CRISIS
CAPITAL
“I
didn’t really wanna do it anymore,” says
Timothy Showalter, the artist also known as
Strand Of Oaks. That’s quite an attention-
grabbing admission, but in these clickbait-
heavy times, he’s keen to emphasise that this isn’t
just a good marketing line. “It’s not for dramatic press.
I know that’s how this game works – put a fireworks
show up so people wanna write about it. But when
I was trying to explain the record to people, that’s the
only way that I could. I think it was an identity crisis.”
Back in 2017, Tim was promoting and touring his
new album, Hard Love, but despite the album being
well received by both critics and fans, something
wasn’t right. “I released Hard Love a year after I made
it, and I was singing about someone who I wasn’t
anymore,” he reflects. “I was pretty wild for a little
while there. But over the course of that year making
Hard Love and being home, I changed in a good way.
I loved the record and playing those songs live, but
I had this idea of, ‘What am I doing? I’ve been doing
this for 10 years. Who am I?’”
The changes may have been positive, but it
coincided with Tim finding himself stuck in a rut,WORDS JOSH GARDNER PHOTOGRAPHY CRYSTAL LUDWICKTimothy Showalter was done. Despite
the acclaim that greeted Strand Of Oaks’
fifth album, Hard Love, the guitarist
and songwriter found himself in a hole,
and was on the verge of quitting music
altogether. Then his friends in My Morning
Jacket decided to pull him out, dragging
him into the studio and providing an
elite backing band to create his most
impressive album yet, Eraserlandand unable to write new material, which in turn
brought up a host of other issues. “Most of my life,
playing guitar and singing, and writing songs, was
an escape route out of anxiety and life,” he admits
candidly. “That was my safe place... and then I was
like, ‘Shit...’ Because being a musician is most of my
identity – if you were to speak to friends or family,
they would say: ‘Oh, he was really depressed.’ Like
clinically depressed! But I equated it to, ‘I’m just not
feeling the tunes right now!’”
Such was Tim’s disconnect from music at this
time, he barely registered his label’s decision to take
the wealth of unused material from the Hard Love
sessions to create a brand-new album, Harder Love,
which came out in 2018. “I forget that Harder Love
even came out!” he exclaims. “I had very little to do
with that. There was some good stuff on there, and
the label kind of approached me and said: ‘People
should at least hear these songs...’ And I’m like,
‘That sounds good. I’m gonna hike in the woods for
a while!’”JACKET REQUIRED
And then something quite remarkable happened.
“I got a phone call from my manager saying: ‘Are
you making a record with My Morning Jacket?’
And I went, ‘What are you talking about?!’” Tim
remembers. “He said: ‘WelI, I just got a call from
all of them and they say they have studio time
booked...’ and I didn’t have any songs written!”
Renowned indie-rock bands don’t just go around
booking studio time with songwriters on a whim, andABOVE Timothy Showalter
was called out of the blue to
discover that his friends from
My Morning Jacket had booked
studio time to record with himTIMOTHY SHOWALTERGUITAR MAGAZINE 75