The Making of Striped Shirt EP
CW: puke
Compared to Anti-Loss, Striped Shirt EP came along a lot quicker. Aside from the opening track, everything was written and recorded in the span of pretty much two weeks. Despite this, a lot of the context surrounding these two weeks are important in understanding where the songs come from.
ida deerz.
Meet Me at the Convention is the first song written that ended up on the EP. In December of 2023, I was in a Discord call with ida deerz and Pent Up Pup, where we decided to try to make some songs within the span of an hour. The criteria were: C major, 180 BPM, upbeat, and about gay furries. Unfortunately I went over the time limit as a byproduct of my apartment undergoing inspection that day, but at the end I came out with the 
first demo of Meet Me at the Convention. I spent the next couple of months tweaking it, trying to turn it into a complete song. I never quite managed to finish the lyrics for the longest time. Fortunately for me though, inspiration would soon come in the form of a person.
Biddy Fox.
By the start of 2024, Biddy Fox was just another I had known of vaguely through a cover of a doefriends song and being a part of some band my friends at the time didn't like called MIDI Bunny. We had some very brief interactions in ida's server but aside from that hadn't really had much of a reason to talk. That was until I start college again after the winter break and joined the Discord server for my college's music club. After introducing myself I looked at the server list, thinking maybe my app was glitched when I saw a purple and pink icon I'd recognized from Ida's server. We started talking in DMs very on and off for about two months, until the music club announced there was going to be a music showcase as part of the college's Earth Day ceremonies. I had recently released Anti-Loss and I wanted to play some of the material I wrote with a full band. I left a message in the Discord server letting people know I was looking for players, and the only person to reach out to me was none other than Bea.
We started talking more after that, both about the set we wanted to play and about our interests and opinions. It was by that time that we really started hitting it off. One day I mentioned I wanted to record a music video for my song Where?? Where??? Where???? in which I puked in a bathtub, but was struggling to find someone willing to help me record that. She almost immediately offered, and we set a date. It was the first time I had actually met with Bea in person (she had graduated from the college the semester before but was still in the club server), and we really hit it off. Unfortunately, I was unable to make myself puke and eventually we had to give up and head out to record the rest of the video. We kept meeting up in the weeks leading up to the set, sometimes for the sake of rehearsal but often just to hang out. The truth of the matter was that I had spent many years stuck in my own head, unable to talk to anyone in person and finding someone I could really relate to like Bea was really fulfilling and (along with my college's Garfield club which I helped found) helped me break out of my shell. I fell in love with her.
Biddy Fox.
The day of the concert was marked by a handful of hiccups. After struggling to carry our equipment from the parking lot to the outdoor stage where we'd be playing, the student-run sound crew completely ignored our requests to do a soundcheck (something which they had done to me before). Before our set, we stopped by the Garfield club meetup, where they were having the much-anticipated Lasagna Day. Unfortunately, we had to run back to the stage shortly after because they show was running ahead of schedule and we were next to perform. We ran through our set of harsh noise pop, my guitar screeching feedback through the overdrive and delay pedals I had on for much of the set, to an audience of college students that for the most part didn't really get it. At the end of our last song, I put my guitar down as my delay pedal feedbacked through the amps. We made out on stage. It was all whirlwind, heat, and flash. We took our equipment, said our goodbyes to the Garfield club and hit the road. We never spoke to anyone from the music club ever again.
In the following weeks, inspired by the newfound love I felt for Bea and for my friends, I finished writing Meet Me at the Convention, recorded a cover of Bea's song o pretty stranger from one her lesser known releases, wrote two new songs (Teenage Punk Fantasy and Striped Shirt), and threw in an acoustic song I had written shortly after a breakup some months prior. I had Bea record bass parts and some backing vocals, and she came over to help me finish mixing and mastering the EP. The title of the EP came from a time I was hanging out with my friend Jess and we stopped by a Goodwill, where I got my paws on multiple striped shirts, proudly proclaiming over and over "I think stripes will be my thing". I was (and still am) fascinated by the idea of having a cartoon-esque coordinated wardrobe with recurring design motifs, which has greatly informed my developing sense of aesthetic for myself.
Biddy Fox and coloring by A.J. Vega.
Around the time the EP was close to completion, I was invited to join MIDI Bunny as their rhythm guitarist and to perform with them at Anthrocon in Pittsburgh. My trip to Anthrocon was fulfilling and life-defining in a way that I don't think can really be done much justice. Just a few months before I had little to no friends I could see face-to-face, feeling isolated and depressed and contemplating suicide on a weekly basis. Yet it felt like everything this year had lead up to this. Meeting idols and friends alike within the scene that I had only talked to on a screen previously, sharing these moments of wonder, bliss and unity with other furries was something I didn't know I needed so badly until I had it. In a way, Striped Shirt as a memento to these times and my newfound lease on life.