Episode 11: “the twelfth trip around the sun” with autumn
This week, Aoife interviews autumn about “the twelfth trip around the sun” from we are the garages (vol 2). ” I guess I’m also just excited about the great unknown. So much is possible, and we have no idea,” autumn said, looking forward to season 12 of blaseball. “That’s kind of why I wrote the song because I was looking forward to that unknown, and it’s been a while since I’ve had it.”
autumn (she/it) is a 21 year old trans lesbian from Australia who loves making music (synthy stuff and vocals in particular) listening to music and music in general. She doesn’t do much with her life, but it gets a lot of enjoyment out of many special interests (with blaseball being one of the main ones). If you look closely, you may spot a wild autumn striving reach maximum levels of femme queerness, and it strives to one day use an otamatone on a garages song. Find autumn at autumnspring.bandcamp.com and on Twitter @autumnposting.
This episode of idol board was edited by zack.ry, hosted by Aoife, produced by Tangereen Velveteen, transcribed by VigilantBaker, and written by Aoife and Tangereen Velveteen. Find all episodes and transcripts of idol board at fourth-strike.com/podcast and follow @idolboard on Twitter for updates. Get all episodes plus bonuses by supporting Fourth Strike on Patreon.
Listen to “the twelfth trip around the sun” by the garages on Blandcamp:
Episode Transcript
[musical intro plays]ANNOUNCER:
You’re listening to a Fourth Strike production.[The end of the musical intro plays, followed by the beginning of ‘the twelfth trip around the sun’.]
AOIFE:
Hello and welcome to idol board! I’m Aoife and I use she/her pronouns. In this podcast, I will be interviewing members of the garages about their songs, the creation process, and possible inspirations. My guest for this episode is garages band member autumn. Thanks for coming on, autumn! Can you tell us your pronouns, your pre-song ritual, and what song you’ll be talking about with us today?AUTUMN:
Hi! It’s a pleasure to be here! My pronouns are she/her, my pre-song ritual is somersaulting, and the song I will be talking about today is “the twelfth trip around the sun” from the album “we are the garages (vol 2)”.AOIFE:
Awesome! Great. So, first off: when and why did you join the garages, the band, not the team.AUTUMN:
Well, I was just a huge Blaseball fan since season 3. I was originally a big fan of the Baltimore Crabs. After they ascended, I was just kind of lost, but I had listened to a lot of the garages music over the time, and I’d really liked it, and I’d done some music stuff myself, and I was kind of wanting a new team to choose, and I ended up choosing the Seattle Garages, and then I decided to make music for them, and, you know, here I am!AOIFE:
Yeah, awesome! So you mentioned that (that you have a bit of a) you did music before this. Can you go into a little bit more detail about what your musical background was before joining the band?AUTUMN:
So, yeah. I have quite a musical background. I’ve always really been interested in music ever since I was a child. I did piano lessons, I did vocal lessons, and, yeah, I started playing guitar when I was around 13. I got into that. I ended up releasing a couple of solo EPs. One was under the project name “one bleak winter” called “embers” that came out in 2017, and then after that I started switching to more keyboard based stuff, and I put out, I made lots of music in that, and I put out the “autumnspring” self-titled EP at the start of this year in April, and I was really quite happy with how that turned out.AOIFE:
Awesome! So how did this song start?AUTUMN:
So, it started, well, I ended up going on a trip for a few weeks to go see my partner, and it was right in the midst of when I was really getting into making music with the band, and I didn’t have my gear with me. So once I got back, I was kind of itching to make something more, you know, like, and then I just started messing around with some melodies until I came up with this song, and it just kept growing from there, and I was really happy with how it turned out.AOIFE:
Yeah, definitely, so, what were your musical inspirations for the piece?AUTUMN:
I had quite a few inspirations. Really, one of the main inspirations was the band Muse. Especially the song “Bliss”. I really picked up on the synthesizers and the arpeggios and that, from what they are in that song. And I guess another, it’s kind of just like an instrumental song, it’s, I found it from a bunch of years that use it, and it’s called “We’re Finally Landing” by Home. I think that sounds really neat, and I like the whole arpeggios of build up, and I really wanted to make something with that, so that’s definitely another big inspiration.[Clip from “the twelfth trip around the sun” plays, featuring arpeggios.]
