Chris Shiflett is a jack of all trades; or rather, he’s a “Jackson” of all trades, his nickname of many years. Best known as the guitarist of a little, innocuous band you’ve probably never heard of called the Foo Fighters (since their 3rd record), Chris is a brilliant sideman and also a more than competent writer. He also pays dues and serves time in the probably funner-than-heck to be involved in punk rock super group cover band Me First and The Gimme Gimmes, which Shiflett joined while still cutting his teeth in his pre-Foos punk band No Use For A Name. As awesome and invigorating as these bands are, and surely touring in the Foos is more than almost anyone ever achieves, Chris is making his mark even further by releasing his own material in the electrifying Jackson United.

An intriguing mix of classic punk attitude but with socially conscious smarts and wit to go with the snarl, Jackson United truly have arrived with their must-hear sophomore disc Harmony And Dissidence. Shiflett has crafted a remarkably catchy album you can play again and again, the songs’ familiar Clash and California punk sounds easy to rally around yet possessing charm all their own. “Lifeboat” has a Jawbox-esque bridge to die for and great lyrics, one of many tracks that tell cool stories or provoke thought and multiple interpretations. “White Flag Burning” defies giving in and is one of the best punk songs of the year, hands down. Screw genre! It’s just anthemic, period! Even better, Jackson United have become very political with a cover of Billy Bragg’s truer than ever “Help Save The Youth of America” and the fun yet meaningful lead off single “21st Century Fight Song”, a solid and sincere fuck you to the GOP that uses pop melody to hammer home a serious sense of purpose. Need I mention that fellow Foo’s Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins split drumming duties on the album and Chris’s brother Scott of Face to Face fame plays bass? Do you need to know anything more?!

Harmony And Dissidence is a comforting presence as a new project from a guitarist in one of the world’s biggest bands. It’s nice to be able to remember that some of the famous people under the lights really care and don’t just pay lip service to social action and pushing to make things better, or worse, can’t be bothered or are sad throwbacks in denial with tunnel-vision like actor Jon Voight. Thankfully we have Shiflett and others who make great art and talk straight and truthfully about politics.

I talked via telephone on an early Tuesday morning to Shiflett about Jackson United, world events, political hypocrisy, rock n’ roll, lyrics and of course, Gibson guitars.

MORGAN Y. EVANS: Harmony And Dissidence is a great name for your second record. The production is big and catchy but it still has grit and feels like a punk record, which I like. It reminds me of some Social Distortion in that you can sing along to song after song.

CHRIS SHIFLETT: Right on! As far as production we recorded pretty fast and went in pretty prepared, so there wasn’t a lot of dicking around in the studio. We had songs written and parts worked out and recorded it over 16 days.

MYE: Really? That’s great. And there’s a fair amount of songs on there, too. That’s cool.

CS: There are even some leftovers. Maybe we’ll put out an EP down the line.

MYE: The “harmony” is like the catchy side and “dissidence” is the depth. I thought of Green Day’s American Idiot where you can listen to it politics aside but there’s also more meaning there.

CS: As far as politics go it is something I wanted to dive into before even when we did the first record, but I felt more insecure back then. There’s such a tradition of great political songwriters whether it’s Dylan or Joe Strummer. I thought “Fuck, I’ll never be able to write on that level,” but for this record, and especially after living under the last eight years of George W. Bush , I just didn’t care anymore and wanted to write what was on my mind whether or not it was good or people responded to it. I just didn’t care anymore.

MYE: Don’t worry. It’s great. “21st Century Fight Song” has a lyric mentioning “this war of attrition” and it’s like, there have been some of the biggest protests in history worldwide over these guys and Bush would just ignore it like nothing happened.

CS: That sums up how I feel right now with the current state of the election. You look at the poll numbers and as a citizen in America it is just shocking to me that it is a statistical dead heat or McCain has a slight lead. I don’t understand it. I mean, I do understand it. The propaganda people are subjected to is overwhelming in this country.

