track opus today.

To celebrate, Julien and Jeremy are taking The Music through the release, track by track.

‘COMPUTER FUTURE’ TRACK BY TRACK

Leaving Hollywood

Jeremy: A direct thread to our debut album - I’d had this chorus since the late stages of recording the self-titled record and you could tell where I was at with music: completely done. But check this out, I’m back! A cool time track about how isolating it can be to pursue music. In this context Hollywood is symbolism for the biz. Gotta tell ya though, having found my peace with music, I love this tribute existing to show that things can really turn around. From the depths of the pit to the soaring highs of Pitbull’s Greatest Hits Volume 1: The Story So Far. 

Julien: This is one of my favourite songs on the record. George’s drums and cowbell hit hard, and the intricate guitar chops are very satisfying to play. You can even hear a spicy acoustic guitar chopping away. This was one of the first tracks we recorded for the album and it was initially arranged differently, but Jezza’s musical mind swapped things up, and it is what it is today. What it is today is also due to the fact that the on beat/off beat guitar solo, which was initially a mistake, was deemed “perfect” by engineer/producer Aidan Hogg.

Computer Future Part 1 

Jeremy: A simple recipe. George’s favourite band is Devo. So I thought that writing him a Devo inspired track to sing would, theoretically, make him very happy. We love George. Also, George works in IT so we’re working on multiple levels here. 4D chess. 

Julien: Part one of the Computer Future concept tracks that became the album title. This track is bananas and so much fun to play live. It’s got a real Devo meets Ramones flavour and nerd vs cool kid vibe. Corey did most of the lead guitar work on this one, which is complemented by Aidan’s magical ability to take drum track trimmings from the cutting room floor and turn them into dynamic intros and textured noise tracks.

Falling

Julien: One of the last songs we recorded for the album. I wrote this one about heartache and having the strength to talk about it. It’s got a 90’s vibe, and I somehow managed to stretch out one chord progression and one line of dialogue for 3 minutes by creating each part, slightly tweaking each part, and eventually combining them all together. I played the song to George once and he nailed the drum track on the first or second take. The middle stop was interesting, because it was originally going to just be the same chord progression, but I realised it needed something different. The three notes played in this part are completely different from the chord progression, but complement it so well. The bass tone on this was so good we ended up adding it to half of the tracks that we’d already recorded.

Jeremy: Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do.

Julien: It’s “doot”!

Drag Me Under 

Julien: Another of my top tracks of the album. Jeremy has a fantastic way of putting feelings into words, and no one can swear as eloquently. Pretty sure this is the only track on the record that still has the scratch guitar layered in, as it perfectly complements the other guitar tracks. I came up with the guitar lead line and the harmonies without Jeremy present and remember feeling very anxious about what he would think. They’re still there, so I think he loved it! The whole song is maintained so well by the driving bass line and that soft in and out of focus synth.

Jeremy: Julien, you are correct. I loved it! Sure, lyrically, the track sounds quite defeatist, but it’s just important to acknowledge sorrow sometimes. And even though in the song I mention keeping my feelings to myself and burying them, they’re out in the world with the release of this track so like, the song has undone itself. Eh. Time to share whatever is going on for you too. Feels good.

Computer Future Part 2 

Julien: Another absolutely bananas track focusing on the “computer future” where living has been deemed a crime by the robot overlords. George was meant to sing it, but I pigeonhole my songs into almost unreachable pitches, which makes screaming “RAM!” at the top of your lungs a hugely satisfying feeling. The middle breakdown noises are all made by guitar and originally contained a Vincent Price-esque spoken word about the computers taking control. It was a bit too on the nose so we ended up scrapping it. I disliked how the outro turned out initially, but Corey’s lead line really brings it on home.

Jeremy: The rise of AI in the media has really made the whole thing seem a bit on the nose - but rest assured, we were trying to talk about computers in the same way people were talking about them in the 80’s and 90’s. With a focus on gigabytes, RAM and hardware in general. The future we’re talking about is actually the past. Foreshadowing of the Timebong.

