Mike Vennart

Michael James Vennart (born 19 August 1976) is an English musician, best known as a guitarist and singer. He is the leader of the eponymous band Vennart, as well as being a member of British Theatre and Empire State Bastard. He is also known as the former frontman of Oceansize and as a longtime touring guitarist for Biffy Clyro. As of 2025, he is the current lead singer of Cardiacs.

Biography Early years and influences

Michael James Vennart was brought up in the village of Methley, Yorkshire, England. Early musical influences included Cardiacs, Mogwai ("minimalism, maximalism, texture, simplicity and pure soul") and Pavement ("I never quite got over listening to Pavement. I keep waiting to grow out of it, but I get so much out of their music, and the strange thing is, it's actually incredibly simple, but Steve Malkmus’s guitar sounds are just incredible.") Others included Iron Maiden, Mr Bungle and Faith No More Later influences included Silo Vennart served as the band's frontman, spokesman and as one of its three guitarists.

Oceansize would go on to tour extensively and release four studio albums plus several EPs and singles, displaying a wide array of influences from several genres including post-rock, math rock, psychedelic rock and space rock. The band split up in February 2011.

Post-Oceansize, 2011–2014 – joining Biffy Clyro, plus British Theatre

While still with Oceansize, Vennart became a touring guitarist for Biffy Clyro in 2010. He has described himself as feeling "tremendously lucky" to be in the band, adding "I love all the people involved – the band are great, genuine guys. The crew are fucking ace fun, and most importantly, I enjoy playing the music every single night." The project released two EPs in 2012, EP (2012) and Dyed in the Wool Ghost (2012), followed by a gap while both members toured with Biffy Clyro. Subsequent sessions and reworkings led to the release of a debut album, Mastery, in 2016, although no further work has followed.

The launching of Vennart: The Demon Joke and Target: '15 (Live At Bush Hall) (2015–2017)

Mike Vennart's solo career proper began in 2014 with the Bandcamp download-only single “Operate” on which he was joined by another former Oceansizer, Steve Durose. Vennart and DuRose would continue their re-engagement while Vennart toured with Biffy Clyro, with Vennart sending his initial ideas to Durose in order for piano and backing vocal ideas to be added. In 2015 the results were released under the project name "Vennart" via the album The Demon Joke, with a band consisting of Mike Vennart, Steve Durose and Gambler plus drummer Dean "Denzel" Pearson (Young Legionnaire, Mutation, Ginger Wildheart band).

In an interview with Total Guitar, Vennart confessed "I’d wanted to do something for years, even before the old band broke up – I’d had a hankering to do something a little more egocentric, I suppose, because Oceansize was very much a collaborative, painfully fucking democratic collective. It was a lot of fun in that respect: a very, very creative environment, but there were some things that were absolutely out of the question and certain guitar sounds that I liked – really horrible, fuzzy, broken-up Velcro shitty-sounding things. The Demon Joke’s an optimistic-sounding record in places, and I wouldn’t have gotten away with that in miserable old Oceansize. I got a lot more confident, as well; it wasn’t really prudent to be as virtuosic in Oceansize. I’m from a real trained metal, prog-rock background, and I wanted to fling a bit of that in, so there’s quite a lot of shredding in it, but it’s in a very, very ridiculous, shitty-sounding way."

For Drowned in Sound, Benjamin Bland noted "unlike a lot of Oceansize’s material, which despite the zany song titles was often all too easy to take ultra seriously, many of the songs on The Demon Joke are overflowing with a carefree joie de vivre that belies the obvious effort that went into the construction of each track. If it’s the accessibility of the songs gathered here that stands out on first listen then it’s likely to be the sheer invention on display... The Demon Joke is an utter joy of a record on several levels. Oceansize were a truly brilliant band, one whose genius will be better recognised in years to come than it ever was when they were still together. If this album is anything to go by, however, then Mike Vennart’s future solo endeavours are likely to prove just as worthy of such acclaim."

Despite singling out the effect of Oceansize's legacy on the album's music in his review for Spectral Nights, Ryan Barham also found reminders of Swans, Patrick Wolf, Clock Opera, King Crimson and Dutch Uncles, concluding that "with The Demon Joke, Vennart has created an album that not only recaptures the magic of Oceansize but also looks forward to something new and no less thrilling… All-encompassing and compelling throughout, it’s an album anyone with a passing interest in prog, math and rock will love. It’s been well worth waiting for…"

To Cure a Blizzard Upon a Plastic Sea and Copeland (2018)

On 20 May 2018, the Vennart single "Donkey Kong" was released, trailing the release of a second Vennart album, To Cure a Blizzard Upon a Plastic Sea. The album was released on 14 September 2018, with a completely separate EP of other all-new material, Copeland, appearing the same day.