AOIFE:
Yeah, so I, in particular, like, when listening to it, I got, like, big video game music vibes. Especially, like, Celeste and kind of their soundtrack. Were you inspired by any game music?AUTUMN:
I’ve never played Celeste. I really need to at some point because I’ve just heard a lot of good things about it. But I wasn’t thinking about it at the time. But, like, I can definitely see, like, some video game influence in there. I think particularly one of the video game soundtracks that was a big influence on me was the Undertale soundtrack. I really like the whole pixely kind of stuff.AOIFE:
Yeah, I mean I could make a whole podcast about how much I love Celeste. Even though I still haven’t finished it. It’s really hard!AUTUMN:
I will play it at some point! I promise![Both autumn and Aoife chuckle.]
AOIFE:
Yeah, definitely. so this song was made entirely using a midi keyboard and plugins. What’s the difference between – like, as an amateur, which I am – what’s the difference between a midi keyboard and any other type of keyboard?AUTUMN:
So, a midi keyboard is really neat because you can hook it up to a PC and there’s like lots of software that you can play stuff with. Like, I use REAPER, for example, and there’s so many, like, plugins that have so many cool, like, presets and sounds and all that for midi keyboards that, like, once you’re done playing, you can also customize the notes and stuff like that. So I just really like the customizability of the midi keyboard. I think it’s really neat.AOIFE:
So you just mentioned the plugins that you use to create it. So what exactly, like, are plugins, and how did you use them to make all the awesome sounds in the song?AUTUMN:
So there’s, like, thousands of VST plugins out there. The main one I used for “twelfth trip around the sun” was Analog Labs, which is, it costs a bit, but I find it’s really really good. It’s basically just thousands of synth presets that you can scroll through and customize and use, and they all sound really neat, and I just kept scrolling through them. And then I also used a free drum plugin for it called “MT Power Drum Kit”, which I would also very much recommend. And, they just, there’s so many of them you can just find the exact sound you want for a song.AOIFE:
So they’re basically things that you use to create a particular sound or a particular…AUTUMN:
Yeah, well they’re like pre-made ones, that you can play the keyboard, and a lot of them do have some variability of customizability and stuff. So yeahAOIFE:
Yeah. So to focus on the lyrics for the song, they very much look forward to season 12 of Internet League Blaseball. What do you think is coming up, and what do you hope will happen?AUTUMN:
You know, it’s just a big unknown like there’s some stuff that has been revealed like at the season 11 elections. I’m curious to see how that turns out, like, the stuff like the stadiums and all that, and I guess I’m also just excited about the great unknown. Like, so much is possible, and we have no idea. That’s kind of why I wrote the song because I was looking forward to that unknown, and it’s been a while since I’ve had it.AOIFE:
Yeah, I’m a newcomer to Blaseball myself. I got in, um, a little bit before the Grand Siesta, so I honestly have no idea what’s gonna happen, and…AUTUMN:
Yeah, I think we’ll, I think we’ll be in for a treat.AOIFE:
Yeah, hopefully so like this, the song very much has this, and as you were talking, like, there’s very much a hopeful feeling about Blaseball, and when I think about Blaseball, I think about, like, the horror and the incinerations and all of that, and I’m wondering, like, why do you think that things are going to get better in the next season?AUTUMN:
Well, I kind of wanted to balance the hurtfulness and, like, the horror like I mentioned, like, “will the umps keep our team alive or will our players die”, stuff like that? But then I also said “so much to look forward to” because, you know, as fans I think there is a lot to look forward to.[Clip from “the twelfth trip around the sun” plays. In the clip autumn sings the lyrics:
“umps, will they be so kind to spare the team our lives or will some players die”
“so much to look forward too, we’ll watch the twelfth trip around the sun”
The vocals fade out and return to the interview.]
