James should be standing!” Tim recalls. “And
if anyone knows Jim James, I can’t sing like him –
99 per cent of the planet that’s ever existed can’t
sing like him. I’m like, ‘What am I doing here!?
I shouldn’t be allowed in this party!’
“But that night, the guys went for dinner and
I stayed at the studio because I wanted to get my
guitar tone working. And while I was there on my
own, I walked around the studio and I saw that they
all had extensive notes that they’d written. That to
me, was like this moment of like, ‘Oh, they are so
involved with this.’ This is not like when a label sets
you up with a bunch of studio musicians. These are
friends and they’re invested. Yes, they’re extremely
accomplished and you look up to them, but this is
not the moment to be starstruck. This is the moment
to collaborate.”
With that hurdle overcome, the chemistry between
Tim and the rest of the band was immediate and
the recording process was remarkably smooth. “It’s a
testament to what good musicians they are,” he says.
“We really set ourselves up for failure, because we’d
never played together before! But outside of maybe a
few overdubs, everything was live. Even if it was nine
minutes long. That’s the performance.”
Operating with that one-take mindset really gave
Showalter an appreciation for how good his new
backing band was, and one member in particular.
“Tommy [Blankenship], the bass player, is a perfect
bass player.” he insists. “After five days, a few of us
went out for dinner, and he went somewhere else,
and we had this realisation... ‘Guys, Tommy hasn’t
messed up yet...’ He never hit a wrong note! You’re
supposed to do something wrong, to make everyone
else feel better! It’s like, ‘Tommy, please, I messed up
my own lyrics on that last track!’”
STRICTLY RHYTHM
When it came to the album’s guitar sounds, Tim
found himself in the unusual position of not being
the primary lead guitarist, with MMJ’s Carl Broemel
filling that chair. “Usually, I have a ‘space station’
pedalboard and everything. But my stuff was really
simple, it was strictly for rhythm,” Tim says. “I was
mostly playing a Frankenstein Telecaster – for some
reason I put mini-humbuckers on it – through what
looked like a Magnatone, but with a single 12 in it – I
don’t know if one of Kevin’s friends made it or what.”
Taking a back seat on the lead-guitar side did give
Showalter a chance to appreciate the creativity and
uniqueness of Broemel’s playing, however... “He has
a Duesenberg that’s like a tour de force of tone,”
Tim enthuses. “But his secret is that he would be
sitting down in front of this pedalboard, and he
had an Echoplex. And as he was soloing on stuff
like Weird Ways or Forever Chords, his right hand
was constantly working that as he was playing.”
Showalter has a reputation as a fan of extended
jams, exploratory solos and a general tendency to
wig out whenever possible, but by not really playing
solos on the album, he began to look at things from
a different perspective. “The thing I love about
Eraserland is there’s very little jamming,” he says. “It’s
extremely structured, and I think that to me always
felt unappealing in the past. But when you think
about The Dark Side Of The Moon, in your memory,
it’s almost as if Gilmour is soloing the whole time.
Like an epic jam. But then when you go back and
listen to it, it’s actually so composed and orchestrated.
In my past records, like Hard Love, I was just like,
‘Let’s just jam, fuck it all, start the track!’ And
that was fun and all, but for something like Forever
Chords, we had it down to a measure. Technically,
there are only like three solos on this album.”ISBELL OF THE BALL
One of those three solos was reserved for a very
special guest – Jason Isbell. The guitarist is anotherTIMOTHY SHOWALTERGUITAR MAGAZINE 77