If you’re looking for some intense, high energy rock and roll, look no further. There’s a little band called Clutch that has been amazing audiences with their contagious riffs and top notch songwriting for over 20 years. The four members have been together since high school and are rockers in the true sense of the word. You won’t see a high tech light show or elaborate stage set at a Clutch show. What you will see is the blood, sweat, and tears of constant touring as they give it absolutely everything they’ve got for 90 minutes. Clutch doesn’t hold back and when charismatic vocalist Neil Fallon takes the stage, everyone better buckle up and enjoy the ride. The band is truly at the top of their game with the release of their 11th studio album “Psychic Warfare” and current tour. I had the chance to chat with Neil and find out all the latest. Please join us for a conversation with one of the heaviest frontmen in rock, Neil Fallon.
KE: Hi Neil! Welcome to BackstageAxxess.com. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today.
Neil: Oh, it’s no problem at all.
KE: So let’s talk about the new record “Psychic Warfare.” Where did the whole idea of “Psychic Warfare” come from?
Neil: Well, we got the title from a lyric in the first, well actually the second track “X-Ray Visions” and originally that track was called “Psychic Warfare” but we didn’t want to put it up on a pedestal by naming the record after it so we changed the title of the song. But “Psychic Warfare,” I guess conceptually, kind of encapsulated some of the more overarching themes.
KE: What was the whole writing process like for the album? How does that work for Clutch?
Neil: The majority of the music that ended up on this record as any Clutch record came about by the four of us just getting together in our practice space and picking out songs until we liked the riff and then played it four times and voila you have a part.
KE: What about the lyrics? Are those mainly your responsibility and where do you get your ideas from?
Neil: The lyrics are my world. I write all the lyrics and I take the ideas wherever I can find them. Sometimes I sit down purposely to write lyrics to a song, nine times out of ten nothing happens. It’s when I’m sitting at a red light in traffic that a lyric idea will come to mind.
KE: For this album, you worked once again with producer Machine. What does he bring to the mix for Clutch?
Neil: Well, democracy that’s great but when you have a democracy it takes a long time to get things done so he then serves as a dictator, a temporary one. He’s able to kind of speak to us in a frank matter that no one else is really allowed to because we have a relationship with him and that is invaluable when you’re trying to make a record, especially when you’re in a band for 25 years.
KE: The last two albums “Psychic Warfare” and “Earth Rocker” have a more intense, high energy feel than previous Clutch records. Were you looking to change up the sound or did that just evolve naturally?
Neil: Well, I think “Psychic Warfare” definitely follows “Earth Rocker” in the kind of momentum that we started with that album. But when we went to “Earth Rocker,” I think we just found that it was more challenging to play faster. We have a comfort zone of about 110 beats per minute and I think to grow and to stay interested you have to challenge yourself and the easiest way to do that was to up the tempos.
KE: How would you compare “Psychic Warfare” to some of your earlier work like the self-titled album?
Neil: I’d like to think that we’ve become better songwriters. We come from a hardcore and heavy metal background and I think that at the onset we kind of stuck our noses at the original composition but I think now we kind of understand that we did a lot better to manipulate it. Maybe we’ve learned something in the past 20 years.
KE: (Laughter) I really liked the video for “X-Ray Visions.” It kind of has that whole government questioning, back to the 1950s idea going on. Who comes up with all the ideas for the videos and do you enjoy the whole visual aspect of the music?
Neil: I detest the visual aspect and videos (laughter). Dan Winters did that video as he did the “A Shogun Named Marcus” video back in 1993. Having a relationship with the director is half the battle and his vision was solely his idea. He took some literal things from the lyrics and just kind of adapted it to his aesthetic. It’s my favorite video we’ve ever done.
KE: It’s cool, like a mini movie. But to you, they’re more of a necessary evil than something you actually enjoy?
Neil: Yeah, if there’s one sure fire way to get all four members of Clutch to shut their mouths, it’s to put a video camera in front of them.
KE: (Laughter) “Psychic Warfare” is the third album on your own Weathermaker label. How difficult is it to separate the business side from the creative process?
Neil: It’s getting easier. It’s still challenging because traditionally, as we were signed to major labels throughout our career, the label is always you know the antagonist. Now we have to kind of have a schizophrenic discussion amongst ourselves. Where you know the band side of us wants a vinyl package that looks like a pop-up book and the business side of us realizes that’s going to cost a lot of money between shipping costs and what have you. So it’s trying to find the sweet spot between the two.
KE: Definitely preferable than working with an outside label though?
Neil: Oh absolutely. If something goes wrong, we know who to blame and how to fix it. That would never be the case if we were signed to somebody like Sony.
KE: You’re on tour right now. Of course, it seems like Clutch is always on tour somewhere. How is this one going so far?
Neil: It’s going great. We’re only seven shows in and people are getting more familiar with the record. Those first couple of nights, you know, was a bit of a learning curve for everybody. But it’s exciting to play new material. It puts the wind back in our sails as it probably would for any band.
KE: I got the chance to see you last week in Charlotte. It was a great show and you just go non-stop for the whole set. How do you maintain that level of energy not just for the one show but for the whole tour?
Neil: It’s more about what not to do. I don’t behave in the same way as I did when I was 22. After the show, I put on my sweatpants and I shut my mouth. It’s only 90 minutes out of my day. I always remind myself that out of a thousand people there, there might be one person that is seeing us for the first time and you only get one chance to make a first impression. I treat every show as everyone in the band does, like it’s our first or our last.
KE: That energy really carries through to the audience. I’ve seen Clutch a bunch of times over the years and you never fail to bring 100% every time.
Neil: The one thing that I can say about Clutch is that the one thing we have never done is we have never phoned in a show.
KE: You’re heading to Europe in November. Will you be back in the States after that?
Neil: Yeah, we have a brief run for Christmas in the Northeast and probably late spring we’ll do another spin around the US.
KE: What about the setlist for this tour? The show I saw was a lot of the new album and songs from “Earth Rocker.” Will that remain the same throughout the tour?
Neil: Yeah, about a third of the setlist will be from “Psychic Warfare.” We change the setlist every night and take turns writing it so it will differ in some regards but there will always be more songs excluded than included.
KE: Is there any song that you don’t want to perform anymore after all these years?
Neil: No, because being granted the privilege of playing live music for people is a great luxury and I never understood artists kind of denying a song because they were sick of it. You should be so lucky to complain about that.
KE: The four of you have been together for so long unlike a lot of bands. How has Clutch been able to keep it together all these years and avoid all the drama?
Neil: We realize now especially that we’re older how fragile this all is because we’ve seen lots of bands who had all the best intentions in the world who fade in the back and we’ve also seen people self destruct. We treat this with respect and anything that would interfere with or compromise a live show, we immediately back off.
KE: Best of luck with the new record “Psychic Warfare.” It totally rocks and good luck with the rest of the tour.
Neil: Thanks.
KE: Take care and we’ll have to catch up again next time around.
Neil: Sounds good. Thank you.
We would like to thank Doug Weber of New Ocean Media for setting up the interview with Neil. For more information on Clutch including the new CD “Psychic Warfare,” please go to: Clutch.
