New album due out later in 2023 via Blue Élan Records
Those who’ve been following the trajectory of modern-day guitar hero Chris Shiflett—outside of his role in Foo Fighters—will already know of his musical mission to unite his SoCal rock roots and Nashville influences to create a fresh new sound altogether. In his latest installment, the longtime country-influenced-rocker called upon a couple of Nashville’s finest practitioners of rock-influenced-country, Jaren Johnston (The Cadillac Three) and John Osborne (Brothers Osborne), to join in on his new single, “Black Top White Lines.” In their initial writing session, the trio kept throwing in line after line until the story was mapped out.
“Thematically it felt like it turned a classic country trope on its head a little,” Shiflett hints.
Arriving on the heels of 2022’s “Born & Raised” and “Long Long Year,” “Black Top White Lines” picks up right where Shiflett left off, albeit a bit more amplified. The quick-tempo song opens with a wall of unison guitars and doesn’t once let up. Thick stacks of different guitar tones (some of which are provided by legendary session man Tom Bukovac and uber-talented multi-instrumentalist Charlie Worsham) ride the pulsing groove provided by drums and bass with lead licks punctuating the bars between each verse. Written with Johnston and Osborne via Zoom in the middle of 2020, it wasn’t until Shiflett and Johnston were working out which songs to record that they realized just how rad “Black Top White Lines” could be.
“Jaren and I were going over song ideas, and it’d been a minute since we wrote it, so when we re-visited the track he was like, ‘Dude you gotta record this one…It’s a banger!,'” remembers Shiflett. “Right away in the studio I could tell it was a bit of a left turn for me musically but that’s also what I like about it.”
“Black Top White Lines” is the first listen from a brand-new Chris Shiflett album due out in 2023 via his new label home at Blue Élan Records, the Los Angeles-based independent label celebrating its ninth anniversary this year. Fans will hear more about the Jaren Johnston-produced LP in the coming months but can count on hearing an album that represents Shiflett’s fully-realized vision of connecting LA to Nashville.
“A big part of my inspiration to work with Jaren on this record was because I knew he’d push me out of my comfort zone into new territory,” Shiflett says.
Last week, Shiflett and his band played Nashville’s famous Ryman Auditorium supporting fellow country rockers, Blackberry Smoke. The group will next cross the pond for a string of sold-out dates in the UK. More are set to be announced in the coming months.