MYE: People need to read the Guardian more.

CS: No shit. Or at least read The Nation more. If everybody subscribed to The Nation here I think this country would look very differently.

MYE: It’s sad after the struggles of Word War II and all it stood for that America was the country that broke the “pre-emptive strike” policy, like Hitler once used, and now anyone can do it and say that we did.

CS: There are so many levels that contradict American idealism. We don’t torture people. Our citizens should have labor protection and the right to organize. There’s no regulation of capital abuse, basically, in my view, since the last era of Robber Barons about a hundred years ago. They are more sophisticated. They’ve whittled away at regulations for a hundred years and especially since the New Deal. It has been done away with since inception. Why don’t people connect the dots that under progressives historically people do better anytime there’s a Democrat in office.

MYE: They are even saying these lies about Obama that he will have worse taxes when it is always, always the Republicans who protect taxes for the rich only while the rest rot.

CS: Exactly. On one hand I understand that mainstream corporate media people are fed this line of corporate government.

MYE: It’s like you said about Robber Barons. They have perfected the marketing where they used to just invade and colonize places.

CS: Exactly! So now, I get that a lot of responsibility lies in the mainstream media and [the] lies they put forth, but at the end of the day the public has to wise up or nothing’s gonna change, so…I remain optimistic that Obama will win this thing but also remain pessimistic that he’ll really tackle all of the problems that need to be addressed. If he does win it’s up to the progressives to really keep his feet to the fire. Also, one thing we’ve learned is when the right wing takes a hit they dig in and come back stronger. We’ve seen forty years of right wing propaganda in this country and hopefully progressives are acting on that.

MYE: It’s funny, Janeane Garofalo was on Bill Maher the other night and she said it is ridiculous when they accuse Democrats of being too negative towards Sarah Palin when most of what Republicans have done the last eight years is focus solely on low blow negativity. Meanwhile she is such a bad, dangerous choice with no clue about foreign affairs. Obama has traveled way more than her!

CS: Well, yeah. It’s amazing these people claim you can’t talk about her family. Did they ever give Clinton’s family a break? Have they ever given anyone’s a break?

MYE: They didn’t give McCain a break when Bush ran against him! And now McCain hired these people he said were scum!

CS: C’mon. It’s so ironic when John McCain himself told jokes about “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?” years ago. Now he’s the one saying you can’t? People have a short attention span.

MYE: It’s sad that women voters are behind Palin. It should be about a good candidate, not just any woman candidate. It’s ironic when you consider sexism.

CS: It’s like when there were P.U.M.A.s or “Party Unity My Ass.” Disaffected Hillary supporters who want McCain? Why were you gonna vote for Hillary? Her policy is so different from McCain! Was it because she was a woman or what was it? It’s nonsensical.

MYE: Back to the record, although I am glad we’re getting to talk politics, “White Flag Burning” is the new 2008 anthem in my book, man.

CS: Oh, right on!

MYE: I love that song. It is so motivating. A lot of the record is motivating but I wondered what the story was behind that one. I like the lyric “I’ll outlast you,” like real feeling beating tyranny or something.

CS: I didn’t even really write it with a political bent. It just kind of came across that way, but as far as the song goes, the beginning was something I’ve been tooling around with for years in different incarnations. I finally put it together. I wanted to have a song that was like a song between Big Country and Stiff Little Fingers. That galloping, well…gallop. Hopefully that came across.

MYE: It’s cool. Like the first album Western Ballads has an almost spaghetti western feel, parts of “Trigger Happy”, “Land Without Law” and “Black Regrets”. It’s very California in a way but also cool to hear Dave Grohl play some of the faster styles of punk.

