Having played guitar for an remarkable array of outfits over the years, including No Use For A Name, covers band Me First & The Gimmie Gimmie’s and currently the mighty Foo Fighters, Chris Shiflett has very much stepped into the limelight as frontman and crux member of his own band Jackson United. In-between tours with Dave Grohl and co., Shiflett has found time to write debut album ‘Western Ballads’, which throughout the impressive fourteen tracks fuses rock-leanings with glorious pop melodies. Gigwise caught up with Mr Shiflet to get the low-down on all, while he was on these shores touring the album…

Gigwise: it’s a relatively small, low-key tour, how was the opening night?
Chris: “Last night was super-fun! Thing’s are good, yeah! I didn’t know what to expect in Nottingham, we’d never been there before; I’d never been there before, but it was good. We had a good time.”

G: How was the audience? Was the atmosphere hampered by the relative low-key promotion the tour has received?
C: “I think that, err, British audiences are more celebratory or something. They chant and sing and swig beer more. It just feels more like a party.”

G: You’ve been in some pretty important bands, how’s your dynamic within the band differed with each time?
C: “What I'm doing in this band is so much different to what I am doing in the other bands that it just changes everything, but at the heart of it, it’s just guitar, bass and drums with someone shouting over it, so it’s not that different But this band is unknown, The Gimmie Gimmie’s are well known, and the Foo Fighters are well known, so you get a very different comfort level when you tour.”

G: You’re coping with tiny venues again then?
C: “Oh, we’ve got a lot of shithole little clubs in America too…”

G: What influences – both musically and generally – have gone into the making of ‘Western Ballads’? What fused together to create the album?
C: “Well, erm… I did it over such a long period of time that it was such a weird experience. I recorded a bunch of music, and then I got busy with Foo Fighters stuff and then went on tour, and then I’d come back and chip away at the songs; record little bits and pieces and sit with them for a while and then go back and change stuff, so it took a really long time to get it done. There were so many things going through my head throughout that time, y’know? But I’d just moved back to California when I started the whole thing, so I think that kinda inspired me to go do it.”

G: With Jackson United, and with Dave (Grohl) launching Probot, are the Foo’s still going to go on, or are you coming to the point we’re you’re going to go your separate ways?
“Ah no, I can’t imagine we’ll be going our separate ways soon. We’ve just built this gigantic studio in LA, and I think everyone is really happy with where things are at with the band. I mean, who knows? You never know with the band, Dave could change his mind tomorrow, I don’t know, but it feels like things are really good.”

G: And how are you coping with two bands? Do you get any conflict having the two bands on the go?
C: “Well, up to a point I had all the time off, so it was easy to do it, but once Foo Fighters got busy again it got hard. We had to cancel a tour over here at the last minute back in October which sucked, and I didn’t want to have another situation like that, so when this tour came up I made sure it wasn’t going to have to be cancelled, and then even still it almost had to be cancelled again.”

G: How’s the band doing in the US?
“We’re not really doing shit in the US. We’ve not really done a proper tour since the first one we did. America is so fucking hard to tour, just ‘cos of the size of it. We’ve done some West Coast stuff though…”

G: Yeah, that’s the biggest complaint of most bands, the sheer economics of touring the US. You must be finding the UK easier to navigate?
“I’d say so, yeah. So far at least…”

G: Were the Foo’s asked to become involved with Live8?
C: “Yeah, we were asked to play the Berlin leg – I think – but we were already booked to do Roskilde that day, so we couldn’t do it.”

G: What kind of impact do you think Live8 has made then?
C: “That remains to be seen. Anyone would have to agree they were successful in raising awareness for the issue, but whether that parlays into solid help, we probably won’t know that for a long time, but saying that, I believe that all the leaders of the G8 are a bunch of fucking scumbag crooks, so I wouldn’t believe anything they say period.”

G: Yeah, you have to wonder how many bands prioritised sales over public awareness. You mentioned Roskilde; how did that go? What other festivals have you got lined up this summer?
“Oh Roskilde was fucking awesome! That was a great festival! Obviously we’ve got Reading and Leeds, and then there’s one outside Paris and I know we’re gonna be in Portugal… and I think Germany. I don’t really remember. We don’t have an up-to-date calendar. I think that’s how they like to keep it; you never kind of know what the fuck you’re doing, y’know?”