Origins is a recurring series giving artists a space to break down everything that went into their latest release. Today, Chris Shiflett takes us through “Damage Control,” the latest single from his upcoming album, Lost at Sea.
Foo Fighters guitarist Chris Shiflett has revealed his newest solo record, Lost at Sea, will be out October 20th via Blue Élan Records. Along with the announcement, Consequence is exclusively premiering his new single, “Damage Control.”
Lost at Sea was recorded primarily in Nashville with producer Jaren Johnston of the Cadillac Three. Other collaborators on the album include fellow guitarists Charlie Worsham, Tom Bukovac, and Nathan Keeterle. See the artwork and tracklist below.
Featuring a laidback tone, shuffling rhythm section, and country rock embellishments, Shiflett has affectionally dubbed “Damage Control” as “Ska-mericana.” An amalgamation of the songwriter’s stylistic interests, Shifflet points to acts like The Clash as one of the primary influences for the track’s idiosyncratic feel.
“I’m playing the Clash-y stab guitar line and then you have Charlie Worsham with the acoustic guitar and banjo and Nate Ketterlee bringing the spooky sound effects,” he explains to Consequence. “I don’t think I referenced my musical inspiration to the other fellas when we recorded basic tracks but that’s kind of the beauty of it all — we’re all hearing it differently and I didn’t wanna overly influence what they did.”
Listen to Chris Shiflett’s “Damage Control” below, followed by his breakdown of the song’s Origins.
“Damage Control” follows previous singles “Dead and Gone” and “Black Top White Lines,” both of which also feature on Lost at Sea. In support of the record, Shiflett is scheduled to fit in a few solo performances (tickets available here) between his slew of dates with Foo Fighters (grab tickets here).
Shiflett’s last album was 2019’s Hard Lessons. Revisit his recent chat with Kyle Meredith here.
Lost at Sea Artwork:
Lost at Sea Tracklist:
01. Dead and Gone
02. Overboard
03. Black Top White Lines
04. Damage Control
05. Weigh You Down
06. Burn the House Down
07. Where’d Everybody Go?
08. I Don’t Trust My Memories Anymore
09. Carrie Midnight Texas Queen
10. Parties
The Clash:
This song is the only old one on the record (all the others were written in 2020 and 2021). When Jaren [Johnston] and I were going through song ideas and figuring out what to record, he referenced The Clash and I remembered I had an old dusty demo that kind of fit that vibe. It was like 10 or 15 years old and I hadn’t listened to it in years, but I remembered that I was going for late-stage Clash (like Cut the Crap era) vibes when I recorded it. I actually had two demos of it — one when I wrote it, and another from a few years later that I recorded out in NYC with my buddy Johnny T. The end result wound up pretty different from either of them.
Layered Production:
Photo by Karol Pokojowczyk via Unsplash
As far as tones go, I wanted it to land in mid-80s cheap, thin production (thankfully we didn’t really do that), so we layered lots of keys, handclaps, tape echo dub effects, etc… all over it. Emotionally, it needed to groove and have open space to fit the downer vibe of the lyrics. I was going through a rough time when I wrote it. It was right about the time I got sober, but it’s not really a sober song, y’know?
Different Approaches to Guitar:
Photo by Wes Hicks via Unsplash
I’m playing the Clash-y stab guitar line and then you have Charlie Worsham with the acoustic guitar and banjo and Nate Ketterlee bringing the spooky sound effects. For my money, Charlie’s acoustic guitar is one of the main hooks of the tune — still haven’t figured out what he did there.
I don’t think I referenced my musical inspiration to the other fellas when we recorded basic tracks, but that’s kind of the beauty of it all — we’re all hearing it differently and I didn’t wanna overly influence what they did. The three of us are such different guitar players and when you blend us all together, it really works. We all complement each other in ways you can’t predict.
Fan Footage from Concerts:
have ya pre-saved "damage control" yet?? whatcha waiting for?!? 👉 https://t.co/3ukBNPCS7Z pic.twitter.com/f5Ia1Kak5b
— Chris Shiflett (@ChrisShiflett71) July 7, 2023
The video was put together from fan footage from my UK tour over spring break. Every day you’re looking on social media to hear how your set sounded from the crowd and it occurred to me at a certain point — ooooh, let’s collect all this footage and make something out of it. Plus, now everybody that sent in footage has skin in the game. The shows over there just built and built, and by the time we got to London, it felt like we had a full head of steam. The shows were a celebration every night and I think the footage we used captures that.
