Written and Photographed by Dave Booth
Illustrations by @isaacdentonart
Frontman of Marylands Clutch’s talks fans, family, and weaponized funk.
Crab cakes. The song “Hot Bottom Feeder” from the new Clutch album Book of Bad Decisions is a recipe for Crab cakes. It’s almost showing off when a guy can write lyrics for a song about making crab cakes. It is the first song by a heavy rock group to detail a recipe since “Die Eier Von Satan” by Tool, and the best song about the acquisition and handling of crabs since “Cat Scratch Fever” by Ted Nugent. I haven’t tried the crab cakes yet, but there is definitely a recipe for Clutch, and it’s a winner. One drummer with a pocket as deep as a Rockafeller. A guitarist and bassist that build and hold down riffs like a bunker—stripped down, bulletproof and lethal. And a singer with one of those rare voices that sound like they’re saying something you need to listen to every time they open their mouth. Add wickedly clever and quirky lyrics and let cook under stage lights for almost 30 years, and you have yourself a band with a large, fanatical following, and a dozen albums that show amazing quality and consistency. Casual Clutch fans are rare. You’re either a gearhead or Clutch is the biggest band you’ve never heard of.
Clutch built their reputation with live shows. This is somewhat paradoxical in that off stage they have all the rock and roll swagger of four dads watching little league. They are four of the most normal looking mid-40’s guys you’ve ever seen. They look like guys you’d approach at the venue and ask where the musicians are. When they hit the stage, however, there’s nothing little league about it. The band plays like it’s one organism. There isn’t a tighter live band out there than Clutch. For all the lack of jumping around on stage, it’s clearly like a second home to them. Every musician in the place is watching these guys put on a clinic on how to own a setlist. Guitarist Tim Sult and bassist Dan Maines are all business, and maintain their spots on stage. JP Gaster mouths along to the beat and drums with style, but without attention seeking histrionics. The most entertaining guy to watch on stage is unquestionably Neil, the singer. On stage, Fallon has the magnetism of a revival preacher and the intensity of someone in the throes of possession. He has this unique ability to make a line like “tipping cows in fields Elysian” sound like it’s the first step to salvation. His voice is deep but with an unusually good range. He has rasp but with good control. He has all the gravitas of a minister giving a sermon, but with the ability to yell like an unholy force trying to make its way out of his mouth.
On the eve of Clutch’s new album, I had a chance to talk with Neil about the new songs, life on and off the tour bus, and over 25 years in music.
Dave Booth: The new album has a real off the floor feel to it. The new producer, Vance Powell, has a big live background. Was that the reason you changed over from (former producer) Machine and brought the new producer in?
Neil Fallon: It wasn’t driven by any dissatisfaction with Machine, because we’re really proud of those records. I think the creative impulse always pushes one to try something different, whether it be musical or visual, or in this case a producer, to see what else is around there, around the corner. Vance has a primarily country background, but a microphone doesn’t care what genre your band is. He’s really good with the technical aspect and engineering. He’s also really good as far as personality, which is half the battle in the studio.
DB: I can see that. If he’s spinning the plates, you want to make sure he’s on the same page. There are horns and keyboards on a good number of the songs I can see you playing live. Do you guys have a slightly different version of the song live? How do you guys accommodate for that?
NF: As far as “In Walks Barbarella”, we were playing that song live without the horns and it was working fine. In bigger cities, our hope is we can get charts out to local session players to play that song with us, but it wouldn’t make sense to carry a few more people on a bus just to play 4 minutes of music. Tim (Sult), has managed to work some of those horn hooks into his guitar parts. I can’t do that. I’m not as adept a guitar player as he.
DB: One thing I noticed listening to your music is how much funk there really is in Clutch. You can hear that drop on the one. With Tim Sult’s guitar lines, you could replace the guitar with horns and it would be substantially the same song. Tom Morello is about the only other guitarist I can think where you could swap in brass without a big change to the sound. Guitar usually has bit of a unique place. Do you find Tim has a different approach, and how does that work into the mix?
