This episode, we welcome back Venom to talk about the completion of his glorious sci-fi rock opera, Invaders of Uranus.

What began as an idea during the pandemic grew into a sprawling 30-plus-minute musical journey inspired by Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Metallica, early Genesis and the long-form records Venom grew up loving. The concept flips the traditional alien-invasion story on its head: this time, humans are the invaders.

Venom takes us inside the years-long recording process, assembling a huge cast of musicians, recording largely at Hot House Studios, working with Craig Harnath, and somehow bringing the Theremin, acoustic passages, massive guitar solos, multiple vocalists and constantly shifting musical ideas together as one piece.

We also dig into the darker ideas underneath the sci-fi madness: greed, pollution, consumerism and humanity's habit of treating the planet, and eventually other planets, as commodities to exploit. There’s plenty of humour in Invaders of Uranus, but there’s a fairly serious message buried underneath it.

Venom also talks about the challenge of directing guitarists when you’re a drummer, the endless rabbit hole of mixing, why the finished record sounds very different from the version originally living in his head, and whether this monster could ever actually be performed live.

Plus: growing up on ’80s metal, seeing Queensrÿche with Metallica, being at Iron Maiden’s legendary 'Live After Death' Long Beach Arena shows , why 30-minute songs deserve to exist, the strange origin of the name 'Lord Venomous Lush', terrible band names and why sometimes you just have to make the Album you want to hear.

Garth Horsfield joins the boys in the studio to talk about Immaculata, Ballarat’s 90s music scene and the early days of independent Avant Garde , Goth and electronic music.

From Ballarat, to Edinburgh and the set of 'Queen of the Damned'

We also get into songwriting, recording, streaming, AI and what keeps someone creating music and art decades after they started.

He's back!....... for another brutally candid conversation about music, bands, getting older and the strange places a life in music can take you.

James opens up about the fallout surrounding WxrldFxcker, why members walked away, and the personal toll of being kicked out of Damaged years earlier. He talks about the possibility of a Damaged reunion, selling around 100,000 records in the US while seeing none of the money, and why some wounds between old bandmates never quite disappear.

We also get into the reality of trying to keep making music while raising a family and working, including James playing shows while seriously ill and facing possible surgery.

Then things head somewhere completely different.

AI, the future of creative work, whether metal has actually progressed since the 1990s, old-school cassette culture, ridiculously valuable vintage band shirts and the gloriously stupid imaginary world of Homocore.

Funny, uncomfortable, nostalgic and occasionally pretty raw.

James Ludbrook is back, and very little is off limits.