Episode 12: “steal home” with em grace

This week, Aoife interviews em grace about “Steal Home” from Storm’s Coming. em grace explains the garages’ connection with labor: “Classic country western is very much a song of the working people, and even on the very first garages album you’ve got june september like, uh, doing union anthems.”

em grace writes music in spare minutes between working and parenting. They live with their wife, who tells them when their harmonies are flat, and their daughter, who tells them about clouds and shadows..

This episode of idol board was hosted by Aoife, directed by Tangereen Velveteen, written by Aoife and Tangereen Velveteen, transcribed by Merry, and edited by Nuclear Tourist. 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 “steal home” 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 ‘steal home’. The vocals fade out while the instrumentals continue playing under the conversation.]

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 em grace. Thanks for coming on em! Can you tell us your pronouns, your blood type, and what song you’ll be talking about with us today?

EM GRACE:

Sure, thanks so much for having me. Uh, my pronouns are she or they, uh, my blood type is wordplay, and I’m going to be talking about the song ‘steal home’.

AOIFE:

Great! So, first off, when and why did you join the garages?

EM GRACE:

Uh, I feel like I’ve been in the garages forever, uh, but I guess I joined in Season 3, um, I, Garages was the team I joined when I started following Blaseball after seeing people talk about it on Twitter, uh, opened up blaseball.com, one of the teams has a guitar on it, and that is the obvious pick, and I’ve been here ever since.

AOIFE:

So did you join the band at around the same time, or was it…

EM GRACE:

It was pretty soon, um, because right after, right when I joined is right when, uh, like right after Tiana Cash had been incinerated and so, rain slash the garages, uh, dropped the song ‘tiana cash’ which number 1, I loved and number 2, made me realize that, wait a second, I can write music about this too and I wrote ‘nail to the heart’ pretty soon after that.

AOIFE:

So, since the team with the guitar was the obvious pick, I’m assuming that you have a bit of a musical background.

EM GRACE:

I do. Um, I mean music’s been part of my life for… really my whole life, I played piano as a kid, I studied music as an undergraduate, learned a lot about music history and composition and theory and all that very dry stuff and wrote a lot of very serious academic, kind of, concert work that nobody ever listened to and then got into a career and kind of puttered around just playing guitar a little bit on my own, um, and, I was never really a part of a band or anything until, uh, I joined the garages.

AOIFE:

I can definitely relate to that, music was a big part of my life but I never really got into like a band band until this.

EM GRACE:

Right, seems like that’s true of a lot of us in the band, like, I know there’s several of us that have never really been a part of any big group until now and I think it’s a really cool opportunity, um, especially since we’re all kind of locked in otherwise.

AOIFE:

Yeah, I think it definitely has to do with like, the digital age and especially like, I wonder if this could have happened outside of something like COVID [em laughs] where we’re all stuck inside.

EM GRACE:

Right, it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t seem nearly as promising of a, of an outlet I think, if we could leave the house.

AOIFE:

Back to the particular song we’re talking about today–

EM GRACE:

Mhmm.

AOIFE:

How did ‘steal home’ start, in your mind?

EM GRACE:

Uh, well ‘steal home’, I guess it would have been Season 8, this was after Jaylen’s resurrection and after Jaylen’s like incinerations, uh, Jaylen started feedbacking people. Um, and a bunch of the Garages had been feedbacked and, uh, in particular Allison Abbott who I had written a couple of songs about previously, uh, got, um, feedbacked over to the Dallas Steaks and since I had kind of gotten myself in the habit of writing songs about Allison Abbott anyway, I was thinking well if she’s in Dallas, this would be a great opportunity to sit down and write a country song. Um, and I was just, y’know playing around with the acoustic and I had put together a little, like sort of like half a verse, um, which doesn’t actually sound like ‘steal home’ but has some of the lyrics from the second verse of ‘steal home’ in it, uh, and I posted that to… I forget which channel I posted it to but to one of like the garages working channels, of like “Oh here, I’m working on a little, uh, little country song”, and rain liked it, and some of the other folks in the garages liked it, blone liked it, um, and I just sort of kept fidgeting with it and working with it.

I guess my working process is I, I tend to like lie in bed and turn things over in my head a lot, and so y’know, I would lie in bed from y’know, 2:30 to 3:30 in the morning when everyone else in my house was asleep and I would just sort of, since I had that little germ of a song at that point I could kind of work it over and refine it and then, y’know a few days later I woke up in the morning and had like a fully orchestrated chorus which I put into chat as well. After that, I mean, writing the rest of the song was just a matter of figuring out what rhymed where.