CS: Well, some of those songs, like the song “Undertow” is Dave playing and has a Clash style verse thing. Some of the songs, “Land Without Law”, that’s actually Taylor. When they both offered to help me out by playing on the record, we had sixteen songs so I divided it down the middle. I thought, “Ok, what’s Dave into?” He’s obviously known for his punk rock past so some of the songs like “Black Regrets” were perfect for him. Taylor grew up on the Police and the English Beat and a lot of stuff from that era, so anything with a real Ska feel in it I had him play. It’s funny ‘cuz a lot of times I ask people who played on what and they get it wrong. People think they can really spot their styles but they guess wrong.

MYE: Sometimes you can in areas but both are very articulate in certain areas and tend to play really loud sometimes but can also pull it way back.

CS: Sure. They’re both phenomenal drummers and don’t really need a lot of direction.

MYE: How did Joe Kid from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones end up as the new official drummer after you tracked this new record?

CS: I’ve known Joe since the beginning of 1995. The first tour I was on in my life I was a roadie for this band called Wax and they opened for Face To Face and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones so I’ve stayed in contact with Joe ever since then when I’ve gone through Boston or toured with him. He’s a good old friend and we’ve always talked about jamming. He finally moved out here so we’re super lucky we can wrangle him to come play with us ‘cuz he’s a super bad ass.

MYE: It’s cool there’s a connection. How was making the video for “21st Century Fight Song”? I like the sort of Marlon Brando motorcycle shots of you in it.

CS: Oh! That’s so funny that you got that. “Who you rebelling against, Johnny?” That was fun! I contacted the director DJ Brawner, cuz he was booking a club in Fullerton but they weren’t booking shows anymore, so he said he was making videos. I thought “Alright,” and he put the whole thing together. He came to our studio and made a huge American flag thing and used a green screen and did it as a cool favor to us. Because he was putting it together for us I just sort of let him do his thing, and I love how it came out.

MYE: I love that you’re playing in front of the flag. It’s a reclamation.

CS: Sure. Well, you’ve gotta take it back from phony patriots.

MYE: Even the “the devil’s work must be undone,” is cool. What’s really devilish?

CS: These phony Christians and patriots claiming the moral high ground is ridiculous.
It’s transparent.

MYE: It’s encouraging. I was thinking how popular Foo Fighters is and how encouraging it is that you all have these backgrounds and it can still be so popular, not just people buying Toby Keith records.

CS: [laughing] How weird is it that Toby Keith says he’s a Democrat? Did you hear about that?

MYE: No! Really? That makes no sense.

CS: Yeah, he claims to be a life long Democrat. It’s interesting ‘cuz when I was in No Use For A Name there were obviously bands like Good Riddance and Propaghandi in that scene who were really political, but we were not. I wasn’t really tuned in because I was sort of a young kid kind of having a good time and partying a lot. I was stoked to be in a band touring and stuff. Even though it wasn’t a political thing to me, the experience of going to Europe the first time opened my eyes. I have funny old pictures of me well before that during the first Gulf War wearing support Desert Storm shirts and drinking Bud and smoking Marlboros.

MYE: Awesome. Hey man, it happens.

CS: Whenever I picked up on mainstream news…well, I never really paid attention. When I came back from Europe I remember after seven weeks on a punk tour giving interviews with ‘zines I was confused. I was pretty ignorant about how the world worked at that point. My parents were always pretty tuned in and especially my Dad was pretty radical and I remember I came home and talked to him about how people love American culture but they don’t like us. I’d done all these interviews that were hostile about America. I remember I said they just had “super power” envy.

MYE: [laughing]

CS: He gave me a book by Noam Chomsky and I read it, and that combined with the experiences traveling abroad, a light bulb went on and it made sense.

MYE: It’s cool you are forthcoming about that ‘cuz I think it is wrong to demonize people. As angry as I get at Republicans, and some Democrats, everyone has different experiences and really dialogue is the answer. Like Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth, I like to talk often about how she once said it was more important for them to play the Midwest than New York over and over.

