Today is the seminal second album of 25th birthday Clutch and to complete the special that we have so deservedly prepared, we have been able to organize an interview with Neil Fallon. The charismatic frontman from the Maryland gang answers many questions about Clutch, about their world tour introductions with Slayer, Marilyn Manson and Grave. And we also took the opportunity to investigate what they are involved in in confinement times for the Covid-19.
Good morning Neil, thank you very much for your time and just to tell you that it is an honor to be able to chat with you, I confess that I am somewhat nervous because for me Cutch is a leading band. How are you doing before you start?
Well I’m fine, how about you?
Okay, a busy week but generally fine. How do you have the Covid-19 theme in your lands?
Uff, how complicated is everything! Overcoming boredom but thank God and health, I’m fine both me and mine. But it’s scary to see that there are people with really complicated situations around here.
This unexpected health crisis that plagues the whole world has cut off all our plans for the present and the future. How has it affected you personally and at the band level?
Well, I like to think that music is something that people will always need. We all want to meet our people, to be able to offer again and go to concerts again … but what is scary is the uncertainty of not knowing when normality will return to our lives. You know what I mean.
As for the band, these last few days we have started to offer concerts in streaming and we have started to write new music thinking about when we can get back on the road.
In a few weeks 25 years have passed since the publication of the album Clutch and we are preparing special articles in our magazine to commemorate it. What memories can you share with us about the creation and subsequent recording of the album?
For me this album is the one that marked the beginning of what we have been up to now as a band. Transnational Speedway League It was the record of another band, we were so young! We still didn’t know what we were doing. We were discovering our style because we came from bands of hardcore!
In Clutch we try to shape our way of playing heavy – hardcore towards something new. In fact, we moved and grew up in the circles of the heavy metal and the hardcore. But we didn’t want that for our band, we wanted something new, something different. And so it was born Clutch.
It is always said that the third album is the one that marks the fate of a band. Between Clutch and The Elephant Riders just 3 years passed. Something unusual in your career except these last three albums. It was difficult for you to have to make a record that would at least equal the quality of the record Clutch?
Haha! It is difficult to say. I don’t think it crossed our minds then. We were doing what we liked and the fans liked the path we took with Clutch. I know that The Elephant Riders It is a somewhat strange album for many people and I include myself in the package. It was not as direct an album as Clutch and it took time to process it. We did long introductory tours. We even open for Slayer on a tour and it seemed that thrash metal fans really liked our proposal.
How do you think he has aged Clutch? What feelings do you have when you play several of his songs live?
Well, sometimes I don’t even realize that we’re playing such old songs, other times I have the feeling that we’re playing as if it were a “personal diary” for the band. Uff, in 25 years everything has changed so much, we have changed so much! We have grown and aged both us and the records and songs. Sometimes I go back in time and I feel like I’m 20 years old. Sounds like fun, hahaha.
Your debut was in 1993 with Transnational Speedway League. A harder disk and more funk. An important change in your work is detected in the voices. In Transnational you use various resources or styles while on disk Clutch You practically wear the style that became habitual. I’m right?
I remember the feeling that ran through me when we recorded Transnational it was fear. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, I had never sung, I had never trained myself in it. I was scared because I didn’t know how to do it, without using a more melodic resource, with a more commercial attitude. The same thing happened to the rest of the band, but side by side we were learning and maturing. In fact, I did my first singing class a few years ago. You never stop learning and the important thing is not to be afraid.
I have detected that, despite your fan community increasing considerably year after year, young people seem to believe that your story began in Blast Tyrant. New fans don’t come close to the album Clutch and it is wrong. Did you plan to do something special on your 2020 tour with Volbeat to celebrate the album’s 25th anniversary Clutch and bring it closer to the young audience?
Our last concert of the year was in Union Transfer in Philadelphia and we interpret Blast Tyrant full. There were a lot of young fans who didn’t know much about the album and I was kind of scared to pull nostalgia and do a full tour to celebrate the anniversary of an album. Making a tour of this type, playing an entire album for everyone is something we have been meditating on but we are not 100% clear on. So at the moment I can not comment more on it. We will see.
