“It was a half-hearted effort. I knew he would clock it”: Foo Fighters' Chris Shiflett once tried (and failed) to trick Joe Bonamassa into believing he had bought a genuine '59 Les Paul Burst
Shiflett defied conventional country guitar expectations and used the Les Paul on his latest country-tinged EP
Foo Fighters' Chris Shiflett's new EP, Starry Nights & Campfire Lights, features his own rendition of Thin Lizzy's Cowboy Song and Hanoi Rocks' Don't You Ever Leave Me.
Shiflett used a couple of different electric guitars to capture the tone he had in mind, including a Gibson Murphy Lab ‘59 Les Paul reissue that he tried to trick Joe Bonamassa into believing was a real ‘59 Les Paul 'Burst.
“It was a half-hearted effort. I had no illusion there, I knew he would clock it, of course,” says Shiflett in a new Total Guitar interview about the joke he attempted live on his Shred With Shifty podcast.
“Pretty much all the rhythm tracks were done on a Telecaster, and there’s some acoustic stuff. That was the meat of it. I did one pass of the solo, all the way through, on my Tele, and then at the halfway point I overdubbed a Les Paul on top, because I was copying what Scott Gorham did on the original.
“I felt like it needed that little extra something. On my last run of solo shows, I brought a Les Paul, Tele and Strat. Between those three I could cover all the sounds I needed to. The Les Paul was brand new, I just got it a few months ago from Chicago Music Exchange. It’s a Murphy Lab pretend 1959.”
In a MusicRadar interview, Shiflett had spoken at length about his Murphy Lab. “It's kind of a little bit of a darker burst – it's not the real pink ones. It's kind of dark, and it's really light. It's seven, or a little over seven pounds. So it's just light as a feather, and that thing just, wow. It sounds incredible and plays amazing.
While the Les Paul is far from the quintessential country guitar, Shiflett insisted that choosing something that’s a bit unconventional for a genre can pay off.
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“I love it. Love it for country. I went to go see Hank [Williams] Jr. a few months ago, or maybe six months ago or something, when he played in LA and [he was] playing an SG a lot of the time and [had] real crunchy tones. It was kind of inspiring in terms of guitar choices, amps, overdrives and all that stuff.”
For more Chris Shiftlett, plus a rundown of the greatest guitar cover versions of all time, pick up issue 386 of Total Guitar at Magazines Direct.
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Janelle is a staff writer at GuitarWorld.com. After a long stint in classical music, Janelle discovered the joys of playing guitar in dingy venues at the age of 13 and has never looked back. Janelle has written extensively about the intersection of music and technology, and how this is shaping the future of the music industry. She also had the pleasure of interviewing Dream Wife, K.Flay, Yīn Yīn, and Black Honey, among others. When she's not writing, you'll find her creating layers of delicious audio lasagna with her art-rock/psych-punk band ĠENN.
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