AOIFE:

Yeah, that’s really cool, it’s really interesting hearing everyone’s different processes, so–

EM GRACE:

I, I feel like a lot of my best songwriting comes from, like, lying in bed and then trying to recreate what I heard in my head the following morning. Um, but that was definitely my writing process for this song.

AOIFE:

Definitely, yeah, so, this one… I kinda feel like I just, I had to do it, it’s a bit of a reach, but, I really heard kind of an Elliott Smith influence or an Elliott Smith vibe from the song. Were you inspired by him and if not, who were you inspired by musically…

EM GRACE:

If, if there’s an Elliott Smith vibe there it’s unintentional. Believe it or not, the main inspiration for me writing this song, and it’s sort of a weird inspiration ‘cause the song didn’t end up sounding anything like it, uh, was, uh, the bluegrass group The Osborne Brothers, uh they had a song called ‘Rocky Top’ which is, in and of itself kind of a sports anthem out in the, the Smoky Mountains area but, uh, they have in, in ‘Rocky Top’– it’s bluegrass and so it uses like bluegrass vocal stacking, which is a really unique kind of vocal writing where you have… Most vocal harmonies, you have the melody on top and then accompanying stuff underneath it, but in bluegrass you have the melody in the middle with an upper vocal harmony and a lower vocal harmony, and they’re written very tight in very, in like the same register. And I really wanted to do that with ‘steal home’ and so with ‘steal home’ y’know I have the melody [musically] “Let me steal home”, with harmonies on top and bottom because I was trying to emulate, uh, the song ‘Rocky Top’ which… actually has a very similar melody which I didn’t really realize until I was thinking back on it just a couple of weeks ago.

[the referenced melody and harmonies from ‘steal home’ plays]

AOIFE:

That’s really interesting, I never knew that there was that method of vocal stacking.

EM GRACE:

[chuckling] Yeah it’s kind of, it’s unique to bluegrass.

AOIFE:

Um, one thing that’s really interesting, when people think of the garages they think of… Well, they think of a lot of different things now–

EM GRACE:

Sure.

AOIFE:

— but when, in the pre-’steal home’ era, [em laughs] the pre-country album era, it was very much a grunge band. There’s so many different genres, I mean we had neon fakes, recently as of this recording–

EM GRACE:

Hm, mhmm.

AOIFE:

— we have lo-fi music, we have ska, we have all sorts of different genres. What do you think it is about the garages that inspires people to make music in so many different genres, and why do you think that a country song, and a country album is kind of when we talk a lot about people’s favorite songs–

EM GRACE:

Mmm.

AOIFE:

— a lot of people turn to ‘steal home’, and a lot of people turn, like I personally do–

EM GRACE:

Mmm!

AOIFE:

— and a lot of people turn to that album and do you have any ideas about why that could be?

EM GRACE:

Y’know, it’s an interesting question, um, I mean you, you said garages “felt like a grunge band” and it, it really did as far as like common instrumentation and the sort of do-it-yourself ethos, and the lo-fi ethos that it had, but even on the early albums like you would have really really like blown out amplifier sounds, right next to like acoustic ukulele sounds, right next to like Ethan Geller doing 7 minute acid jazz breakdowns and I feel like the garages has always really welcomed a really wide assortment of sounds and so, I guess in my mind, um, going to something like country or even just something like lofi hip hop beats isn’t really that far of a swerve, given how wide the genre discrepancies on even the first couple of EPs was.

AOIFE:

Yeah, that’s, that’s a really interesting way of looking at it.

EM GRACE:

And I guess as far as country goes, country music is one of those things that, I think for a lot of people really feels very nostalgic, um, I think, I mean just speaking in, y’know from my perspective like I grew up in a small town and moved to the city, and there’s been so much, uh, so much of America that has been forced to move from like small towns where they grew up to big cities where the jobs are, uh, that like looking back to sort of a… and it’s kind of a mythical thing, right, the, but looking back to that mythical sense of, of Americana, that nostalgia, is really appealing to, maybe not to everybody but to a lot of people.

AOIFE:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because like, I’m, I’m from a small town myself and it’s like, I remember, like, country and folk country is like, a big thing that I don’t think I really gave the respect it deserved.

EM GRACE:

[laughing] Right, same.

AOIFE:

‘Cause like for me personally ‘steal home’, like got me into country [em laughs] like I didn’t listen to country before it, but I actually really enjoyed the way it sounded and I loved the album that it was on…

EM GRACE:

That’s very flattering, thank you.

AOIFE:

Yeah, it’s, and it’s gotten me to like, listen to songs that are very much out of my wheelhouse.

EM GRACE:

Sure.

AOIFE:

And I also think there’s, like, the kind of the people that, the people that create works for the garages, and for fourth strike are very similar in their… Not at face value, but when you look at their inspirations, and you look at their like personal drives, I think they’re very similar to people who wrote, like classic folk country music.

