Chris Shiflett of Foo Fighters Lays Down Country/Western With ‘West Coast Town’ (INTERVIEW)

 

The last time Chris Shiflett (Foo Fighters) slipped on his cowboy hat and recorded an album, 2013’s All Hat & No Cattle with the Dead Peasants, it had a very traditional, almost homage feel to his classic country idols. Granted, it was an album of covers, but he elected to stay in that vein from whence they came. But this time around, Shiflett, decided to spice up the twang.

With the upcoming April 14th release of West Coast Town, Shiflett has allowed his creative juices to churn, writing or co-writing all ten songs, and peppering them with a more modern and catchy vibe. You can still feel the Buck Owens influence but Shiflett will at times let loose and let his guitar-nado take over for some fun solos (“Still Better Days” being a rip-snorting example). Remember, this guy has punk rock in his blood, not to mention fifteen years with the Foo Fighters. You can’t keep that kind of natural energy down for too long. And producer Dave Cobb was the perfect instigator to bring it out.

Currently on a short tour playing his new songs, the California native hopes to have more time later in the year to play even more dates. Despite his musical history, he does love this kind of music, from the truck driving road songs to the cry of a pedal steel to the honesty in the lyrics. Glide talked with Shiflett, who was in Portland about to play his first live show of the tour, about making West Coast Town, Cobb’s influence, his bloodiest show and of course guitars.

How did it feel to put on the “cowboy hat” again?

It feels pretty good this time around, you know. This record was a while in the making for me, just writing the songs and stuff. I knew when we had some time off that I needed to go make a record at some point and everything lined up to go out to Nashville and make it with Dave Cobb. It was a really special opportunity for me and I’m glad that I was able to do it.

How long did it actually take to do the recording?

We recorded for about three weeks and that was like start to finish. Like, when I walked out of there, my last day in the studio, we finished the final mix at like 3:00 or something and that was that, the record was done.

That’s not too bad

You know, I might be spoiled, but actually this is a long time for me. From the time that I finished it to getting it out, it’s coming out in the middle of April, I feel like I’ve been sitting on this record forever (laughs). I’m just so excited to get it out there.

What is the oldest song on the record?

There were a few old ideas that I sort of hadn’t finished. I think “Tonight’s Not Over” I maybe had kicking around for a little while. There were a couple of them like that but really I’m not good without a deadline. So once I knew I had a deadline and I had to get all my songs ready to record – and I wanted to go out there with more than enough songs – I just started woodshedding. There was about three months leading up to going out to record and I was just working nonstop every day and once you sort of get into that groove then new ideas start to pop up. And most of the stuff was written in that time.

And you wrote or co-wrote all the songs on this record

Yeah, my buddy Brian Whelan, who is a wonderful singer-songwriter, helped me finish off like four of the songs on there that I just felt kind of stuck on. I felt like I had gotten them as good as I could get them but I didn’t feel like they were done, you know. So I got together with him and he tweaked them and helped me out.

This is a lot in the same vein as All Hat & No Cattle but that was a Dead Peasants record. Why is this a Chris Shiflett record now?

The thing with the Dead Peasants, I made a record that was really a solo record. I didn’t have a band. It was called Chris Shiflett & The Dead Peasants, right. So that was my first Dead Peasants record. But once I did that I had to put a band together. So I called some old friends and assembled what became the Dead Peasants but there actually was no band on that record. I just had different people come in and play on it and most of it was just me and my friend Lou [John Lousteau], who played all the drums. So then I sort of put together some guys, some friends, and did some touring for that record. That line-up shifted around but the basic heart of it stayed the same for a while and we made that covers record and did a bunch of shows kind of around that.

But it had been a few years. I was so busy with Foo Fighters through that whole Sonic Highways touring cycle that I just didn’t have time to do Dead Peasants stuff. Then when it came time around this time I had written all these songs and I knew I wanted to make the record. I got the opportunity to make the record with Dave Cobb and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to rehearse a band and get it together to go out and make a record. But I knew that Dave has like this incredible network of musicians that he uses on a lot of his stuff. When I talked to him about it, he was like, “Yeah, I’ll put a band together for you out here. Don’t worry about it. I got it, I got the guys.” And that’s what I did. I knew to make this record and get that experience of having Dave produce it, I just felt like this was the best route to go with it, to just do it as a solo record.

The last record has kind of an old-fashioned country sound to it but this one has a lot more pep to it’s step, especially on “Still Better Days.” Was that your influence or Dave Cobb’s influence?

I think a lot of that was Dave Cobb’s influence. I probably would have leaned a little more into the old style twangy guitar tones and stuff like that cause I love that stuff. But he made the very good point, “You can’t make a record that sounds like 1965. You’ll just get like crucified for it. It’ll be like a kitschy, gimmicky, stupid thing to do.” And he was right. If anything, Dave pushed me to be more rocking on this record. That song that you mentioned, “Still Better Days,” that’s like the one song where I like plugged in a Marshall stack and turned the game way up and just ripped leads on it. That’s the closest to like straight-ahead rock & roll as I think we got on the album. But it’s nice to hear you say that cause working with Dave, he’s not going to make a nostalgia record. He just isn’t. That’s not his thing, you know. I love the balance of the sort of old-school style of some of the recording technique but keeping it fresh and sounding like 2017.