But there is also that horror element to it.
AOIFE:
It’s weird as a fan of baseball, both in character and out of character, the mix of horror and joy that happens in it, like, you want your team to win but you also know that these characters you’ve become increasingly more attached to, the more they play the more likely they are to be hurt or completely taken out of the game. It’s just a, I think it makes place fall a really interesting fandom.AUTUMN:
Yeah. I’ve enjoyed it a lot. I think that the whole element of players, like ,can be hurt and all that. You don’t know what’s going to happen to them. I think that just makes it even more like human and personal than other gamesAOIFE:
Yeah, definitely. So what is your favorite part of this song? What are you most proud of?AUTUMN:
For me it’s probably the build up and the opening instrumental part. Like, how it just starts out with that organ.[Clip of the intro to the song plays and continues playing at a higher volume.]
And then the drums.
[Kick drums come in.]
And the arpeggio kick in.
[Arpeggios come in.]
And then there’s the lead wind-sounding thing.
[Lead instrument begins to play for some time before fading in volume again.]
Yeah, I really like that buildup and something that I’m really proud of. Like, especially that one bit where the drums just start going really intensely fast. I’m really happy with how it turned out!
AOIFE:
So, for both this individual song and also just being a part of the garages, what has the community reaction been like for you?AUTUMN:
It’s been so wild! Like, never would I ever think that, like, something like this would be possible. Like, my previous music I released pretty much had very little, like, reception or, like, streaming. But seeing, like, how much my stuff has gotten with the garages, both with, like, this and “OLL-E (fleshboy)”. It’s being wild. And then I also really enjoyed, like, stuff like the Desert Bus gig. Like playing on a stream with 5000 people watching that just felt so surreal to me. And also the Blaseballiday stream when I got to do the acoustic cover of “fight gods” as well.AOIFE:
Oh yeah. Definitely! Like watching those live, it’s just insane to see like all these people that I know and these people who I consider friends, like, playing to such a high level of people, and just it’s so cool how something that, like, you could never have expected.AUTUMN:
It’s cool, and I love just reading for the Twitch chat, or whatever, in those streams and just seeing people like recognize me and, like, shout me out and say that my stuff is good. That’s just so surreal and such a nice feeling.AOIFE:
Yeah, definitely! So, lastly, outside of your own work, what do you think is the most underrated song by the garages?AUTUMN:
It’s a really tough question. I mean, there’s so many tough ones, but I’m going to go with a bit of a left field one. It’s actually on, like, it’s on “ENCORE” which is, like, one of the most popular albums, but I don’t think I’ve heard much talked about it at all, and that song is “never forget number 46” by june september. It’s really short but just the vocals and combination with the uke using the same chords in “heart-shaped hotdog”. I just think it works so well, and I really really like it.AOIFE:
Yeah, definitely! It’s, I really like when we use more acoustic instruments because that’s what I have experience with. It’s really cool, also, just, june is an incredible musician.AUTUMN:
Yeah, definitely.AOIFE:
Thank you so much for joining us on “idol board”, a podcast where we interview members of the garages, an anarcho-syndicalist baseball band from the fictional location of Seattle. We make songs about being gay, the apocalypse, and fighting the gods, and you can find our music at blandcamp.com (with an L), Spotify, or on youtube. We’ll see you next week. Now, here’s “the twelfth trip round the sun” by autumn of the garages.[“the twelfth trip around the sun” plays in its entirety]
ANNOUNCER:
idol board is edited by Ada Quinn, BONES, Jennifer Cat, nuclear tourist, and zack.ry, hosted by Aoife, produced by Tangereen Velveteen, transcribed by SigilCrafter Aya, Merry, and VigilantBaker, and written by Aoife and Tangereen Velveteen.[outro music plays]