NF: Well, I don’t think it’s your imagination because I remember Tim doing an interview during Psychic Warfare and he was asked “are you trying to do anything different?” and he said he was trying to approach his guitar parts as if they were written for horns. I think it has a lot do with the idea of the hook. You don’t have to play all over the place all the time. Sometimes the notes you don’t play matter just as much as the ones you do play. And when you couple that with JP, he’s got a huge pocket and a huge swing and that has a lot to do with Clutch’s sound. Rock and roll these days, especially hard rock is pretty damn straight. I know, just looking in hindsight, most of the music I like has a huge swing to it and I think JP, Tim and Dan would say the same thing. Early Black Sabbath was super swung and they were a big influence on this band.
DB: “Elephant Riders” is the one song that I’ve been mentioning to people because when I hear it, I hear horns. Also, instead of that gallop that a lot of people get during their verses, there’s more bounce to it. I can hear you guys swinging into the choruses. I think it’s something that’s missing in a lot of rock music. You guys hit this fun vibe without losing the heavy.
NF: Music should make you dance. Even if that’s bobbing your head a little bit. And like you said, music is fun and you can still keep it heavy but if you’re trying to jam as many notes as fast as you can, to me that’s not fun, that’s just showboating sometimes. I’d rather listen to John Lee Hooker play one note 64 times with his foot stomping on the floor than all the speed metal arpeggios in the world. There’s so much more air in it. And I think that’s where the magic happens.
DB: Buddy Guy is the same way. He can play the same note all day and it sounds amazing.
NF: I think it’s the way the guitarist attacks the chord. However they fret it,the best guitar players are the ones where it’s just an extension of their body.
DB: I was on the Clutch Facebook page yesterday. I put up a post asking “what makes Clutch different?” What came up were lyrics and the fact that it’s just good straight ahead rock, but the lyrics, hit a real sweet spot. You can be sort of out there with it and come up with original, interesting and witty stuff, without it going overboard into the ridiculous. I’ll write stuff and a few days later, I’ll find that since I’ve slept on it and am sober, it sounds ridiculous. Is that a natural spot you hit, or is there a lot more writing that doesn’t see the light of day? How do you govern that middle ground where you hit the “laugh with” and not the “laugh at”?
NF: Each song is different. I find that the songs that have the longest shelf life are the ones that write themselves very quickly. They just fell out of the sky. But also, there’s work involved. There are thousands of lines of lyrics that are just sitting in a notebook in my basement. For book of bad decisions, the lyrics to that I’d written quite some time ago and I was just waiting for a song that sounded like those lyrics. I get the luxury of listening to the music instrumentally, and like most folks music conjures up images. I think it’s the lyricist’s job to crystallize that a little bit, but not too much because you want to leave enough wiggle room for the listener to put his or her spin on it. I’ll be honest. Sometimes a line will come to mind and I don’t know what it means, but it just sounds cool and I’ll put it in there anyway. As long as there is some kind of, in my mind anyway, arc or idea then the rest is gravy. You can put all the sprinkles on it you want.
DB: I think if there’s too much adherence to subject matter it ends up sounding preachy. With Clutch, I find there’s a theme, but it’s not something you’re getting beaten over the head with.
NF: That’s good. My favorite lyrics are where there’s enough meat and potatoes that you know what they’re talking about but there’s still dirt on that window you’re looking through. If you take a song like “In Walks Barbarella”, I had a general idea of what it was going to be about and once I established that I didn’t feel like I need to explain what weaponized funk means. It’s one of those phrases that fell out of the sky and I said “that works perfectly there”. That’s good enough justification for me.
DB: “In walks Barbarella” is fantastic. It hits all the right spots. As far as my favorite tracks on that album though, “Emily Dickinson” is fantastic and “Book of Bad Decisions” has a really good sound to it. It’s got substance to it without being too much.
Your fan base seems to go more deep than wide. You have a solid group of people who show up and are big Clutch fanatics. There’s a different feel when I’m talking to Clutch fans. Clutch and DOWN are the only two shirts I can wear out where I’m guaranteed that at least a couple people are going to comment on the shirt.
NF: We’re very fortunate to have that fan base. I think that most of those people, if not all of them, at least early on, got exposed to us live, and I think that people into live music in general are more emotionally invested in it as opposed to the folks who listen to the AM/PM rush hour rock jocks. There’s more dedication. And also I think it was a word of mouth thing. It takes longer to build a fan base that way but it lasts a lot longer compared to a band that enjoyed a huge hit one summer. That can often be the worst thing that happens to a band. And more deep than wide, I think that describes it perfectly.