CS: Totally. The powers that be want us to be divided by the Red State/Blue State battle ground divisions. It doesn’t really exist. I’ve been all over the States trillions of times and it’s just not like that. You meet tuned in cool people or intolerant people everywhere you go. Look at California. It’s supposed to be a liberal hotbed, but where is that? San Francisco and parts of L.A., but the rest is pretty red, really. It’s more of an urban/rural divide than state to state.

MYE: It’s cool that people like Henry Rollins will visit the troops.

CS: Or Al Franken! He’s done a lot of work with the USO and entertains.

MYE: It’s so crazy with the troop surge the GOP has been touting as a success. It doesn’t take away the deficit Bush made and that the economy has been wrecked and that they knew the African Uranium information about Weapons of Mass Destruction they said Saddam wanted was really outdated information and lied. Palin still says Iraq was responsible for 9/11!

CS: It’s amazing to see McCain complain about a do-nothing Congress that A) he’s a part of and B) has only been Democratically controlled, kind of, for a few years. What about the six years before that? Dems don’t have a veto majority anyway and they can’t do all the things they wanna do. People do know that. If you give it any real thought it is laced with irony. They campaign on the legacy of 9/11 when they were in power for months when it happened. You certainly can’t only blame them for it but they are much more responsible for what happened than the liberals they rail against.

MYE: Afghanistan is the real front line.

CS: Well, pardon me, but I think there’s a flawed logic Democrats get sucked into. There really is no front line. John Kerry took so much heat for saying this but he was right when he said it should be treated like a police action. Even if we caught Bin Laden, it wouldn’t put an end to terrorism. It’s ridiculous to think that that would really change things that much. Sure, we should get the masterminds of 9/11 but it isn’t going to end terrorism. If you really want to end terrorism you aren’t going to get it by bombing another country or with the way we’ve exploited developing nations as long as we’ve been a country. It’s band-aid solutions to deep rooted problems that have been forming a long time. If we give it any real thought it is easy to put the pieces together.

MYE: Right. Not even band-aids. Just blow it up. Can you describe what it was like, to fans, playing Madison Square Garden with the Foo Fighters for the first time? I saw it on TV and that show was almost religiously awesome.

CS: Madison Square Garden, that show was really fun. It is probably, as a kid growing up in America, the holy grail of venues. You know it, from the time as a little kid listening to KISS records or whatever. I used to live in New York and have a lot of friends there. It was a great day and feeling. We had a great after party. A great feeling, like playing the Forum in L.A. was also. I think that leg started at the Garden and ended at the Forum, which , I grew up an hour and a half from there and it is like the West Coast Madison Square Garden. That was pretty cool.

MYE: Dude, I love Me First and The Gimme Gimmes’ cover of “Sloop John B” by the Beach Boys and my friend Sean Paul Pillsworth, he used to be in the Militia Group band AnaDivine and has since started a Me First tribute band called Happy Hour! They dress like you guys in Hawaiian shirts and cover your cover versions of songs!

CS: Oh really [laughing]!

MYE: Their dream is to open for you guys some day and play your set before you guys play it! What do you think?

CS: No shit! Wow! Where are they from?

MYE: Kingston, New York. They play like twice a year for Halloween and parties and stuff.

CS: No shit. That’s crazy. Do they have a Myspace? That’s classic, dude.

MYE: Yeah, somewhere. So, how was it approaching this record as opposed to other bands you are in? Obviously different ships have different captains.

CS: Hold on. Let’s see. [searching internet] I found one Happy Hour but it’s the wrong one. This one’s from Michigan and is an “indie/folk/alternative” band. [laughing]

MYE: [laughing]

CS: Umm…it’s pretty different ‘cuz with Jackson United I am there for the recording of both the records the whole time. Every single moment. With a Foo Fighters or No Use For A Name or Me First, it’s only some of it. For Foo Fighters Dave is there for every part of it ‘cuz it’s his baby and he’s there for it all. I think with any band it’s just a natural thing for the creative force to tend to take that role. For me, I was completely immersed in this record.