You have recently released a new version of the classic “Spacegrass”, possibly the song that best defines your first musical stage. What can you tell me about the original version and why have you re-recorded a new one?
I remember hating it when we first played “Spacegrass” live. I hated her so much. Always finished raising the middle finger when we played this song. It was a tough and controversial song and we were a bunch of inexperienced youth.
With time and experience we have improved as musicians. I have improved a lot with the voices. All this and not being able to turn has led us to make the versions that we have been offering you these weeks and the new version of “Spacegrass”. I wish you like them!
If you think we are going to talk about your concert tours. I think your first time in Europe was in 1993 and I think you shared the bill with Biohazard. What memories do you have of those first times in the European rooms and how has it changed over 25 years?
The tour was very interesting, as nobody had internet then, we spent long hours chatting with each other, chatting with fans from all the cities we visited. We met fans from North America, South America, Europe and Australia, word of mouth was what made us expand our circle of fans. Now I am almost 50 years old and we have the internet, so many of these things have been completely lost.
The presentation tour of Transnational Speedway League He brought you to Europe on an extensive tour of almost 50 dates. Instead, on the disk Clutch it was only 13 dates. Was the first tour too long for your pockets and did you moderate the one in 1996? Or could you just organize a 13-date tour?
The reason the first tour was so long was because we accompanied Biohazard and they could afford to organize something that big. For a new band like us, convincing promoters and others was much more complex and expensive. No one could know how many people we would manage to enter our own shows. For us, acting in a European city and achieving a box of € 50 was a failure, not because of not acting in front of enough people, but because the self-financed costs of going to a European city are not worth this as you can imagine. Our main idea as artists is to make our music reach the maximum number of people, this is the main thing. But we also have to assess the costs of all this.
The 1996 tour was the presentation of the album Clutch and you opened for the Brazilian Seputura. At that time Sepultura was one of the most powerful bands on the scene and they were presenting the album ROOTS that supposed the breakup of Max with the rest of the band. How did you experience that tour in relation to Sepultura? Did you take any influence from the band to Clutch?
We previously met Grave on the american tour they presented Chaos AD. We became good friends with both the band and the entire team. We were delighted to share the stage with the sugar cane band in the universe of heavy metal. Everything that surrounded Grave It was special, it was a Brazilian band! It was exciting.
The tour of ROOTS which by the way was awesome marked the end of the lineup as you said For us it was very sad, we shared many moments with them, great moments. Those two tours with Grave it changed our lives and our careers in one way or another. It is one of the best moments I remember from my youth.
And on the contrary, in the USA you shared a poster with Marilyn Manson in 1995. At that time he was preparing his famous album Antichrist Superstar and his live shows were terrible. How was the tour with the Antichrist? Was he as crazy as we were told?
Ui, complicated topic. We have a very friction relationship with Manson. TO Marilyn he loved our album Transnational but when we went on tour with him to present our self-titled album, he approached us and said “What the hell is this you are playing?”. He did not like our album and made it very clear, he hated the songs of Clutch, hated “Spacegrass” …
And yes, he was very crazy. Everything that surrounded Manson It was crazy. His fans, his team, the band … Too much for us. That of having dead animal heads everywhere did not go with our style, with our lives. He sold us that he liked our first album without listening to the new one and that was something we learned for life. Never trust the one who talks in the past. Haha. It was crazy.
I have been inquiring about your career live and I think that you have not been to Asia and South America only once in Brazil. Don’t you feel like getting out of your comfort zone?
You know, we’ve been trying to reach new destinations for many, many years. But it has always been extremely complicated. The promoters of these areas are very cautious and it is difficult to negotiate with them. They don’t want to take risks and their conditions tend to have a risk for us as a band. In South America we have tried much more, we have been in Brazil and many times in Mexico despite the fact that South America is not clear. We like it but we cannot achieve more than we have done. It seems that we need to work 25 more years so that they pay more attention to us. Haha.