DB: I don’t know if you’ve been on the Clutch Facebook page. It’s got a family feeling. People will talk about what’s going on in their personal lives and say “I need some support or advice here”. It’s different than any other music page I’ve seen. I think some of it is a common love of music in general. You were talking about people who listen to music live, there aren’t a lot of part time music people on that page. For them, music is a big part of their lives.
NF: Speaking of the Clutch Facebook page, I never ever look at it. I don’t have a Facebook page. With social media, even the positive things can be misleading and you can think all is right in the world. I think it can be overwhelming for us. Maybe I’m just speaking for myself but the times that I’ve seen things where I’ll put up a set list and people will critique it as if they were there. It’s flattering and confusing for me at the same time. Maybe I’m showing my age. You can hear all these voices all at once,but thank goodness Clutch fans are as dedicated as they are. And that’s what the track “Sonic Counselor” is about. It’s a bit of a tip of the hat to them. I’ve been described as having a preacher like character on stage.
DB: Definitely.
NF: I certainly don’t feel that way. It’s like a default mode of nervous energy,but the description of preacher has more to do with the crowd than us. They’re like a congregation and without them there, there’s no show. There’s no service, by way of analogy. That song is my way of acknowledging it and being grateful to be in that position.
DB: I think it’s like a conductor. Both sides have to agree to it or it doesn’t make sense.
NF: It’s a reciprocal relationship.
DB: How many songs do you bring on tour with you? I know the set list does alternate and that isn’t that common. Usually it’s the same set list show after show and sometimes bands will change one or two songs out.
NF: I think typically we have about 40. By the end of a tour there are probably 60. We take turns writing the set list just so we can keep engaged. If we did the same set every night it would get really tedious. I would daydream and I would be making all sorts of mistakes. I think it’s good to be a little bit intimidated by the set. If you don’t know the fourth song so well, it makes you pay attention and not act like so much of a knucklehead. The longer we’re a band, the harder it is to write that set list, because you’re only going to have 17 songs on it and you’re going to exclude 200. And you can’t please everybody. Some folks, don’t like hearing “Electric Worry” at the end of a set because they’ve been to see us 17 times and we’ve played it 17 times, but there’s also that 14 year old kid who is in the crowd. It’s his first show and that’s what he wants to hear. You can’t be all things to all people but I think if you do it with sincerity, hopefully people leave feeling satisfied.
DB: You seem like regular guys. People seem to be able to relate to you. Do you get out into the crowd before and after the shows? I’ve talked to a lot of people who have met the band, but I don’t know how hard they had to work to do it.
NF: After a show, I do my best not to talk. There was a time. When I mean a time, I mean the 90’s where I would go out to the bar. I can’t do that anymore. It’s important. As soon as that show is over, I have to start thinking about tomorrow night’s show.
DB: Vocal rest. I get that.
NF: Just kind of shut my mouth. I’ll meet people at the club or at a restaurant across the street and it’s always a very casual affair. The whole kind of inaccessible rock star persona sounds like a colossal pain in the ass to be honest. Always being on stage, so to speak. I’ve met dozens of people like that, and it looks like a lot of hard work, and I’m too lazy for that. I will say this, I know meet and greets have become a thing now and I know lots of bands who do that and that’s all well and good. That’s their choice. I know that the band feels weird about charging people money to say hi. I hope people don’t misconstrue that as not wanting to meet them. We’d love to meet them, it’s just that we’re going to do it for free, because at the end of the day, we all put our pants on one leg at a time.
DB: A lot of people see someone on stage and it seems like they’re 30 feet tall. I was watching an interview that you did where you’re talking about going into the bank for a bank loan and putting down self-employed musician. Where the banker asked “Is it a band I’ve heard of?” When I think of a band the size of Clutch, it’s really a surprise to me that you kind of have those “do I know you?” moments.
NF: There have been people in the crowds that I’ve seen for 20 years. I feel like I almost have a relationship with them, and we may not even have said two words to each other. Usually when I do meet people standing on the same ground, the first thing that comes out of their mouth is “Oh my god, I can’t believe how short you are” because they’ve only seen me elevated by at least 6 feet. (Laughs) But that’s good. A little bit of a reality check to keep your feet on the ground is good in this business because it’s fertile ground for an ego to get out of control. Humble pie is a healthy dish sometimes.
DB: A lot of people don’t like the taste of it and avoid it like the plague. I think that’s a great approach. On the new album,the cover image with the eagle turned away, and the track “How to Shake Hands” and the title Book of Bad Decisions. Is there a statement there?
