Who Is … Strand of Oaks

As any long-haired progenitor of dark folk ballads can tell you, what doesn't kill you only makes you write better songs. Six years ago, Timothy Showalter had just split with his longtime girlfriend and left his hometown in Indiana for the coal highlands of Northeastern Pennsylvania when a house fire destroyed everything he owned. So he borrowed a guitar and dealt with that annus horribilis the only way he knew how: sitting on park benches, writing about the experience. Originally recorded on a handheld dictaphone, those early songwriting sessions evolved into his haunting debut as Strand of Oaks: Leave Ruin, a stark meditation on independence and loss, filled with vividly rendered stories about nuns, blue-collar workers, and other lonely people looking to connect. Showalter's friends filled in his acoustic strumming with banjo, drums, Hammond and Rhodes organs, and various wooden instruments, but buried beneath all that texture is something wrenchingly raw — the sound of one guy singing over a guitar he doesn't own. eMusic's Melissa Maerz recently chatted with Showalter about the making of Leave Ruin, his next album, and the day job that makes him very happy these days.

On the house fire that inspired Leave Ruin:

2003 was a real low point for me. I was on the verge of getting married way too young — that often happens to people in the Midwest where I'm from — and my relationship ended. Three months later, my house burned down. I lost everything except for the stuff in my car and a flannel shirt. I'd just moved to Pennsylvania, and I didn't have many friends, so I just checked into a hotel and started writing songs. It was like therapy for me. It's weird because there's a song on Leave Ruin that's called “End in Flames.” I'd written the chorus back in high school, but after my house burned down, I was messing around with it on the guitar, and the lyrics were describing exactly what I'd just been through: “This is what it feels like / to see the world end in flames.”

On his apocalyptic vision of life in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania:

The environment here in Pennsylvania has definitely influenced me creatively. I love where I'm living. When I first moved to Wilkes-Barre, I felt a connection between the decline of my own life and the economic and physical decline of the town around me. And now I'm living in Bloomsburg, which is kind of a dilapidated, post-industrial town, so I'm writing these post-apocalyptic songs about characters who've survived a nuclear fall-out. There's a giant who comes to town, and people fly over buildings, and I meet John F Kennedy at some point. My new songs are a little more “out there” than the ones on Leave Ruin.

On trying to achieve Neil Young's level of imperfection:

I like how on Neil Young's album Tonight's the Night, he doesn't clean up the things that most artists clean up. Most singers point their mouths at the microphone, but he's always falling away from the mic. Maybe he was drunk. Or maybe he just turned around to look at the bass player or something. But some of the vocal takes, you can't believe someone would intentionally put them on there — even avant-garde bands don't sound that bad. There's something about that imperfection that I just love. Maybe it makes me feel better about the way I sing.

On mourning Pope John Paul II:

There's a song on Leave Ruin called “Sister Evangeline” that was inspired by Pope John Paul II. I'm not Catholic, but I was really moved by his death and I watched all the late-night coverage of it. At one point, I was playing guitar and the television was on in the background, and the bishops were lighting a piece of paper to show that they'd chosen a new pope. I was thinking about how, when you become the pope, you can change your name, but popes always choose these boring names. If I was the pope, I would choose some awesome superhero name. So I started writing songs about this guy called Pope Killdragon. Now I think Pope Killdragon will be the name of my next record.

On what it's like to record an album inside a giant man-made bubble:

We recorded Leave Ruin in a geodesic dome called Dan's House Studio in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The studio is in the basement, but the rest of the building is the same structure as Epcot Center in Disneyworld. My friend Dan McKinney built it himself, and it's so peaceful, just one enormous room with a wood-burning stove. You can sit there and drink Dan's homemade honey wine and watch his two dogs run around. We basically recorded the songs live there. There's something about the spontaneity of first takes that I love. After the second take, you're already thinking too much.

On working as a Hebrew school teacher:

I'm a computer teacher at an Orthodox day school. At first, I didn't think the parents would accept me because I'm not Jewish and I look like an ogre: I have long hair and a beard and I wear Salvation Army suits with mismatched pants. But two or three times a year I write songs with the second graders, and I burn CDs for their parents, and now the community has totally accepted me — they even give me wine for Sabbath. This Thanksgiving, we wrote a song that sounded like the Replacements, and the kids just sank their teeth into it. I also drive the school bus, which is actually a big van. And every morning I put on my tapes and the kids sing songs like Cat Stevens' “Wigwam” at the top of their lungs. At those moments, I'm like, I can't believe I get paid for this. This is the best job in the world.