Clutch has three turning points in his career, the first in 1995 with the puck. Clutch, the second in 2004 with Blast Tyrant and the third in 2013 with Earth rocker. Each album came at an appropriate time and molding your style to new times. How did you see that the band needed a small change and how do you deal with this change?
I think the changes have never been premeditated nor can you design a change of course. Premeditated and predesigned changes never tend to be effective. The music comes from your animal instinct, the feelings of what you are doing, watching the fans say more than what the specialized critics can say. I feel fortunate to have known a course as successful and stable as the one we have had in Clutch.
In my last review of Book of Bad Decisions claimed that “Clutch is surely your favorite band even if you haven’t noticed it.” In our life we have moments when we listen a lot to a specific band or album, after a few weeks or months we find another band or another album … but I know many people (and I include myself) that we take records every so often Clutch and we hit a shot of energy with your music. What makes Clutch’s music so addictive? How do you feel when you see that thousands of people could illustrate the history of their lives to the sound of your songs?
Well, my main objective is to reach people, make them enjoy, have them entertained. The greatest satisfaction for an artist is to see that people enjoy your work. That makes me happy. I love to see people in our shows, seeing couples, seeing families … we have even seen requests for help at our concerts. It’s great.
In difficult to be subjective with all this because in the end I am in the band and I do not want to sin of pride. Excuse me, I mean, target. Haha. I am proud to have led life as I have led it. Having a career like the one I have had. I am proud that people admire us, that other bands have us as a reference. This is all our legacy. It is the magic of music.
I think you started your career at Clutch at 21 years old and now you are 48. Have you fulfilled your dreams as a teenager or do you still have any dreams to fulfill? Do you see yourself on stage with 80s like the Rolling Stones?
Hahaha.
I started with 19! In the first shows with Clutch I couldn’t even drink alcohol, hahaha. I was so young … My dreams were to be part of a rock band. In my time it was easy to fall into juvenile delinquency and being in a band was the best way to do things well, to enjoy and have a great time without risks.
During my career I have become a husband, later a father … and the feelings towards the band have always been the same. My dream of being in a band is still valid today. I can continue living my fantastic personal life and I continue to fulfill the dream of my life. I have visited cities, countries, continents doing what I like the most, fulfilling my dream. And for example, I’ve been to Barcelona many times and I love the feeling of going for a walk in your incredible city, I even go for a walk without a map! That feeling is so incredible!
As for the second question, I would love to continue doing all of this for the next 20 years, or more. We cannot foresee these things.
You are one of the busiest frontmans I’ve ever seen on stage. My other job is a music photographer and I have tried to take pictures of Clutch twice and being able to take a decent picture of yourself is very difficult. They are always blurred. I understand that your live show is like a cardiovascular sport session. How do you prepare for the concerts? Have you ever exceeded and fainted?
I have never fainted! All this is easy when you are young, you are able to endure one concert a day from Monday to Sunday. You are also able to drink four beers and eat a pizza every night, haha. But as you get older things change. To prepare for the concerts I do a lot of exercise, in the end we are talking about something that is purely physical, with good exercise and a good diet everything is feasible. If you don’t take care of yourself if you have a problem. My routine is to do various exercises during the day, offer my concert and when I finish a beer and go to bed, it’s sooo boring! Haha.
And to close, now you publish a compilation titled The Obelisk Box Set for Record Store Day. Now that you are home locked up perhaps you have time to create new songs … or a new album … What future plans do you have?
Well, as I mentioned before, the band is busy working on these concerts in streaming that we are offering. We are practicing a lot for these concerts because we want to offer the world the best of ourselves. We have also started creating new songs. We are entertaining. A couple of days a week we get together and rehearse and take the opportunity to share some new ideas for new songs. And so we have been close to two months.
Well, this is it, thank you very much for this interview. Thanks for your time and a pleasure to chat with you. See you soon.
Thanks a lot to you guys. It is a pleasure to talk with you. A hug. See you soon.
… metal in all its extensions … the rest is saying
Source scienceofnoise.net
Translated from Spanish