friend who wanted to help Tim get back in the
saddle, and leant his considerable skills to the track
Moon Landing.
“Jason and I go way back,” Tim explains. “I played
shows with him maybe 10 years ago? We’ve remained
friends and played off and on together since, and he’s
a wonderful person. He has such a beautiful voice
and writes award-winning songs, and we sent him the
most crazy and dissonant song on the record.
“He really wanted to be on it, but was touring so he
couldn’t come to Louisville, so we sent him the track
after we were done with it, and we were like, ‘Well,
what’s he gonna do with this?’ And then he came
back with like a Hendrix-level Machine Gun solo!
And I’m most proud of that – because you see it with
him live, but I want more people to know that he’s
one of the most inventive players around.
“My god, if you listen to the raw track of Moon
Landing and his solo, there’s things in there thatsound like he’s eating his guitar or something! How
is he doing that?! And it was bone dry – no delay or
reverb, or anything, just deadly tone. Love that.”LAND OF PLENTY
After coming so close to giving up before Eraserland
reignited his love of music, we can’t help but
conclude our chat by asking Tim how he’s feeling
now... “I wanna make more records,” he affirms. “But
I have to put this album to rest as a piece of art in
order to open my brain up to make the new. I always
tell friends that the two weeks after I get the master,
I have this golden moment where I listen to my own
record, and I listen to it, and I like it... and then it’s
done forever. I’ve given it to the people.
“It feels good to know that maybe in six months,
I’ll be able to maybe start the next one, but I just
need to have that moment to let go. It took me a long
time to let go of Hard Love, but that enabled me to
do this, which was such a positive experience.
Hopefully, I won’t have to go through that again this
time, though... these dramatic stories, I’m just tired
of them!”Eraserland by Strand Of Oaks is out now on Dead Oceans“JASON ISBELL SOUNDS LIKE HE’S
EATING HIS GUITAR! HOW IS HE
DOING THAT?! AND IT WAS BONE
DRY – NO DELAY OR REVERB, OR
ANYTHING, JUST DEADLY TONE”
RIGHT The mini-humbucker-
laden “Frankenstein”
Telecaster which Showalter
used for the majority of the
album’s parts
TIMOTHY SHOWALTER
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