Storytellers On Tour: The Bookshelf Symphony Orchestra By Austin Farmer - Encore

Storytellers On Tour is a Blog/Instagram Tour organising service. It was born out of Justine’s (Whispers & Wonder) and my love and dedication toward SFF indie books and authors. Our goal is to give as much exposure to our clients as we can, while we also build a community among our Roadies. Find out more about us on www.storytellersontour.online!

Storytellers On Tour just had it’s first official tour which I know close with this post. When Austin Farmer reached out to us, I absolutely wanted to take this on. I mean, you know me, I have two passions: music and books (I mean, I’m the blogger who pairs book reviews with music!). What else could have been more perfect to introduce Storytellers On Tour to the world, than a project which brings the two together?! I mean, come on, we have a lot of music related terminology for a reason! And that reason is that Justine made the mistake of teaming up with me, lol.

This past week several of our Roadies hosted Austin on their blogs with Q&A’s about the tracks on The Bookshelf Symphony Orchestra (find a list of links below). I’d like to thank each of them for joining us and being so enthusiastic about this project as we were! Now it’s time for the Encore and I also have an interview with Austin as well as a few thoughts about why I started pairing books and music in the first place.

Let’s close this show, shall we?

The Author

Austin Farmer is a musician, writer, and filmmaker from Southern California. His music has been featured on Nickelodeon, Fox Sports, and a national Sprint commercial. His short story “Beethoven’s Baton” is featured in Baker Street Irregulars Volume 1 (co-edited by Michael A. Ventrella and NYT Bestselling Author Jonathan Maberry).

The Bookshelf Symphony Orchestra

The Bookshelf Symphony Orchestra is an instrumental concept album created for readers and writers. Over the course of 2 years, Austin Farmer teamed up with brothers Addam and Heath Farmer to help produce, coarrange, and mix/master the album, bringing over a decade of experience in the music industry to the
project. Every song is titled after the novel it was inspired by and couldn’t have been created without those stories. Austin’s previous songs have been featured on Nickelodeon, CBS, Fox Sports, and a national Sprint TV campaign with indie rock bands Island Apollo and The Bolts. Musical influences on this album include songs from many of the instrumental playlists he’d listen to while writing fiction, including Two Steps From Hell, Bear McCreary, and Joe Hisaishi.

The Mini Interview

Let’s say you can have a soundtrack to your life. Which songs would be on it?

That is such a fun question! If I can have a soundtrack to my life, I would have a mix of different genres. First of all, I would have a few of Joe Hisaishi’s songs from Spirited Away soundtrack featured, including the song “Reprise.” I would throw in some songs by Two Steps From Hell, Bear McCreary, Klaus Badelt (especially from The Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack.

I definitely couldn’t forget to include songs from Disney soundtracks, so I’d include How Far I’ll Go, a song from The Tiki Room, that epic song they used to play on Space Mountain, and so much more.

I’d also include some of my favorite rock and pop tunes, including Muse, The Beach Boys, and more.

Are there any bands or musicians who inspire you or your writing? Do you listen to music during writing, at all?

Absolutely. I am heavily inspired by Two Steps From Hell, as I’m sure many different writers are. They feature a real blend of different instrumental music, and you can never go wrong with pulling up one of their albums for a writing session.

I love listening to music while I write. One of my recent favorites is actually by Thomas Bergersen (from Two Steps From Hell) called American Dream. This is probably one of the most inspiring and epic albums I’ve ever heard. It’s really a masterpiece.

You seem to be an all around creative person. This is what you wanted to do as a kid?

Thank you for saying that! When I was younger, I knew I wanted to continue my love for the arts. Growing up, we would play in bands, make sketches, write stories, all of that. I made the decision to continue my passion for the arts when I completed my BA in “Radio-TV-Film” from Cal State Fullerton. I am so inspired by the people I get to work with, and I feel very grateful to create art with my family and friends.

You are locked up in an Asylum. Which character/famous person you’d like to have as a roommate?

Woaaah, who locked us in there, a ghost? 🙂 I’m glad to at least have a roommate to endure being in an Asylum. Hmmm…in that case, I’d probably have to choose someone like Jack Black. He’s been a ninja, a wrestling champion, a rock and roll teacher. I think he’d be able to protect us if anything bad were to happen while also keeping us entertained. I think you can’t go wrong in choosing a celebrity like him 🙂

The Rest of the Tour

As I mentioned above, this tour wouldn’t have been so awesome without our incredible Roadies. If you missed the stops of The Bookshelf Symphony Orchestra tour, please take a bit of time and check their posts out:

The Bookshelf Symphony Orchestra by Austin Farmer participants banner

Music and Books

I will try not to bore you to death with my ramblings, so let’s just say the only friends I always had were music and books. I don’t have a part in my life of which they weren’t part of. I can’t even imagine not having them on my side. People come and go, friends walk away, but music and books are always here for me when I need them. When I started RockStarlit BookAsylum, my intention was to have content about both of them in a more or less equal measure. I failed at this, as I don’t have nearly enough musical content, but I’m still brainstorming about how to change that.

Anyway, I wanted to make my reviews stand out a bit and add something unique to them. There was Wol with her coctails for each book she read for example, and I thought that was so cool. Pairing up reviews with something you loved to do. I, on the other hand had no such hobbies. I’ve been playing with the idea of pairing up books with songs, but it took me a while to actually plunge into that. Let me tell you, most of the times it’s really not so easy to pick a song for the book I just read. Sometimes a song just clicks when I’m reading, sometimes I need to do some thinking, sometimes it clicks when I’m browsing my player. In some cases I pick for a specific character, in others I pick for the mood or the plot or a relationship. Sometimes I can pick a song within minutes and sometimes it takes a damn long time. I think the hardest was The Written by Ben Galley. I think I spent like an hour reading Three Days Grace lyrics until I FINALLY settled on a song. More times than not I curse myself for coming up with this idea in the first place, but I also love the thrill of searching for the perfect song, and that feeling when it comes together at last.

I always try picking each song only once, though it happened that I used the same song twice. I also try to make sure to pick songs from the same band when I review books from a series, though it not always happens. I don’t even know if people do listen the songs while reading my reviews, but I like to think that they set the mood quite nicely for it if they do. But regardless, I have fun pairing books and songs, so I don’t think I’ll stop anytime soon 🙂