In Already Heard, Sam Seaton gave the album full marks, calling it "one of the most triumphant and impressive prog-rock albums of 2018" and Vennart "a talented and original songwriter undeserving of the past that some clutch on to so dearly... This is his best solo album yet, and possibly the best project he’s ever been a part of." Seaton suggested that Vennart's past career had provided the album with "the perfect storm of inspiration. From the first patient bass riffs of "Binary", you can feel the metered passion behind this album. It's richly layered, brooding with atmospheric drum beats and cosmic vocals. The attention to detail production-wise is beautiful, every moment of music on this album feels consistently carefully planned and it's satisfying... Even when things stray to new ideas they're pulled off brilliantly."

Baker added "taking a more expansive and progressive route then its predecessor The Demon Joke, songs are now flowing liquids ready to fill any space that it may find itself in...The whole works soars on a bedrock of twinkling synths and a buoyant guitar tone, trading in heavy riffs for more ephemeral hooks... The songs are long meandering beasts that are hard to pin down but, whether by nature or nurture, they are filled with reconfigured pop sensibilities that take you by the hand and guide you... To keep this light touch afloat means to sacrifice heaviness, and this means riffs are thrown overboard. Fortunately the album has a strong enough personality to succeed without them, but those with a soft spot for Vennart's heavier side may find themselves distinctly in the lurch."

"A while back, I found myself incurring the wrath of the far right, after I’d clumsily whacked their squalid little hive. Having encountered their diminutive Queen Bee and, being of not-entirely-sound mind, I called him a Nazi to his face, and he proceeded to give me more press than I’d ever had in my life. Unfortunately what came with that was thousands of threats of physical and sexual violence – via social media – to my wife and my mother, and death threats to myself. They threatened to burn down my house. They continued in earnest on Christmas Day and through into the New Year. They sent me pictures of my son and told me they were coming. All because I called a man – a man they’d never met – a Nazi. The experience of being hunted by white supremacists was, for me, exciting and hilarious. They bark hard, but they don't bite. Well, I guess I’m not such a useful idiot. I’m not actually worth murdering. So it was great fun for me. Less so for my then-six-year-old son, who wept with terror as the police fire-proofed our house the day before Christmas Eve. All of this is, obviously, symptomatic of a darker force at work." — Mike Vennart on his harassment by fascists in 2019

The third Vennart album, In the Dead, Dead Wood, was released without any previous announcements or publicity on 6 November 2020. In the publicity material, Mike Vennart commented "this album was written quickly during lockdown, and features an altered line up from our usual outings. Joe Lazarus is on drums, Charlie Barnes contributed the exquisite piano parts, and Ben Griffiths of Alpha Male Tea Party added some massive bass to three tracks. Elsewhere my omnipresent partners Gambler and Steve Durose played keys and mixed the record respectively."

A video for album track "Super Sleuth" arrived on the same day.

Writing in The Progressive Review, Jez Rowden joyfully greeted In the Dead, Dead Wood with "what a fucking album this is... this is skilfully crafted stuff, full of excellent diversions that both cast your mind back to Vennart’s former band and also project it forward to a tinsel and glitter future of wonderfulness... The cohesion and sheer heft undoubtedly produce Vennart’s finest solo work to date, deftly covering a lot of ground to provide an experience both visceral and intoxicatingly beautiful... Alternative sounds, metal scope, mathy intensity and psychedelic bursts of colour are moulded into something mature and masterful, dripping with melody and gut-punch heaviosity. My boat is completely floated, it's a long time overdue for this man's talents to be more widely recognised."

In its full review of In the Dead, Dead Wood – while delivering a 4.0 ("excellent") rating – Sputnikmusic labelled the album "a thunderous surprise hit" with "startling knockout value... eight swanky new songs, a slick production job, and the most energised performance the man has dished out in years... What strikes me most about In The Dead, Dead Wood is the way it explores Vennart’s strong suits one at a time... we hear him as a graduate of Iommi College of Ominous Riffage (“Mourning on the Range"); as a sensitive purveyor of Mogwai-esque rainy day post-rock ("Forc in the Road"); as a roof-raising Biffy Clyro affiliate ("Elemental"); and – of course – as a left-of-field Cardiacs fanatic ("Super Sleuth"). It's easy to reduce In the Dead, Dead Wood to a comprehensive charting of the many things Mike Vennart does well, but I can't overstate how much of a treat it is to hear him sounding so revitalised... Somewhere in Manchester, Vennart is probably enjoying a well-earned wry grin right now; he knows he's still got it.”

