The difference between Chris Shiflett's solo material and his better-known work as a guitarist for the Foo Fighters goes deeper than the sonic divide between classic country reference points and arguably the last great American rock 'n' roll band.
Indeed, the creation of new solo single "Dead and Gone" differs from Shiflett's role in a laundry list of Foo Fighters classics. That's in large part because of the collaborative spirit that permeates Americana and country music. Instead of writing and recording with a self-contained rock band, Shiflett works with a changing cast of talents the caliber of Cadillac Three member and producer Jaren Johnson and such jacks-of-all stringed instruments as Charlie Worsham.
"You can't beat Nashville as far as the level of musicianship and producers and engineers and mixers, all that stuff," Shiflett told Wide Open Country. "It's an amazing town, and I've been lucky to get to work there a bunch in the last, I don't know, however long it's been. I've made basically three records there with a bunch of great players."
A Rock Hall inductee with a storied punk rock past, Shiflett can't wrap his mind around the proficiency and efficiency of Music City's modern A-team of session musicians.
"You go in there and you play with these folks that are so good that it really elevates your music, and they do it real quick. It's wild," Shiflett said. "I'm always a little nervous going into those rooms, and that's the thrill of it for me. I'm just focused on trying to hold down what I'm doing, and I'm hardly paying attention to what anybody else is doing.
"Then you listen back to what you've recorded, and a bunch of the stuff that is the hookiest and jumps out at me, it's not me playing it," he continued. "It's something Charlie [Worsham] came up with or somebody else in the room. That's the collaborate part of the whole thing that's so much fun."
Shiflett's solo offerings — 2017's West Coast Town, 2019's Hard Lessons and a forthcoming LP that's arriving in the fall— contribute to his home state of California's country legacy, which encompasses everything from Buck Owens' Bakersfield Sound to The Blasters' cowpunk rebellion. A common thread in this lineage is what Shiflett described as "far more direct storytelling" than you'd expect to hear in rock with "nothing esoteric or particularly poetic about it."
There's nothing cryptic about the lyrics of "Dead and Gone," which deconstruct Shiflett's real-life sorrow over hometown peers he's outlived.
"From verse to verse, I'm talking about different people I grew up with," Shiflett explained. "I wrote it during COVID lockdown in 2020, and it's a sad fact of modern life that oftentimes you learn about your old friend passing away by Facebook posts. Not even ones that say what happened.
"A crazy amount of people from my hometown have passed away over the years, for one reason or another," he continued. "Most of it is dark stuff, you know: a lot of drug-related stuff. When you get to the age I'm at, there's the people that die young, and then there's the people that just start wearing out because they've been living hard for a long time."
As a well-crafted country song should, "Dead and Gone" speaks to others' experiences despite being tied to a specific time and place. Indeed, it'll remind listeners far beyond California's borders of their own bouts with grief. For Shiflett, these memories go beyond a handful of snapshots of dearly-departed friends.
"Right after I joined Foos, my dad passed away," Shiflett said. "I still have this sometimes, but for the longest time something good would happen or I'd be somewhere and see something cool, and my first instinct was, 'I want to call my dad.'"
