I’ve spent the last couple of days thinking about what Garage Raja might sound like if it had a soundtrack. I wanted to have a theme for each character, which is easy enough at first thought. The focus of their themes would be the instruments that they use in the band. Reginald would have a kick-ass guitar solo, with a strong melody driven composition throughout. Ghurnst being the bassist probably means his theme would be heavily rhythmic in nature, I would suppose. Thinking something funky kinda. Sterber…well, Sterber sucks so I can’t say I’ve thought too much about his song yet. The difficult one is Ned. I haven’t thought exactly how I would want to tackle the vocalist of the band. There’s the obvious approach, which is make lyrics and have someone sing the song. But I’m not entirely thrilled about that at the moment, simply because there’s the implication that the singer of that song is a representative of Ned. Then I thought, perhaps an instrument that makes strong use of the lungs like the harmonica. Not bad, but not my favorite approach. My favorite approach is whistling right now. This is in due part because I’m listening through the Hellsing soundtrack right now.

It’s yet another in my list of anime. Maybe you’ve seen it, maybe you haven’t. Quick synopsis: Hellsing is the story of a vampire (Alucard/Arucard? Whatever, Dracula backwards, we get it) and his work-a-day life protecting England from the sinister plots of murderous vampires, freaks, and Catholics(seriously) among other things. The whole show’s rocking, especially the soundtrack. And to get back to my point, there are a couple of really moody tunes that feature a melancholic whistler in the background, it sounds great in ensemble.

I’m beginning to wonder though if whistling only works with something downbeat, it might not work if I thought that Ned needed a fast tempo, upbeat song. Something that I’m having to consider there.

Truth is, I don’t know when such a thing as a Garage Raja soundtrack will be feasible, but it’s something I still like to think about. I think it’s also part of getting to know your characters better, but that’s just me. I don’t know if Austin thinks about the characters in the same way.

-Rainwater