Like A Lake (Tick the Tock) 

Jesse: Tick the Tock is about being the recipient of evil gaslighting from someone you love completely with all your heart, but ultimately you feel like nothing; you are just a piece of shit that can go away and die. Even if you have all the love in the world, it doesn’t seem to matter one bit. They feed you gold nuggets of hope, but you will never realise this trick until you have been through it. At some point you must let go and move on, but deep down in your soul you won’t, and are ultimately doomed. All because some scumbag people can’t be honest to your face. They destroy your human spirit and leave you in the darkness for years and years, and years and years.

Julien: Jesse presented this song to me as a demo of him rapping over a drumbeat. I love that the intro chucks in a quick 6/4 beat before the track gets going. I spent a few hours coming up with a guitar line that complemented Jesse’s vocal delivery and the register he was singing in. The coolest parts of this track are the wild chorus bass line and the fantastic Beastie Boys hype man dual vocals that Jesse and I did. “Dead, dead, dead, that’s what I said!” is the best line.

Timebong 

Julien: The original concept track that could have been the title of the record. I wrote this one long before we started recording and was penned for a band that broke up before we could record it. It’s a very stupid idea about a bong that transports you through time. The hero visits the villain at the start of the song and by the end has stolen the Timebong (trademark pending) and has used it to transport himself to a time before the villain obtained the bong. Aidan did such an incredible job of using all the feedback I added over the track to add texture, and suggested the acoustic guitar which adds a really nice flare to the verses. I don’t like preparing guitar solos for songs, so I whipped this one up on the fly, and think it’s probably the most unique on the record. The hidden gold of this track is the dirty metal growls at the end.

Jeremy: Honestly, just happy to now fully understand the story of the Timebong. When I first heard Julien play this song it blew my mind. Not just through the merging of multiple timelines and the subsequent overloading of my frontal cortex but also because it was all I wanted to listen to. I knew from that moment on it was destined to be a single. And it was. But as is the nature of the Timebong, maybe it will be a single again.

Rita 

Jeremy: I thought this was gonna be the comeback single, but that was many moons ago and other songs surfaced since. The intensity is there. And that dynamic - where the more you try, the worse things get, and the further you end up from where you truly wanna be. But you can’t see it when you’re in the stress zone and all tasks seem to have equal weighting. Overthinking. Overcommitting. And you can’t connect with and identify the things that really matter.

Julien: This is the song that started the whole thing. Jeremy sent me a voice memo demo and I was immediately excited. It’s like Leeches part 2. The bass line in the chorus was so much fun to play, and the final verse bass was so all over the place I kept hitting dud notes. Aidan suggested I cheat, and we added some foam in between the strings we weren’t using so that we didn’t blow the recording budget on me doing 300 takes of the same track. The lead line I came up with for the chorus really highlighted Jeremy’s vocals, and I believe it was George’s idea to end the song with a bass chord.

I Can Feel It 

Julien: This song has been in our set for years. It was originally called RapJam, but I ended up changing the title to match the verse lyrics. I still have to call it RapJam on our setlists otherwise everyone gets confused. I wanted to come up with a Hives-like track to open our sets with a crazy guitar line, and this is what came from it. Easily the highest pitch of any of our tracks and the hardest for me to sing live. The chorus is, “We’re all coming to beat you” but for a long time Jesse thought it was, “We’re all coming to meet you” and thought it was a friendly song. Little did he know it’s the backing track to a West Side Story style street gang fight. This song was the ugly duckling through the recording process because it was recorded early in the piece, but we didn’t add too much to it. I kept adding a bit here and there, and eventually when we re-recorded the bass with the Falling tone the whole thing came together.

Jeremy: I still say, ‘We’re all coming to beach you” in reference to the Barbie movie.

No Matter What You Do 

Jeremy: There’s a lot of people taking more than they need. More homes than they can live in. And it's ruining lives. The game is rigged and the people at the top are quite self-congratulatory about how they got where they are - quite often through “hard work”. But you know the score - some of the hardest workers in this world will never be fairly remunerated for what they have to do to put food on the table.