EM GRACE:

Mm, mhm.

AOIFE:

Because like, when I think about like, Woody Guthrie, or I think about like, kind of that style I think there’s a very similar personal drive that a lot of people have but it’s kind of been upscaled to the modern age.

EM GRACE:

And I mean y’know just talking about additional inspirations for ‘steal home’ specifically, uh, one of the songs I went back to was from, like 90 years ago, uh, which is, um, Drifting Along with the Tumbling Tumbleweeds, that, that old Sons of the Pioneers song, and y’know, that was a song that was getting played during World War 2, which was also an era where you’d had like the big economic collapse, and everyone was getting pushed from their farmsteads out to cities, and there was the rise of global fascism, and like you get these really longing country songs that are asking for, y’know, kind of a return to something… what felt even then like a simpler time. And, yeah I think you’re right that a lot of… there, there’s so much cyclical about that, like we can listen to stuff that’s 90 years old and feel, feel a real great sense of kinship to it because the world, in a lot of ways, looks pretty similar.

AOIFE:

Yeah, it’s really interesting, like you said cyclical there, and I think that kind of really describes it, not to get too much on a tangent here [em laughs] but like I think that there’s like, we’re not necessarily in the same economic depression that we were when kind of, country kind of, became mainstream for the first time in the United States–

EM GRACE:

Mm.

AOIFE:

— but I think we’re, we’re very close and we’re dealing with a very drastic, like, restructuring the same way that the world was being restructured, the same time country originally came to, came to prominence and I think that–

EM GRACE:

Sure.

AOIFE:

— kinda shows how when you think of the garages, you don’t think of, like, these are the people that would enjoy country and would [em laughs] make country but when I think you look at it on a deeper level, like, I think there’s a lot of things that are, folks in the garages would admire from the original, like, folk country movement.

EM GRACE:

For sure, for sure, I mean country western at, if you go back far enough, that’s maybe not true of like the ‘90s country revival, but classic country western is very much a song of the working people, and even on the very first garages album you’ve got june september like, uh, doing union anthems so, yeah, absolutely.

AOIFE:

To kinda get back from our country tangent here, um…

EM GRACE:

[laughing] It’s not that much of a tangent, it is a country song but, yes.

AOIFE:

That is true. [em laughs] What made you decide to do the stereo mixing the way that you did, like, in the song certain elements are stronger in one ear than the other.

[a clip from ‘steal home’ plays, demonstrating the referenced stereo mixing]

AOIFE:

What was the process like for mixing that, and how do you decide which parts go on which side, and please, dumb it down pretty significantly ‘cause [em laughs] I don’t really know what we’re talking about here.

EM GRACE:

So, so the, the simple answer is I have listened to a lot of old 1960s records from right when stereo high fidelity equipment was just kinda coming into vogue, and when you listen to those old albums, you set them on your turntable and they’re sort of mixed in such a way that you can sit across the room in your chair, and close your eyes and it sounds like there’s a band in your living room, with this guy is over here, and this guy is over here, and this, and the singer’s in the middle, and the drums are in the back, and it’s supposed to be realistic in that kind of way. In, in kind of an arch and artificial way but it’s, like it’s, it sounds good on a good stereo system when you’re listening to these old vinyls. Uh, it sounds terrible on headphones but it sounds great on vinyl. And literally my process for deciding what went where is I opened up, um, speaking of inspirations, uh, a song called ‘Stoplight Kisses’ by The Cactus Blossoms, which is a relatively recent band, but they do like really old style country western music, and the, the music video for that song is just them on a white soundstage and you’ve got this guitar over here, and the electric guitar over there, and in the back you’ve got the drums over there, and the bass over there, and I just made a soundstage that looked like that with this guitar here, and the electric guitar there, and in the back the bass is on one side and the drums are on the other. Yeah, and that was really it cause I was trying to capture that 1960s stereo mixing sound. I’m sure mother love blone will hate me for it because she hates those old mixes but it’s not her song.

AOIFE:

The thing about the garages is we’re a band of vastly varying tastes.

EM GRACE:

[laughing] Absolutely. I am, I am proud of my terrible taste

AOIFE:

I mean, I wouldn’t call it terrible, [em laughs] I don’t think, definitely like I mean, I wouldn’t call like any of like the tastes of folks in the garages terrible because like, there’s so much, there’s such a different like, I don’t really know where I’m going here, but, um…

EM GRACE:

[chuckling] I, I could do a take on this too and it would be another like twenty minute discourse but… the, the summary is when you grow up queer everyone tells you your tastes are bad anyway and there’s a point at which you just have to be proud of the stuff you like.

