Country Gentleman
Total Guitar|May 2017

Away from his Foo Fighters day job, Chris Shiflett bleeds country. Now on his third solo album, Chris has teamed up with alt-country linchpin, Dave Cobb to deliver his finest solo work yet. TG sat down with the guitarist to talk tones, Teles and writer’s block…

Stuart Williams
Country Gentleman

This is your third album, do you feel more comfortable as a frontman?

“Well, it definitely gets more comfortable every time. This one wasn’t really done with a band exactly, because I used Dave Cobb’s go-to session guys out there – who were absolutely fantastic. I really tried to just defer to Dave on a lot of the shaping of the record, and he had a huge impact. I tried to soak up what him and his guys did, and just to be totally open to whatever direction he guided me down. It was really fun, I honestly felt like a lot of the time I was hardly paying attention to what everyone else was doing, and just trying to keep up!”

You co-wrote four of the songs with your friend, Brian Whelan, is this the first time you’ve collaborated on your solo work?

“It’s something I haven’t done a lot of until this past year. It’s fun, with Brian it was great because I had these song ideas that I felt stuck on. So it was just great to have another person’s take on it. He made some tweaks that I feel like made the songs way stronger. Just little changes that I hadn’t thought of, sometimes it’s good to get another set of ears on them. I’ve known Brian for years, he’s a good buddy and a solo artist in his own right, an incredible multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter, I knew that he could bring something good.”

How does the writing process work for you personally?

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