The first song I remember hearing
The Beatles – ‘Tell Me Why’
“One of my early memories is looking through my older brother Mike’s record collection and staring at the cover for ‘A Hard Day’s Night’. I must have been two years old… the mid-’70s… There’s a melancholy to [the song], you know, that I think always appealed to me and kind of informed my taste forever.”
The first album I bought
KISS – ‘Double Platinum’
“I had older brothers who had records, so I didn’t buy my first until I was probably in sixth grade… Ace Frehley was my original guitar hero and we were absolutely obsessed with KISS in their mid-’70s heyday… I bought it at Sound Factory record store in Santa Barbara, California, where I grew up. I still have all my vinyls from when I was a kid. But they’re all fucked up and super scratched!”
The first gig I went to
Ronnie James Dio at the Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara, 1984
“It was on the ‘Holy Diver’ tour – and I went with my older brothers. I was very nervous that there would be a riot or something because there were all those mythologies in those days of people being trampled to death and all that stuff… In the end, there was no riot but it was absolutely wonderful. I was like, ‘Give me more of this!’”
The song that reminds me of home
Keith Whitley – ‘Would These Arms Be In Your Way’
“I always get really homesick when I’m on tour, especially when we’re outside of the US. I seem to always listen to more country than anything else. It just makes me feel comforted. We were just down in New Zealand doing some shows and I was on a Keith Whitley tear – just going back and listening to all the bluegrass stuff he did… There’s just something about his music that strikes a chord with home.”
The song I wish I’d written
Eagles – ‘Hotel California’
“The real answer is: every good song I hear. But this one continually pops up. I wish I had played the guitar solo. And the royalties wouldn’t be bad either. We’d be able to afford better hotels and maybe an upgrade from the Sprinter van we’re going to take on [my solo] tour in March.”
The song I can’t get out of my head
Aaron Raitiere – ‘Time Will Fly’
“He’s my friend and a great songwriter. He put out a really good record a couple of years ago [‘Single Wide Dreamer’] with this song on that I just go back to all the time. In New Zealand on the last tour… I was driving up the east coast to go surf with some friends on our days off. It was a bit of a drive, an hour plus, and I’d just listen to music, particularly this song.”
The song that never gets old
Foo Fighters – ‘Everlong’
“We always close the show with this and it gets me every time. When those opening chords kick in, and then you hear the drums. It’s a funny thing with Foos because I didn’t play on the first three records [‘Everlong’ appears on second album ‘The Colour And The Shape’]. I have a different relationship with music that I helped make compared to the music that I didn’t have anything to do with.”
The song that makes me want to dance
The Prodigy – ‘Out Of Space’
“I saw them on that first record [1992’s ‘Experience’] tour and they played at the Palladium in Hollywood… but I don’t remember them having any dancers. It was just the main dude Liam Howlett obscured behind a wall of keyboards… In the early ’90s when I first moved to LA and I was a young musician, trying to play around town, there was all this alt-rock stuff happening but there was also all this great music coming out of the UK – and I loved a lot of it, including that first Prodigy record.”
The song that makes me cry
Billy Joe Shaver – ‘Live Forever’ (with Big & Rich)
“I’ve actually tried to play it at a couple of memorial things and I literally couldn’t get through it. It honestly makes me start to tear up even thinking about it. There’s just something about that song and the lyric and the melody and the way it hits me in the gut. It’s emotional and kind of overwhelming.”
The song I do at karaoke
Duran Duran – ‘Save A Prayer’
“I’ve only done karaoke a couple times and the time that sticks out in my head, I tried to do this song and just fucking butchered it. It’s so hard. I think I actually gave up about halfway through and just dropped the mic right off the stage… It was in New York and I was with a few buddies. Luckily it was low-key and before cell phones, cameras and TikTok.”
The song I want played at my funeral
Hanoi Rocks – ‘Beating Gets Faster’
“It’s a love song and it’s got a little melancholy but it’s still kind of up, you know? I think it hits the right notes. I hope I go peacefully in my sleep… I want to be, like, 100 years old.”
Chris Shiflett returns to the UK and Ireland this March for his headline solo tour. His new album ‘Lost At Sea’ is out now via Snakefarm
