Career
Shanks began playing in Melissa Etheridge's band in 1988 and toured with her for several years. Shanks enjoyed his first writing success in the early 1990s by getting cuts with Bonnie Raitt, Joe Cocker and Tuck & Patti. He also landed his first publishing deal.
He reunited with Etheridge in 1995 when he collaborated with her on songs for Your Little Secret. He worked with her for several years and co-produced her subsequent album, Breakdown, in 1999. Breakdown received four Grammy nominations, including Best Rock Song and Best Rock Album.
In January 2001, Shanks began working with Michelle Branch. Together, they wrote four songs for the hit album The Spirit Room, including the first single, "Everywhere". He also produced the album. In the fall of the same year, Shanks co-wrote Sheryl Crow’s single, "Steve McQueen".
He started working with Take That in 2005, on their comeback album Beautiful World, and he also produced their next album The Circus in 2008.
He has also produced or written for other projects with SHeDAISY, Carlos Santana, Celine Dion, Sting, The Corrs, Chris Isaak, Vertical Horizon, Hanson, Unwritten Law, Will Hoge, Stroke 9, Hilary Duff, Keith Urban, Alanis Morissette and Take That. He produced Ashlee Simpson's hit 2004 album Autobiography and is credited with co-writing ten of the album's 12 songs with Simpson. On seven of those, Kara DioGuardi is also credited. That same year Shanks produced three songs for Kelly Clarkson's hit album Breakaway, including the title track "Breakaway", and worked with Anastacia on two songs for her self-titled album, including the single "Welcome To My Truth". Shanks won the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical in 2005 for his work on Autobiography, the Kelly Clarkson song "Breakaway", Hilary Duff's "Fly", Robbie Robertson's "Shine Your Light" and Alanis Morissette's album So-Called Chaos. In 2005 Shanks regrouped with Ashlee Simpson, producing her second album, I Am Me, and co-writing all of its 11 songs with Simpson and DioGuardi. Shanks also worked in 2 major albums of 2005, the Backstreet Boys' Never Gone and Bon Jovi's Have a Nice Day.
In January, 2011, Shanks stated that he began work with legendary rock band Van Halen on its first album with original lead singer David Lee Roth since the landmark LP 1984 (1984.) Released in February 2012 to near universal praise, Van Halen's A Different Kind of Truth debuted at #2 in the United States, and in the Top 10 on 5 continents.
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