In her forthcoming book Riding with the Ghost, Erin Osmon traces the curious path taken by Jason Molina, from his childhood outside Cleveland through his harrowing final days in and out of rehab for alcohol abuse. The beloved singer-songwriter’s life is a now well-worn tale of hard shifts and dark blues: His restless periods of productivity were met by disquieting stretches of silence, his unthinkably sparse solo work turned at one point towards rollicking Southern rock with a rotating cast of vocalists, and his moniker changed to anything but his own name (from Songs: Ohia to Magnolia Electric Co. in 2003). Osmon navigates these twists and turns seamlessly, telling the story with intimacy via Molina’s loved ones. And like Molina’s own writing, Osmon is at turns hilarious and heartbreaking, subtle and visceral.

Among Riding with the Ghost’s most memorable passages are instances of Molina’s fandom, from his unconditional love for Sade and his evangelizing of Kraftwerk to Damien Jurado, to his edict to bandmates to study Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush. Molina’s passion rings through these pages, nowhere more distinctly than in the retelling of the fateful interaction that launched his career while studying at Oberlin College (where he was known as “Sparky”). Will Oldham—AKA Bonnie “Prince” Billy, then operating as Palace Brothers—became one of Molina’s first fans, after being handed a mysterious tape by Molina’s buddies following a show and taking the singer-songwriter’s advice to write him a letter. Two years later, Oldham would release Molina’s first single on his Drag City subsidiary—a thread picked up soon thereafter by Oldham superfans the Swanson Brothers, who co-founded the Secretly Canadian label. “He seemed so mythological at the time,” Ben Swanson recalls of Molina, “We thought his music was perfect.” Needless to say, the Swansons weren’t the only ones who thought so.

In the 1994–95 school year, Molina moved from the dorms into a shared dive at 181 West College Avenue—dubbed “House of Boys” due to its lack of women roommates and the maturity level of its inhabitants. Here, Molina wrote the song “Boys” as a jab at his older roommates who treated him like a little brother. Tom Colley from WOBC lived there, along with Jeff Panall and Dave LaCrone from Chicken Hatchet and a few other roommates. The house was an incubator of creativity and hijinks, where local bands often played in the kitchen or living room. “That house was ground zero for a certain gang,” explained roommate Eoin Russell, who became infamous for wearing his Harley Davidson black leather pants 666 days in a row. “We just started hanging out and overlapping, and here was an extended crew of about 50 people.” Russell and Molina especially bonded over their deep affection for heavy metal and classic rock, acts like Metallica and Motorhead, but also Deep Purple and Boston, “which were not the coolest things in the mid-’90s,” Russell added. Russell and Molina looked the part, too, with their long hair.

The friends bonded over music and art, but also teenage-boy mischief. This often involved drinking, and to excessive amounts. But no one witnessed Molina partaking beyond one or two beers. “I knew him as sort of a teetotaler or a total lightweight,” friend Max Winter said. “In the fall of ’94 some buddies and I went to Cleveland to go to the Great Lakes Brewery, and he wanted us to bring him back a growler of Elliot Ness Porter,” he added. “He drank like a quarter of it and passed out. He seemed really unfamiliar with the process of drinking.”