December 26, 2013 should have been an exciting time for Strand Of Oaks mainman Tim Showalter. It was Christmas, he had just written and recorded a batch of songs that saw him reborn and rejuvenated and he was getting ready to mix his fourth full length album. Unfortunately for the gifted tunesmith, on that night both he and his wife were involved in a car accident with a semi-truck resulting in “pretty severe” head trauma and busted up ribs. What was already a fairly troubling time for Tim, who was questioning his life’s direction at this point, had just got worse. Much worse.

However, rather than retreat into a blackened cave in a bid to escape from the world, Showalter used this near death experience to make a life-affirming album that’s full of cathartic classic rock songs which he tellingly titled HEAL. When we caught up with the cheery songwriter between tours, we asked him what it’s like to perform some pretty dark tunes about an even darker period of his life.
“I was actually scared to do these songs live. When you make a record it’s by yourself (for me anyway). It’s a solitary thing. It’s a pretty safe environment and I can be who I need to be to record. I was very nervous at the first live show back. The second we started playing I realised this is why I wrote these songs.
“We’ve been touring since the beginning of the summer: my experience is the opposite of what I thought was going to happen. They make me feel better. I feel I could run a marathon after I play these shows. A lot of times I just jump out into the audience and hug everybody and go ‘Holy shit, we did this together. We’re all in this.’”
Adopting a classic rock sound this time around, Tim tells us HEAL is the album he was born to make.
“Classic rock is almost programmed into our minds. It’s life-affirming. What attracted me was a mixture of the history of it and being disillusioned with how records are put together these days. At a certain point, musicians stopped taking risks. Bands were built for safety and perhaps fashion, which isn’t what rock ‘n’ roll was initially designed for. It was to piss off your parents; make you put your fist in the air, drive your car too fast.
“Maybe that’s an idealised version of rock ‘n’ roll. Shit – that’s all we have. I wanted to make a record that me at 15 would have bought and head-banged to and drank cheap beers to.
Maybe it’s the mid life crisis [laughs] but it feels good to be doing it!”
With a guest appearance from Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis (“Sometimes in the music world you don’t get time to stop and go ‘Holy shit,’ but this was a holy shit moment,” laughs Tim), HEAL feels like his first record and the songwriter is excited about the future.
“I feel like this is the music I’ve wanted to make my whole life and somehow I’m able to do it now,” he concludes. “ Man, I’m pumped to get back home and get another record done. I feel energised, ready to rock.”

HEAL is out now on Dead Oceans.