I bet those songs are going to be fun to play because they are so upbeat. Will a lot of them be in your setlist?

Well, I’m pretty much doing the whole record in the setlist and then we’re going to throw in a few cover songs for people. It’s funny, when I did that covers record, did all those shows doing a lot of cover songs, a lot of those old country songs – Buck Owens and Merle Haggard and Wynn Stewart and that kind of stuff – the first thing I noticed was like, wow, this is the first time at my solo gigs that people have a good time (laughs). Sometimes people even dance, you know what I mean. Like, oh wow, this is a different thing. So I wanted to keep that energy, I wanted to have that energy on this new record. I wanted it to be an up feeling record. I didn’t want it to be like a down, dreary, sad kind of record. I tend to sort of go that way. I’ll write sort of minor key, kind of downbeat feeling stuff and I didn’t want to do that on this record at all.

When you write songs, do you have a natural country tint to them or do you have to consciously take the rock and the punk out of them to make them more in this vein?

I think on this record I finally hit the right balance of all those things and it was natural. And the reason that I did that covers record and went through that whole phase thing is that I realized at a certain point, you know, I love country music but I didn’t grow up playing country music. So it’s not like the thing that my hands do, because I sort of came to it as an adult and not when I was a kid, not like in my formative years as a guitar player or performer. So I wanted to go do a lot of shows playing the country music that I love so it could seep in and really be a genuine influence and it has, it worked. That was a whole point for me of doing that record.

What is the biggest difference in your guitar rig going from rock & roll to country?

It’s a much smaller amp and it’s a lot quieter (laughs); and the tone is much cleaner.

Are you using a totally different guitar?

Yeah, for a lot of the time I play a Telecaster, and this gets into some guitar nerdy stuff, but for rock music and punk rock music, I tend to play guitars that have Humbucker pickups in them, and a Telecaster has a single coil, a different tone, that tone that you sort of associate with that twangy snare beat, trebly popping country sound, you know what I mean. Although on this new record, I did play a 1968 non-reverse Firebird a lot on it that’s got P90’s and that was definitely crunchier. I mean, Cobb definitely was pushing me to go more rocking tones on this record and I think that was good advice.

Which guitar did you play on the solo of “Still Better Days”?

That was a Les Paul through a vintage Marshall. You can’t go wrong with that.

When you first started learning to play guitar, what was the hardest thing for you to get the hang of?

Oh man, the hardest thing to get the hang of for me was just making a G chord. You’ve got to understand, I was eleven when I started playing guitar and I’m not like a tall grown-up but when I was eleven I was like a teeny little guy with teeny little hands (laughs). So trying to just stretch my fingers over that big ole guitar neck was hard, man, really hard.

What kind of guitar were you learning on?

The first guitar I took lessons on was probably my brother Mike’s Epiphone acoustic. But then my mom bought me a Takamine Explorer. It was a really goofball little guitar but this was the early eighties (laughs). But that was the thing. I remember for my fifteenth birthday I bought a Les Paul off a friend of mine and I still have it. It’s sitting in my garage. I retired it from the road a long time ago cause I didn’t want anything bad to happen to it. That was like my only guitar for a really long time. When I joined the Foo Fighters, I only had two guitars and that was one of them.

What year is it?

It’s a 1982 Les Paul. It was called a Black Beauty but it’s really not at all like the classic sixties Black Beauty. It’s a different thing.

And you don’t bring that one with you anymore

No, I’m too afraid it will get stolen or broken or something. It would break my heart. There’s not too many guitars I have that deep sort of emotional relationship with but that’s one of them.

Getting back to your new record, which song would you say changed the most from it’s original composition to it’s final recorded version?

Oh without any doubt, “West Coast Town,” the title track. It was radically different the way that I wrote it and the way that I demoed it and that was one that Cobb just completely turned on it’s head and turned it into the song that it became. It’s so much better than the demo that I did, that’s for sure.

To you, what song on this record has the most important lyrics?

I’m kind of torn between that song, “West Coast Town,” cause it’s really, I don’t know, kind of makes me emotional when I sing it because it’s just my life growing up in Santa Barbara, California. But also the last song on the album, “Still Better Days.” It’s really hard for me to write upbeat, happy, positive sounding lyrics cause it’s just not what I do but I wanted to write a love song for my wife and so that’s what that one is all about.

What about “Goodnight Little Rock”?

You know, I love those old truck driving country songs, like, (singing) “I’m a truck driving man” and “Six Days On The Road.” I love songs like that, the trucker country thing I just love, and I wanted to write a song that kind of had that spirit but I wanted to put in my own experience. I’m not a truck driver, never have been, but I’ve been on a lot of punk rock band tours in my lifetime and they’re similar in a sense, you know. That sort of like rolling down the highway and caffeine and speed and that sort of thing (laughs) and you probably need a bath and you haven’t seen home for a while. That’s what that song is all about.

Why did you bring somebody else in to play pedal steel? Don’t you know how to play pedal steel?

