I had the good fortune of seeing Sean Cahalin — aka Strangeness in Proportion — perform at Harper and Penny’s in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, when DelCobras shared a bill with him. One surprisingly raucous set later, I was a fan. I say “surprisingly” because Strangeness in Proportion is ostensibly an acoustic act. Looks, however, can be deceiving, as Sean plays his guitar through a series of effects pedals that convert his picking and strumming into a wall of sound. To find out more, I dropped him a line.

Strangeness in Proportion is a cool name. I’m wondering, though: Strangeness in Proportion to what?

I was trying to think of some clever, cheeky answer to this but couldn’t think of anything good enough, so I’ll just give the literal explanation behind the band name.  Strangeness In Proportion is based off of a quote by Edgar Allen Poe that reads “there is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness within the proportion” which really jumped out at 14-year-old me for whatever reason, and that’s the name that stuck!

You’re a singer-songwriter who ostensibly plays acoustic guitar, but you play it through a chain of effects pedals. What’s in your effects chain, or is that proprietary knowledge?

No, I love talking about my pedals!  My live performances are very different from my studio recordings just because on stage I am simply one guy with one guitar, I can only do so much. But I try to keep it entertaining, unique, and energetic with my high volume and pedals. I’ll include an old picture of my board so you get an idea. It hasn’t really changed.

So we start on the bottom right corner with a repurposed Scooby-Doo plug n play joystick, that’s a booster pedal that has the slightest bit of fuzz included the higher the knob is up; I got this pedal from Cascade Pedals. Then that goes into my Boss Distortion, absolutely classic and always necessary.  Next we have the Vacillate by Tenacity Pedals. This is a subtle phase pedal, I also have the MXR Phase 90 which is classic but it’s a bit too intense, it’s like the vacillate because it’s just added texture instead of forming an entire sound around it, and they’re a small local company who I love to support.  That goes into my Electro-Harmonix Ocean’s 11 which was my second pedal ever, I believe. This is a reverb pedal with over 11 different types of reverb and lots of variety and fun sounds you can mess around with. That takes us up to the top right with the crayon overdrive (I don’t use this pedal anymore, I’m happier just using my boss distortion).  Then there is the Super Fuzz Boy, a fuzz pedal made out of a Gameboy shell, made by Raygun FX, super cool and super fuzzy of course.  Then we finish off with the T-120 by Demedash.  This pedal is so insane and impractical. Basically, it’s entire gimmick is it tries to sound like a broken VHS tape. It has endless settings to make all sorts of incredibly strange sounds. It works well for me as a solo artist because I’m not bound by whatever key the rest of the band is playing in, I can just make whatever noise I want. That pedal is super cool and a lot of fun to experiment with. I love putting things through it that shouldn’t go through it, like keyboard and vocals. It’s a blast. 

How did you develop your approach to playing?

I started writing music when I was around 14 years old, so naturally there was a lot of growth and progression there. At the beginning, I was very diligent about not recording songs that I couldn’t play live, but of course that got really tiresome and redundant very quickly as I was just a whiney kid with an acoustic guitar and nothing else. And naturally my writing grew and got more in-depth. As I wrote songs, I would have some level of an idea if it would be a song I’d play live often, and then I would try planning how to translate the studio recording to a live setting. I think they’re both very unique experiences (I 100% think my studio work is much better than my live performances, but that’s just me) but I try to keep everything as engaging as possible. 

Do you have any influences? Are there other artists who do what you do?

When I started playing guitar around 12, I was super into classic rock. Stuff like AC/DC, Blue Oyster Cult, Twisted Sister, Pink Floyd, stuff like that, then middle school hit and I started getting really into pop-punk and emo like blink-182, my chemical romance, fall out boy, etc.  Growing up, I always leaned more into alternative stuff, I liked Simple Plan, Bowling For Soup, All-American Rejects when I was really young, so the pipeline was mostly inevitable. Once I went down the rabbit hole, I started getting into all the Warped Tour bands, and to this day The Wonder Years are my favorite band of all time. Lansdale 4ever. And especially once I started releasing my own music, I started really seeking out other small musicians like me. I would often sift through bandcamp or Tumblr or Facebook groups to find the smallest, most unknown music I could find. That got me really into folk punk music for a while and of course The Front Bottoms were huge for my inspiration.  Over the last few years I’ve really made an effort to explore music outside of my “main genre”, but as of lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Carly Cosgrove, The Flat Stanleys, Petey USA, Palette Knife, Arm’s Length, The Menzingers, I could go on forever. So long story short, yes of course, I have tons and tons and tons of influences. I’d say Aaron West & The Roaring Twenties did imperative work to get me where I am now as far as songwriting and performing. As for other acts that do what I do, I’m sure there’s a billion of them. I’m not sure how many acoustic artists I listen to that use pedals, but I certainly can’t be the only one. 

