Chris Shiflett finds being a solo artist “challenging”.
The Foo Fighters guitarist released his third solo record, ‘Lost at Sea’ this year, but he admitted it took a lot of time to adjust to being the sole figure in the spotlight.
Asked how it was transitioning from sideman to frontman, he told Classic Rock: “Challenging.”
“Guitar playing is my comfort zone. But to be the singer and then also have to talk to the crowd, I had to work at that. What you realize is that people want to have a good time. They’ve hired a sitter, bought tickets, bought a few drinks, maybe bought a t-shirt, they’ve invested in the evening,” he explains, “So that’s my job up on stage, to provide them with a good time. Once I figured that out, things got a lot better.”
Chris Shiflett, “Dead and Gone”
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The 52-year-old musician also hosts two podcasts, ‘Walking The Floor’ and ‘Shred With Shifty’ and he admitted he was driven by a desire to always be busy and not waste time.
“To be honest, I’m not good at downtime,” he said, “I have to be playing, learning something new all the time.”
“The older I’ve gotten, I’ve been sort of gripped by this feeling of, ‘Damn, I wasted so much time when I was younger!’ And you never get that back. I’m lucky that I’ve been able to do music full-time. And I want to keep doing it,” Shiflett adds.
When it comes to writing music, Chris is determined not to get too nostalgic.
He offers, “I think we’re all overly nostalgic and kind of overly sentimental. With songwriting, I’m constantly digging into earlier periods in my life. And I find myself pushing back against that because too much nostalgia is a dangerous thing. I try to write in the present. I have a pretty happy life, but I’m not comfortable with happy-go-lucky, zip-a-dee-doo-dah songs. There’s real life stuff that happens over time – friends dying, thoughts of mortality – and some of these songs really sort of speak to that.”
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