From underground punk to authentic country outlaw via the biggest band on the planet, Chris Shiflett gets back to his roots. Having rocked some of the biggest stages on the planet, including a recent triumphant headlining performance on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival, Chris Shiflett’s day job as guitarist in Foo Fighters is a pretty sweet gig… but just how many of the devoted Foos followers are aware that while Shiflett riffs out the solos to some of the world’s biggest and most recognisable anthems, they are also watching a devotee of Merle Haggard and Buck Owens? The native of Santa Barbara, California a full-time Foo Fighter since the turn of the century, came to the renowned rockers via the much-missed punk outfit No Use For A Name. Projects outside The Foos in recent years include two albums with his band the Dead Peasants, which dropped subtle hints of Shiflett’s fondness for country and rockabilly. But on his rather splendid new release, West Coast Town, Shiflett dons the Stetson and heads down to Nashville to make a record with über-producer Dave Cobb. A couple of weeks before The Foos’ blistering Glasto headline slot, Chris stopped-off in London for a couple of one-man acoustic shows. As he played selections from the solo venture at his Water Rats gig, his outlaw country credentials were seen by all to be entirely authentic, especially when opening guest Sam Palladio joined him for a turn at Waylon’s Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way. West Coast Town is country with the edges frayed, with an ultra-traditional twang alongside an indie-rock edge. “When I was a kid I had older brothers that had great record collections,” he says. “So in my house growing up that was all we did, listen to music, talk about music, play music. My oldest brother Mike gravitated towards The Stones, The Beatles and Elvis, then as time went on Sabbath, Kiss and Aerosmith. We were a total classic rock family. I didn’t even have to buy records much until I was a teenager and my tastes started to diverge from my older brother’s.” Country was there, in the corner of Chris’ eye, but not the mainstream version. “For me, it kind of started through rockabilly,” says Shiflett. “The Stray Cats were a big deal with me when they first came out, then through that, people like Robert Gordon, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Johnny Burnette. So I really viewed it like that was what started me listening to older music that had that twang to it.” Then the influence of a storied California punk band took a hand. Chris said: “Somewhere around my late teens, Social Distortion started to draw from some of that, and I was, I am, a huge Social Distortion fan. When they started throwing old country covers into their set — and there was a certain look, they would rock that old-fashioned style with the pomade hair and all that – that was really appealing to me, I started going down that road. “Probably like most people, I just started with the obvious stuff, Johnny Cash and people like that. Then when I was in No Use For A Name, Tony Sly [frontman] was really into all the alt-country stuff that was kicking off. To me those bands like Son Volt and that early Wilco stuff, and Ol’ 97s, they were drawing from a lot of that Stonesy rock’n’roll thing, which is totally in my wheelhouse anyway. It made sense to me musically and appealed. So that’s what really led me back.” What If I Say I’m Not Like The Others It was the scenic route, but Shiflett has planted a flag where all those genres intersect, even if he’s pretty sure that his bandmates in the Foos don’t fully empathise. “I would say most definitely not,” he chuckles. “Everybody in the band, just like all musicians, has a pretty wide range of musical tastes, and it’s all different. But no, I don’t think I have any comrades in the twangy country department. “When I first started going down this road, I remember I was out at 606, our studio. I was recording something and a pedal steel player I know was laying down a track. Dave [Grohl] stopped by for something and he walks into the control room, and I’ll never forget the look on his face was classic. He looks at me and goes, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ He’s not going to be putting his cowboy hat on and joining with the country band with me at any point.” Nevertheless, that sense of musical inquisitiveness is a prerequisite to be part of the enduring rock institution that Foo Fighters have become. Shiflett has that to spare, not just in his music, but via his excellent, fortnightly interview podcast series Walking The Floor, of which he’s now made some 90 episodes. As you’d expect from his résumé, the shows have Shiflett jumping with ease from one touchstone to the next, but recent guests have included time-honoured country frontiersmen like Rodney Crowell and Marty Stuart as well as emerging Americana flag-bearers such as Sam Outlaw, Courtney Marie Andrews and Jaime Wyatt. Indeed, it was via that series that he met Dave Cobb (the man behind records by Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, A Thousand Horses and so many more), who would give his album its final coat of Nashville bona fides. “I just cold-called him,” says Shiflett, “because so many of the records I’d listened to over the years were records he produced, and I had this trip planned out to Nashville, because my podcast is pretty much country-Americana, alt-country, roots music-themed. I’m on the west coast and sometimes it’s hard to connect with those artists. “He was one of the interviews we’d lined up and he was like ‘Totally man, come on by, no worries.’ He’s a pretty laid back guy, that’s one of his qualities in the studio, you never felt