Described as “a shredding collection featuring an army of guitars” in a Flightless newsletter, “Venusian 1” opens the second side of Infest the Rats’ Nest with a bang. In an interview with New Noise Magazine, Stu said “It’s kind of about a handful of rogue earthlings, I guess you would call them, who are trying to escape from this planet that is dying — or this planet that is being killed, I suppose — and they can’t go to Mars, because they don’t have enough money to get in, so they go rogue and build a spaceship and send it to Venus and try to colonize and they’re not very successful there either.”
“Venusian 1” is the first part of a three-song suite which builds on the album’s first side. As Earth becomes more and more uninhabitable, a group of humans realize that the only way to live on is to travel into space. They set off towards the second planet from the sun, Venus, on two spaceships of junk called the Venusian 1 and Venusian 2. There may not be a Planet B, but there is a Planet V.
Early versions of “Venusian 1” can be heard in the documentary RATTY. The band discusses if they should add a gap to the song and rehearse the track to get the structure down. The song features the main group of Stu (vocals/guitar), Joey (bass) and Cavs (drums), as well as Ambrose and Cook who provide backing vocals and guitar. “Venusian 1” was released as part of Infest the Rats’ Nest on August 16th, 2019.
The song made a live debut during a surprise show on 2019-06-26 at Howler in Naarm (Melbourne) and was played heavily throughout the year into 2020. In 2021 the song would disappear from sets only to reemerge on 2022-05-24 at the Water Street Music Hall, marking a brief return to their shows. Despite Cavs’ naming it one of his favorites to perform live, “Venusian 1” has become a rare track. While the song is part of a three-song suite on Infest the Rats’ Nest and is sometimes paired with “Perihelion” or “Venusian 2,” it typically appears as a standalone track.