AOIFE:

Yeah I mean that’s definitely true, like, I think, a lot of us in the garages, I would say the vast majority of us are in some way queer.

EM GRACE:

Right.

AOIFE:

And I think kind of, that really influences our work–

EM GRACE:

Oh, absolutely.

AOIFE:

— and a lot of how we’re very proud of what we do, but I think there’s also like, a lot of the times when I talk to folks on the podcast, on idol board, I, we talk a lot about… people will kind of jokingly put down their music [em laughs] and I get it and I understand and I respect it, like, I’m certainly not gonna criticize anyone’s, like, how they want to view their work but I think there’s a lot of like, internalized, like, kind of how we’ve always been told as you said, like, that our tastes are bad.

EM GRACE:

Yep, self deprecation as a defense mechanism, yeah, exactly.

AOIFE:

Yeah, absolutely, I think that’s exactly it. Um, yeah, that was a bit more of a tangent but, [em laughs] um… So, when it comes to ‘steal home’ is there a particular part that, like, stands out to you as a favorite or like something you’re particularly proud of?

EM GRACE:

Well I’m, I’m really proud of how the vocal stacking, uh, that I mentioned earlier turned out, um, considering I’d never written in that style before I thought it sounded good. I dunno one of the things I wanted to do with ‘steal home’ was write a song that wasn’t just a blaseball song but was also like– I mean everyone talks about how blaseball music gives you kind of a backdoor into really sincere sentiment, but I really wanted to center that sentiment here so that it could be accessible to anyone whether they’re in the fandom or not, uh, and I’m proud of how that turned out.

AOIFE:

Yeah, definitely, I think you really succeeded on that, not to toot your own horn a whole bunch.

EM GRACE:

Well thank you.

AOIFE:

We’ve mentioned a little bit before, but like ‘steal home’ and our, uh, quote unquote country album is very much kind of, I think, not what people think of when they, the first thing they think of when they think of the garages, like when I think of the garages, I think mike townsend, I think ‘fight gods’, I think kinda that style but I think a lot of people deeply revere the album and ‘steal home’ in particular…

EM GRACE:

Mm.

AOIFE:

…a lot and I’m wondering like what has that community reaction, both from internally in the garages and the outside music listener community, what has that been like for you?

EM GRACE:

I mean I think it’s really sweet, um, I, every once in a while I will run across somebody y’know, on a twitter thread or something saying that, y’know the country album is the best album or that ‘steal home’ is the best song which is, frankly quite flattering given how many excellent songs are on both storm’s coming as, specifically, and in the rest of the library but no it’s really, it’s really flattering and it’s, it’s humbling in its way honestly but no it just, it makes me glad to be here I guess. I don’t have anything really poetic to say about it, but, but no it’s, it’s…

AOIFE:

No, I think that, that totally fits. So lastly, outside of your work, what would you consider to be the most underrated garages song or [em laughs] a song, it’s, I know it’s a very hard question a song you would ask, as a call to action for all of the people listening to this episode to listen to this particular garages song.

EM GRACE:

That’s, I mean it is a hard question and it’s also a very easy question because any song I name out of the entire garages library is something that could use more love than it has already. I’m going to be, uh, I’m going to be greedy here and pick a couple. Number 1, tegan’s song ‘talking to the parasite’ off of in the feedback is an amazing gnarly atmospheric soundscape, I love it to death. I think, uh, june september’s avila trilogy, which is stretched across three different albums now, uh, is amazing lyrically, has a lot of heart to it, and I’ve just personally been listening to seb’s ‘i’m in love with a blaseball player’ off of the Vlalentine’s album, uh, just absolutely on repeat this week, uh, because I think it’s a great bit of, uh, writing both lyrically and musically, but pick any album, pick any track, it’s amazing, it’s good stuff, go listen to us!

AOIFE:

You’re definitely right there. [em laughs] So, thank you so much for joining us on idol board–

EM GRACE:

Yeah!

AOIFE:

— I’ve personally really enjoyed this episode in particular, not that I don’t enjoy the other ones of course…

EM GRACE:

[laughing] You can say I’m the best, it’s okay

AOIFE:

Okay. [laughing from both] We are a podcast where we interview members of the garages, an anarcho-syndicalist blaseball 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 ‘steal home’ by em grace, of the garages!

[‘steal home’ plays in its entirety]

ANNOUNCER:

idol board is edited by Ada Quinn, BONES, Jennifer Cat, Nerdy Sims, and zack.ry, hosted by Aoife, produced by Tangereen Velveteen, transcribed by SigilCrafter Aya and Merry, and written by Aoife and Tangereen Velveteen.

[outro music plays]

ANNOUNCER:

That was a Fourth Strike production.