In October 2022 Vennart temporarily reverted to releasing material as "Mike Vennart" for the first time in eight years when he released Backseat Hards, an album of guitar and laptop instrumentals which he had recorded on his own in tour buses while on tour with Biffy Clyro.

Stanciu also drew comparisons to Boris and Deerhunter, and commented on "(the) slightly uncanny, volatile feeling all the tracks transmit."

Cardiacs (2024–present)

As a longstanding fan and friend of Cardiacs, Vennart was recruited to sing lead vocals on the band's LSD album during sessions in 2024 and 2025, following the 2020 death of former group leader/frontman Tim Smith. Shortly before the release of LSD in September 2025, Vennart was confirmed as being the band's new lead singer for current and possible future projects.

Equipment

Although he has used other guitars (including the Fender Jazzmaster and the Gibson SG), Mike Vennart favours the Squier Stratocaster "pretty much all the way... I’ve had (it) since I was eleven, and the only original thing is the wood. Everything else has been changed: the frets, the tuners, the pickups – fucking everything. And I keep retiring it, because something devastatingly scary will happen, where that guitar is going to perish. It’s happened a few times: we played in India, or rather, we didn’t play in India because Metallica cancelled the fucking show at the last minute – just as we were about to go on stage, the show got cancelled, literally – and fucking 50,000 people that were there just went absolutely apeshit and burned the place to the fucking ground. And I was being driven out, just petrified that my guitar was gonna get burned. “Biffy were like, ‘Well, you know, we’ve got insurance. We’ll buy more gear.’ I was like, ‘That guitar – I don’t have any other bit of gear where I’m like, ‘Without that, I’m nothing.’’...” He also has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Discography

Vennart

"Operate" single (self-released, 2014) (as Mike Vennart) The Demon Joke (Medium Format, 2015) Target: '15 (Live At Bush Hall) (Medium Format, 2017/2018, DVD, CD, download) “Donkey Kong” single (self-released, 2018) To Cure a Blizzard Upon a Plastic Sea (Medium Format, 2018) Copeland EP (self-released, 2018) "Dick Privilege" single (self-released, 2020) In the Dead, Dead Wood (self-released, 2020) CGI Metals OST (self-released, 2022) Backseat Hards EP (self-released, 2022) (as Mike Vennart) Forgiveness & The Grain (self-released, 2024) "The Familiar" single (self-released, 2025) 4 Post-Rock Wank-Offs For Cash EP (self-released, 2025) (as Mike Vennart)

Oceansize

British Theatre

EP EP (self-released, 2012) Dyed in the Wool Ghost EP (Medium Format, 2012) "Cross the Swords" single (self-released, 2015) Mastery (self-released, 2016)

Empire State Bastard

"Harvest" single (Roadrunner Records, 2023) Rivers of Heresy (Roadrunner Records, 2023) Silver Cord Sessions EP (Roadrunner Records, 2024)

Cardiacs

LSD (Alphabet Business Concern, 2025)

Other

Rob Crow + Kavus Torabi + Mike Vennart – "Losfer Words (Big 'Orra)/Mission From 'Arry" (Joyful Noise Recordings, 2020 – part of the 3 EPs to Benefit Black Lives Matter package)

Guest appearances Amplifier - Amplifier (Music for Nations, 2004) (backing vocals on "Panzer" and "UFOs") Rose Kemp - Unholy Majesty (Aurora Borealis, 2008) (vocoder vocals on "The Unholy") Amplifier - The Octopus (self-released, 2011) (backing vocals) Biffy Clyro - Revolutions: Live at Wembley (14th Floor, 2011) (guitar) Biffy Clyro - Opposites (14th Floor, 2013) (additional guitar, additional vocals) Biffy Clyro - Opposites: Live from Glasgow (14th Floor, 2013) (additional musician) Biffy Clyro - MTV Unplugged: Live at Roundhouse, London (14th Floor, 2018) (additional guitar) KK's Priest - Sermons of the Sinner (EX1, 2021) (backing vocals) Biffy Clyro - A Celebration of Endings: Live from the Barrowlands Ballroom (14th Floor, 2022) (guitar, backing vocals) Sugar Horse - Waterloo Teeth (Small Pond, 2022) (guitar on "Super Army Soldiers") Kugelschreiber - Cheerleaders (self-released, 2024) ('aerobatics' and slide guitar on "No Glittering Promises", 'additional stereo hots') Biffy Clyro - Futique (Warner, 2025) (additional guitar on "Goodbye" and "Dearest Amygdala") Spratleys - Bloom (ATE MUSIC, 2026) (chorus on "Jade" and "Gold Place")