No! (laughs) I own a pedal steel. I actually bought a new pedal steel. I’ve got an old pedal steel that is hard to play but I bought a new one when I got back from Nashville cause I was kind of inspired. But it’s mostly just collecting dust in my office right now. But that’s like one of those things, someday I’m just going to spend like five years and really figure out how to work that thing (laughs). But it’s funny, Robby Turner, who played all the steel on the record, I said that to him, “Man, I’m just trying to learn how to pitch on that thing.” And he started laughing and was like, “Yeah me too.” (laughs) He’s a master.

Do you remember the first country song you ever tried to learn to play or perform live?

Ooh, that’s a tough one. You know, I don’t remember specifically what it was but I remember when I first started trying to play country music with some other people. It was like a bunch of friends of mine and none of us were like country musicians and I remember we rehearsed and I just thought to myself, what the fuck am I doing wrong? This just does not sound right at all (laughs). I’m playing the right chord but I don’t know. It really took me some time to wrap my head around it. It’s like, I play country music through the lens of rock & roll and punk rock. I’m certainly not like any kind of polished country music player. I never would have made it in Nashville, that’s for sure. I still couldn’t make it in Nashville (laughs). They are way too good out there.

How do you go from punk to country?

They’re kindred spirits. Like for me, you can draw a straight line from guys like Hank Williams and Merle Haggard and that sort of spirit of country music right to like the Clash and the Pogues and Social Distortion. You look around now and there’s so many like punk rock music veterans that are making records that kind of lean on roots music and classic country sounds. There are a lot of us out there.

So are you going to do a Ramones style country album next?

I could! (laughs) You never know.

Who was the first real rock star you ever met?

I would have to think about that, because when I was a teenager and first started going to shows, I would go see bands in clubs and I would get there like at 3:00 in the afternoon. I’d watch the band load in, I’d watch them soundcheck, I’d just sit around. You know, I was just THAT kid. I would stand outside the backstage door and wait for somebody to walk out. I definitely remember being in high school and listening to Iggy Pop playing in an over-21 club in Santa Barbara and waiting until he zipped out to get on his tour bus and drive away. I don’t think I could honestly say I met him but I was standing close by as him and his band walked by (laughs).

Now were you under twenty-one that night?

(laughs) I was way under twenty-one. I was like fifteen or something.

What was the first song that you obsessed over as a kid?

I just listened to my brother’s music but I think when I finally started choosing which record we’d put on the turntable, it was definitely KISS and I’m going to say probably the first song I really got stuck on was “Strutter.” There’s the original version that opens with that drum fill and then the version on Double Platinum called “Strutter 78” that they re-recorded and really the only thing they changed was it does the drum fill twice at the beginning. So it could have been the drum fill (laughs).

And yet you ended up a guitar player

(laughs) Yeah, go figure

What was your most painful injury onstage?

Oh I remember it well. I was in a band called No Use For A Name and it was the first time I ever toured in Europe and we did this really long tour where we just played every night and never had nights off. And we were playing somewhere in Germany, I want to say it was Cologne, and the club was so hot and sweaty and crazy and just steamy. You know that feeling when you sit in the pool too long and your fingers get all wrinkled up and soft? Well that happened, right. So that’s what my hands were doing, and this is like fast punk rock music so I’m like sliding around on my guitar and I just cut my finger open right where the string goes. I was in the middle of this tour so for the rest of the tour I would have to superglue the cut shut every night, which would only really last for a couple of songs and then it would split open and bleed all over the place again. It was a nightmare.

Did you keep playing when that happened?

Oh yeah, of course (laughs). Can’t quit. It was good for the show (laughs).

When was your first big I can’t believe I’m here moment?

When I joined Foo Fighters, we did a couple of shows and then flew over to London to do a bunch of promo. I joined right before they put out their third record [There Is Nothing Left To Lose]. I didn’t play on that record but I was there for all the sort of promotional stuff. So we fly over to London, we get off the plane, we go check in at the hotel, and you’ve got to bear in mind, I didn’t know the guys in the band at all at the time. I literally just met them when I joined the band so I’m just kind of finding my footing, getting to know everybody. And Taylor [Hawkins] says, “Hey, I’m going to have dinner with Brian May tonight. You want to go with me?” I was like, yeah (laughs). And next thing you know, we’re in the lobby with Brian May from Queen and there he is with his giant hair and his clogs on and we walked in like an Indian food restaurant around the corner and I’m sitting there having dinner with Brian May. I was like pinching myself going, well, how the fuck did I get here? (laughs)

Were you cool or did you fanboy on him and ask a lot of questions?

You know, I don’t remember but I think probably Taylor was asking all the Queen trivia questions so I probably didn’t have to (laughs)

How is the rest of your year looking?

Well, I’ve got these dates, got a couple things after that and then we start up doing some Foo Fighters shows in the summer. We’re going to do that for a little while and then beyond that, I’m not sure exactly what’s happening after that. If I get some cracks in my schedule and I can play some more dates, I’m definitely going to do it.

 

Live photographs by Dan DeSlover; portrait by Brantley Gutierrez

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