This was the first album to be released by Planet Gemini. The album was basically an experiment to get us to the point of recording our "REAL" first album which was to be entitled "Supergod". Needless to say the album was written in a couple of weeks and really was fairly decent. We just thought that we were going to write some songs that we could throw on a CD for ourselves and most importantly get used to the new equipment we were recording on. We found that even though this album was extremely rough around the edges it really held up fairly well when compared to some indie stuff that was being released at the time. I really must admit that there was a time period where I didn't enjoy people listening to this album. Mostly because our production got much better over the years (not due to the songs themselves) but I kind of grew out of that and somewhat came to an understanding that "this is what we could do at the time". The drums also bothered me as I really was not a drummer and ended up using a Roland VClub kit for our first batch of albums. The problem was that I just wasn't an even player so I used the Midi input and set all of the velocity to the max. So the drums kind of sound bland with no dynamic at all. However, once you get past the flaws of the album the songs really are solid and very enjoyable to hear a band so early on just throwing material out there.

I personally do not feel that this is an album that we "Found" our sound on (That would be SuperGod) but for the most part you really see a ton of traces of what would become the Planet Gemini sound in years to come. Songs like Trippin' OUT! and My Black Cloud will always hold a very special place in my heart and going back and listening to this album today just makes me smile.

For those of you who are unfamilliar with the start of Planet Gemini let me go into a little more detail about this album.

We started recording 13 in February of 2002. We had just built a studio and was looking to get more familiar with the equipment we had purchased. 13 was the result of that. We didn't really work much on perfecting the songs. They were all about emotion really. Which is entirely what we came to appreciate about the CD. The song were all improvised and yet sounded pretty well written. 13 was supposed to be the build up CD to Supergod. However, SuperGod got put on the backburner once again soon after.

The thing about 13 that I enjoy listening to (even to this day) is the raw emotion. The second track on the CD "Take Me Home' is actually the first Planet Gemini song ever written and it is really where the name of the band came from. "Take me home to where I'm from.. Planet Gemini" We liked the "Gemini" idea.. the indecisiveness of the Gemini sign. Plus Josh and I are very much like twins. (We are not related but in all honesty you wouldn't know it) Gemini was  actually brought up in a passing comment. "How about calling ourselves Planet Gemini" Josh just said "k" and that was it.

I think it was the first week. Josh called me up and said that he had a dream we wrote a song called "The Wizard of The Void" We went into the studio later that day and wrote the song pretty much first time through. The lyrics were all improvised and it came out to be one of our best songs. I think it holds up well even to this day. There is no doubt in my mind 13 brought out a special magic. I do believe that SuperGod became to be so amazing because 13 paved the way.. and got all of the experiments and bugs out of our sound..  Some of my other favorites on the CD are definitely "My Black Cloud, Holy War and Trippin' OUT!