Upon the release of Hold On (Hourglass), the beguiling slice of Spaghetti Western rock that served as the lead single of his new album, Time Will Tell, singer/songwriter/guitarist Devon Gilfillian told listeners, “I’m excited for y’all to hear my version of Nashville Soul and come on this next journey with me.”
Nashville Soul? What’s that?
A Philly native, he grew up immersed in the music of the city’s legendary soul scene – The Delfonics, The O’Jays, Thom Bell – along with household R&B names like Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder. When he moved to Nashville 13 years ago, though, “the country music started to slowly creep into my DNA.”
“I wanted to make a soul album in Nashville that had little spices from the country spice cabinet,” Gilfillian explains to Guitar World. “I sprinkle a little pedal steel and some slide guitar in.
“I’m all over as far as influences go – I like folk, country, funk, disco, Delta blues – and to me, it’s all soul music in a way. As long as the common denominator is me and my voice, it feels like the soul is there.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, his “north star” is another guitarist who made an explosive stew of funk, soul, Delta blues and R&B influences: Jimi Hendrix. You can hear it in the wailing phrases of his solo on Hold On. It’s not boring mimicry; just the same kind of volcanic outburst that sounds perilously close to falling off the edge more than once – but never does.
A more concentrated dose of muscle comes on the brawny Black Dog Rabbit Hole, which is all riffs with a capital R. It’s a nod to his heavier influences: your Zeppelins, Rage Against the Machines, Dimebag Darrells… “If it’s crunchy, loud, distorted, intense and offensive, I like it,” he says with a smile.
A member of the Fender Next Class of 2023, Gilfillian can usually be seen wielding Strats or Jaguars. The former was his first love. He got his start on a white Mexican model – you can guess where the inspiration for that came from.
“A Strat gives me all the sounds that I want,” he says. “When I hear that tone, I’m like, ‘That's what a guitar is supposed to sound like.’”
His “main squeeze” for a time was an ‘80s-era Jaguar that met an unfortunate fate. “It was an ‘87 Japanese Jaguar; her name was Strawberry. I loved it so much. It got stolen in Vancouver when we were playing there two years ago.”
Upon hearing of the theft, Fender stepped in, sending him a replacement Jaguar in blue. Separately, Gibson also stepped up when they heard of his troubles. Yes, he’s a Fender man for most purposes, but for slide work he arms himself with a classic-looking Cherry Red SG that the maker sent after his own was swiped.
“Derek Trucks is an SG guy. I was like, ‘Maybe he knows something; maybe there’s something with the SG that sounds right with the slide!’ [laughs]
“I tried it out, and I just loved it. I’m sure, down the line, I’ll experiment a little bit, see where I can go; but every time I try to slide on a Strat or Tele or something, it doesn't do the same thing for me.”
You can see Gilfillian break out the SG for some endearingly offbeat, but ever-soulful, slide work in a recent studio-filmed performance of the funky Time Will Tell highlight IRL. And, wait, is that Grace Bowers stage right?
“Grace asked me to sing at a benefit concert for gun safety, three or four years ago,” he explains. “Ever since, we’ve been friends. She makes me want to quit guitar sometimes when I watch her play!”
Bowers was filling the shoes of none other than Cory Wong, who lends his right-hand-of-steel rhythm work to the album version of IRL. It was actually the pair’s second collaboration of 2026, following Gilfillian’s soaring vocal performance on Roses Fade on Wong’s album, Lost in the Wonder.
“Cory plays so rhythmically, to serve the music, and his whole band is so locked in. It wasn't you know, trying to show off to each other. It was this harmony of rhythm – this groove and pocket that we were trying to just lay in.
“It felt more rhythmically focused than a shredder kind of vibe. It was very musical in that way.”
And that’s what Gilfillian always chases in his own playing. There’s real, well, soul in Time Will Tell’s lead wanderings and outbursts. And lo and behold, on the age-old question of composed versus on-the-spot solos, Gilfillian falls firmly in the latter camp.
“To my detriment, I’m definitely an on-the-spot guy,” he says. “People ask me, ‘Play that thing again, exactly like you did.’ I’m like, ‘I don't know if I can. That was all emotion!’”
- Time Will Tell is on sale now.
