Chris Shiflett grew up in Santa Barbara and went on to become a guitar player in some of the biggest bands in the world — Foo Fighters, No Use for a Name, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Now he’s got a new solo record out, a summation of all that came before: Hard Lessons, released June 14, is a record full of rocking retrospection. I spoke to Shiflett about the recording process, heartache, and the good old days of Santa Barbara’s music scene.
Has your work become more autobiographical over the course of your career? Without any doubt. I’ve taken such a different view on lyrics — I used to write lyrics kind of just as an afterthought, because you had to. My whole perspective on writing lyrics has changed a lot over the years. I don’t think of my music as being straightforward country music at all; rock people call it country, and country people call it cowpunk. It’s really neither. It’s sort of all the influences of what I’ve listened to over the years get jumbled together. The country-music lyrical side of things is where I’ve been influenced the most. Country tends to be stories; rock tends to be esoteric poetic ramblings.
Producer David Cobb wanted you to use a Marshall JCM800 guitar amp for this record. How did it shape the sound? It shaped it in a big way. Cobb had that in mind for whatever reason. The JCM800 kind of became the center piece for the guitar tone; it’s on just about every song, I think. It’s certainly a more rock ’n’ roll record than the last one.