Julien: Such a beautifully sad song. The first time I heard it there were no lyrics, so I was really put off about adding too much to it. I tracked some rhythm and figured that’s all I would do. Eventually Jeremy added his vocals, and one late night when Aidan and I were recording bass he suggested we pull this one up. I ended up recording the dreamy ‘ahhh’ vocals in the chorus and outro and added about three different lead guitar lines before landing on what you hear on the album. This song benefits from its subtleties and simplicity because the vocals are what drive the track.

Middle of the Room

Julien: Truly the most ridiculous track on the album. This is the second half of Timebong and from the perspective of the villain, standing in the middle of the room watching his victims, but remaining quiet. Originally the guitar line was played straight, but it was Aidan’s idea to swap between guitars and balance for each note and it was fantastic. George planned to add backing vocals to this track, but hadn’t heard the song since laying down his drum part. So I watched him stand silent in the vocal booth for one minute and 40 seconds in silence, and finally, when the track was done, he said, “That’s awesome” and decided no backups were required. I’m not sure what Aidan did in the bridge, but it sounds like ghosts screaming.  It’s probably a drum trimming.

Jeremy: Once again, very thankful for the Timebong lore.

Not Your Baby

Josh: We've been playing this one at our live shows for quite a while now. Not Your Baby is about that feeling you get when you're moving away from something that was familiar and safe for a long time and you're learning to be okay with that. It's about transition and change, yet still holding on to a memory of the past that's always been there. A lot of our songs talk about "my baby", "my girl", "be my baby" etc. And this one is about what comes after that, growing up, y'know?

Julien: Two words. Boat tone! It’s a tone that Aidan and I came up with for the pre and pre-pre choruses. It has a buoyancy to it that really hits hard. Probably the only song where you can hear the acoustic guitar as it’s intended to sound.

Jeremy: Far out. Still my favourite song to play live. Thanks Josh!

Home Planet 

Julien: Another track recorded in the first few sessions. This one is about aliens coming down to earth and wearing human faces to fit in. A battle involving the entire planet against the aliens follows, but my home planet rules, and the human race is able to defeat the alien invaders. I’m good at writing silly tracks and this one likely takes the cake. This track came out flat from the mixing, but Owen Penglis mastered the shit out of it and now it sounds so beefy and loud.

Jeremy: Just wanna take a moment to thank you Julien, for all the world building you have put into this album. Sonically, very tidy. Expanded universe novelisation potential, infinite.

Julien: I’m trying to strike up a Marvel/DC extended universe budget deal with Disney to get this record turned into 50 stand alone movies. Watch this space.

We Form 

Jesse: We Form was born out of Julien playing me the song and saying, “Power Rangers?”. Oh yes! I remember! It is about a young Jesse being young and innocent with not a care in the world playing Power Rangers in the neighbourhood with his best friend across the street, Scott, dreaming of powers so we can feel something.

Julien: I was trying to create a slow building anthemic epic, and I think I came kind of close. I also wanted a huge gang chorus like our track, Scientists. After recording the vocals, I realised that the verses I’d written were boring and asked Jesse to take the helm. What he came up with is truly incredible. “We form like a god” is a reference to Power Rangers when their Megazords combine into the ultimate fighting form. Aidan created the squelch keyboard tone that you hear in the final chorus, and while we laughed so much at the time, it fits so well. I love how hard the final chorus hits when the squelch tone comes in with that horn keyboard. It was George’s idea to add the final harmony over the top of the final chorus and it’s so powerful. While all that power is building, the drums, bass and acoustic guitar all start spiralling into madness. I highly recommend using AI to isolate the drums and bass because it becomes absolutely unhinged and frantic, and it’s highly enjoyable to listen to. 

‘Computer Future’ is out now on all streaming services. To celebrate, Velociraptor are playing a free show at Felons Barrel Hall, Brisbane, tonight (November 1).