NF: It happened to fall together like that, and I knew as soon as it did people were going to scratch their heads and wonder what was being said here, because we do live in very hyper political times.
DB: You don’t live too far off the beltway. I’m sure that’s a big part of the conversation out there.
NF: It’s punishing, to be honest. The bald eagle is synonymous with the United States of America, but when I saw the image I didn’t really see that. I was struck that usually when you see the eagle it’s coming at you with its talons out. It’s got its wings up, but this seemed even more kind of tough in how calm it appeared. It’s such a beautiful animal.
DB: Not all your albums are on vinyl. With the resurgence of vinyl, are you going to the back catalogue and putting more of that stuff on wax?
NF: We can’t. We don’t own those masters. We only own records from jam room forward. Everything else is owned by Sony or Columbia. The shitty thing is they almost licensed it to us, and that was when vinyl was taking off and they thought “Oh wait a minute, maybe we can squeeze a few more bucks out of this”. They did reissue Elephant Riders and it looks shitty. If we had done it, we hopefully would have done a much better job. I honestly don’t think we will be in a position to re-release those on any format.
DB: That’s unfortunate. You are on your own label now, aren’t you?
NF: Yes. We started that in 2008 after a court battle. We won three masters back and we decided we weren’t going to do this song and dance anymore. You know, bite the bullet. When we first started out we wrung our hands, you know? Do we do it the Dischord way? You know, the punk DIY ethic, or jump on this train to Manhattan and sign to a major label. Was it a mistake? I don’t think so, because we got tons of tour support and toured for 10 years, and then in hindsight, we ended back in the DIY thing. It just took ages to get back here, but I think it worked out for the best.
DB: It seems like the business of music is uncharted territory these days. “Live is where the money is”, then “merch is where the money is”, then “nowhere is where the money is”. Do you count on albums being an income stream, or is it the thing you put out to tour?
NF: First and foremost it’s for the music. Putting an album out so fans of the band can hear more music, and that’s it. I tend to get a little philosophical about this, in that live music has been around for tens of thousands of years. Even a format like vinyl records, which we consider kind of antiquated, is still a brand new technology. It’s only 100 years ago that we started monetizing music. Do I think that’s bad? No, not necessarily. It allows me to support my family, but where the money is? Selling any kind of recorded material? In the past two years physical sales have dropped 70%.
DB: Wow I didn’t know that.
NF: Yeah. It’s anemic. And you look at soundscans and you see some of these artists and you can’t believe how little they’ve sold. Oddly enough we’re putting out our own records and we’re charting on billboard. It’s bizarro land.
DB: Psychic Warfare hit number one on the rock charts, didn’t it?
NF: Yeah, it did. And number eleven on the overall Billboard 200. It’s not as if we’re holding our breath waiting for the soundscans next week. I see it as a way for Clutch fans to make a statement more than (label) Weathermaker. I will say, there is a little bit of FU from us to labels who have dropped us in the past and we’re still here. That is gratifying, but that’s not why we do this. It gives us an excuse to get back out on tour and perform these songs.
DB: Do you still love getting up on stage? You guys are grown-ups now, you have families and that whole home life thing. Is it tougher to be out on the road or is there still a passion to get out there?
NF: It’s tougher to be out on the road, but the 90 minutes we’re on stage is still a thrill. I still get nervous and still get stage fright, but when I walk off stage it’s an incredible feeling and it makes the previous 22 and a half hours when we were bored out of our gourds in a town we don’t know anything about worthwhile. That’s a great position to be in. The older you get, the deeper your roots grow, but now, when I’m not on tour, I’m in a position where I don’t have to get a gig in between tours like most musicians, and that’s a really lucky spot to be in.
DB: You were in a van living lean for the first 10 years. I always thought Elephant Riders came out later than it did. To think that you could have an album like Elephant Riders out and still be working your way up, doesn’t really sync in my head. It would be weird having that whole “huge in Europe” thing going on, where a certain segment of people know you and you’ve never met them, but at the same time looking for a part time gig between tours. It’s hard to reconcile those two things.
NF: Yeah. We road dogged it, but major labels did give us tour support to be able to go out on the road. When that dried up in year 2000, we got back in the van and basically started all over again. In 2008 we started over again with our Weathermaker label. One of my greatest regrets is not having kept a journal. It’s hard to account for many of these years, but here we are.