Your Bandcamp logo features an altered image of Edgar Allan Poe. I’m thinking of his explanation of the perverse, from his short work “The Imp of the Perverse.” He says we perpetrate perverse acts “because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this there is no intelligible principle; and we might find, indeed, deem this perverseness a direct instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it not occasionally known to operate in the furtherance of good.” Does this description apply to your music in any way?

I’ve honestly never thought about that, and of course I shared the story behind the band name and how the band is inherently very intertwined with Poe.  I think the psychology of people is so fascinating, the way a brain can take over and argue with itself and deliberately self-sabotage or give into intrusive thoughts or chaos or whatever it may be.  Honestly, trying to critically analyze that quote,  it’s punk as fuck.  It seems like Poe is really saying to go against the grain and shake things up, upset people, make changes to the world, etc. I don’t think it wholeheartedly applies to my music, it’s not a mantra I’m constantly thinking about by any means. However, when I first started playing music in middle school, I started with a band. I could barely play guitar and I couldn’t sing to save my life (I tried plenty of times).  And ultimately when the band split up, I was left alone with myself, a pen and paper, and a guitar. I learned real quick that if I had lyrics to write, I was going to have to be the one to sing them. My first album was recorded on a 2014 phone and an external computer Webcam mic I had from maybe 2008 or 2009. I did one, maybe two, takes of every song and refused to listen to them. I just hit record,  did my best, and stashed it away until the album was done. Because I KNEW that if I listened to my terrible vocals, I would get discouraged, give up, and scrap everything. But I was determined to put out my first album. I’m kind of rambling at this point. What was the question?  Oh yeah, Poe. Yeah Poe is cool.  I’d say my first couple albums are pretty perverse.  No good. Not one bit. 

You’ve also recorded an EP in a cemetery. Is that right? 

Back during covid, probably fall or winter of 2021, I met up with a very talented friend who operated “Cemetery Tapes” which was a channel where they would record live sessions of bands all around Pennsylvania. They were so friendly and generous, it was a great experience. Unfortunately, Cemetery Tapes is no longer around, but I wish them well and am so grateful to have been a part of it.

I understand you have a somewhat fraught relationship with a band called Fish Zoo. What’s going on there? 

Fuck fish zoo,  I hate fish zoo!  They have harassed me for years, they keep sending me packages of weird exotic fish, and the things they do with my MOTHER!  Goodness gravy gracious oh my goodness I just can’t, oh golly gee.  Their malpractice within the comfort of a laundry room is DESPICABLE!!!!!!  I HATE FISH ZOO! HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE!!!!!!  

Judging by your Bandcamp page, it looks like you’ve been making and releasing music for nearly a decade. What keeps you going? 

SUCH A GOOD QUESTION! I have no idea. It’s some sort of ancient curse that befalls upon me. No matter how hard I try to take a break from music, it keeps coming back to me. I think I just really love music, and I get these jingles in my head that I have to explore, it’s a really nasty itch and it’s constant 

And you maintain the CD-ROM Rabbit Hole blog. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yes, of course!  CD-ROM Rabbit Hole launched on September 13th, 2024. My mission was to give smaller, up-and-coming musicians a platform in the spotlight to positively analyze their music. As of right now, I release a review, interview, or inter-review (a combination of review and interview) biweekly on Fridays.  I am most active on Instagram @cdrom_rabbithole and my site is https://cdromrabbithole.wixsite.com/cd-rom-rabbit-hole 

For the one year anniversary, I put together a cover compilation album that consisted entirely of the bands previously featured on my site, and they are covering songs by other bands featured on my site.  It is available at Bandcamp on digital, CD, or cassette tape. Digital download starts at $1 minimum (pay what you want) and ALL PROCEEDS, every single cent, will be donated to Rock To The Future. They are an organization that provides musical instruments and lessons for underprivileged/at-risk kids in and around the Philadelphia area. It’s a great cause and this anniversary compilation is so incredible, I can’t believe it. Please consider donating to that and maybe discover your new favorite underground band over on my website! 

What’s on the horizon for you? 

My most recent album, “Anything More Than Fractional” just turned one year old on August 30th, and I released a new piece of merch on Bandcamp, which will appeal to the card collectors out there!  I found a great handful of incredibly talented musicians and together we designed custom Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon cards that are all inspired by the album. It took us many months to put this all together I personally think they’re incredible. Other than that, nothing super concrete happening anytime soon, nothing big to announce just yet, however, I am writing new songs, I intend on them being a continuation of AMTF, and I’m very excited to flesh those songs out and see what they can become. 

Thanks so much for having me!