MYE: What got you hooked on Gibson guitars? They’ve always been my favorites with such a full sound and were used by this band Dripping Goss from New York I idolized growing up. How about you?

CS: Well, when I was a kid in high school and first started playing in bands, I had just gotten into Hanoi Rocks, which changed my life. It was the greatest thing to me. Glam rock, as I understand it, broke off. Now people look back on it and lump bands like Ratt and anything with long hair or Spandex, but it really wasn’t like that at the time.

MYE: Yeah, man. Sami Yaffa! I just interviewed his new band MadJuana recently.

CS: Oh, now shit! I met him a few years ago. Nice guy. Great bass player. Legend. So all the bands I liked played Gibsons and Gretschs and at that time you had all these shredder and heavy metal bands playing Jacksons and keep in mind up until that moment I was super into Armored Saint and Malice and all these sort of L.A. bands that were happening at the time.

MYE: John Bush!

CS: Yeah, John Bush. But when I got into Faster Pussycat and Hanoi Rocks I wanted to just play what they were playing and dress like they dressed and stuff. So, I had to get a Gibson Les Paul. It’s like the go-to. You’re either from the Stratocaster school or the Les Paul school. I thought the Gibson was cooler and it was the only guitar I had until I was about twenty five or something. I’m pleased to say I have many different types of Gibsons and I love them all.

MYE: [laughing] I’m sure you have a few at this point. I know the Jackson part of your band name is from an old nickname of yours you’ve used in bands over the years but I was wondering how you got it. I’m sure you’ve mentioned it before, but…

CS: Well, the way I got it was originally because I worked at Fat Wreck Chords cuz I moved to San Francisco in 1995 immediately after that tour with the Bosstones that I talked about earlier. That’s how I got the job with No Use For A Name, but I worked at Fat with a guy named Chris Dodds and (Fat) Mike decided one day that it was too confusing so my new name would be “Jackson”. So that and with a group of friends from my San Francisco days, I have always been Jackson. Then when I started this band, it kind of isn’t really a band. It has sort of always been whoever I can corral into getting to do it. Dougie (Sangalang) has played guitar since practically the beginning but obviously we’ve gone through a few drummers. Hopefully Joe will be with us forever but who knows. My brother Scott has come and gone over the years on bass. Right now my little eighteen year old cousin is playing bass for us. I think of it as more of a collective, not exactly a band. I didn’t wanna call it Chris Shiflett Band or something and used Jackson, so that if you knew me you’d know what it was, and that just morphed into Jackson United after awhile.

MYE: Right on. Lastly, “Land Without Law” has the chorus “In The End, What The Fuck Are We Supposed To Do/Blowing A Fuse” and I was wondering, is that when you are sort of feeling discouraged by things? It’s hard sometimes but it’s a good chorus if you are feeling disaffected.

CS: Hopefully people can read it different ways but it was inspired by a tour we did in Brazil. I think it was a Summer of 2006 tour. It was seriously the craziest fuckin’ tour I’ve ever been on in my life. We were there for a week. The tour started with us going to the airport and the Brazilian National Airline that day cancelled all flights because they went bankrupt! So that involved tons of phone calls and frantic rescheduling so we got down there finally and the first gig was at some dude’s house by the beach. We played this guy’s back yard! Then we’d have clubs with livewires on stage and amps blowing up. Everywhere we went was chaos on that trip. And I don’t mean that as negative at all. It was actually some of the most fun and one of the most memorable trips of my life.

MYE: Stay on your game, right!?

CS: Absolutely, and it makes you appreciate what you’re in it for. That’s what that chorus is. “What the fuck are we supposed to do?” Just give into it and accept it. Make it happen.

MYE: [laughing] That’s a good creed for all touring bands.

CS: [laughing] Especially if you’re gonna tour in developing nations with odd sources of power!