DB: Clutch does things like talk about the inspiration for songs. With a lot of bands, you have to dig deep to find that stuff. I think people like the whole mythology/background and getting an inside peek, and I think you do it better than anyone else I’ve seen so far.
NF: Thank you. I put a lot of blood sweat and tears into writing and I know it drives the guys nuts sometimes. (Laughs) It will take me weeks or months to come up with a final draft. I love it and hate it at the same time, but thankfully the other three guys in my band are great musicians so I have a lot to lean on.
DB: Clutch is one of those bands like Rage Against the Machine or Led Zeppelin, in that they’re more than the sum of their parts, and each member brings something really unique to the table. I know you had surgery and weren’t sure about the ability to sing afterwards, but otherwise, has there ever been a near miss? Is there a Clutch with three of four members? Has there ever been close to one person bowing out? Can you see moving past all four of you being there?
NF: I can only speak for myself. In the late 90’s after touring and the well basically drying up, having that soul searching, saying “Ok, you’re now 30. The prospect of family is now in the picture. Are you going to be able to support a family doing this?” You gotta choose what road you’re going to go down. I spent a good deal of time very unhappy with trying to make a decision. I decided to go all in again and I can only say it was a good decision because of hindsight. I know JP and Tim, even in high school saying “I’m going to be in a rock band”. That was their mantra over 30 years ago. I was not that person. I was the guy who would probably be coasting along trying to figure it out until my grave. I was fortunate enough to kind of latch myself on to their convictions.
DB: Family are sometimes the last people to jump on board with big things. Starting a business or touring or things like that. When was the last time somebody did the whole “When are you going to come off the road and get a job” talk? Has family always been supportive?
DB: My parents in particular have been… I think disappointed is too strong a word, but I think they are befuddled by this choice. They have very traditional ideas of what a job is and what is not. I think my dad… I won’t go so far as to say he dislikes it. He has a Clutch sticker on the back of his jeep, but I don’t know if he has the vocabulary to talk about it. I also sometimes wonder if he’s just jealous because I get to travel the world, and he supported his family by sitting in DC traffic for five hours a day every day for 30 years. I couldn’t do that. I would be a broken person because of it, but sometimes there are odd conversations. We’ve got back to school night tonight for my kid and people will probably ask what I do for a living and they either get very curious or very quiet and walk away, so (laughs) it never ends.
DB: I’ve had similar conversations with my family about things. I’m not sure if it’s just that it’s hard to be wrong if you figured it out before they did, or whether they’re the last ones to notice.
NF: It comes out of a place of love. They just don’t want you to end up destitute. That’s what I hope. If my kid, when he was 18, said he wanted to run away and join the circus, I would probably alternately be supportive of it but, you know, tell him to proceed with extreme caution.
DB: If he decided that he wanted to follow in dad’s footsteps and be a professional musician, would you be more happy than terrified, or the other way round?
NF: I think I would be happy because hopefully I would be able to give him a lot of pointers and do’s and don’ts. I went in completely blind. A babe in the woods in all aspects of it, but then again it could be a case of the preacher’s son where he doesn’t want anything to do with the church. Maybe he wants to do something else completely and I’ll support him in that too. I was a creative person, and if I didn’t have a creative outlet, I’d be miserable. I have a feeling that he’s the same way. As long as your job gives you emotional satisfaction, it’s not a job anymore, and that’s the best position to be in.
DB: The Clutch name. Was it just a word that stuck? Was it a car thing? Is one of you a big purse fanatic? Where did it come from?
NF: At the time I think it was a temporary name, but we liked monosyllabic band names. There were a slew of them that we liked, the biggest one being Prong. There was a local DC band called Swizz. Another called Blast. We chose Clutch. We meant to change it. We assumed it was meant as an automotive part or the physical act of grasping something. It wasn’t till years later that we learned it could also mean a small woman’s hand purse. If we’d known that at the time, we may have chosen something else.
DB: I was wondering if it was the horn thing. They have Clutch valves, or a Clutch on a hi hat. I thought maybe you guys let the drummer choose the name that day.
NF: To be honest, that’s the first time it had ever occurred to me.
DB: This morning it was for me too. It’s amazing how many things come up when you Google Clutch. It was great talking with you.
NF: Sure. Thanks for the opportunity
DB: Before I go, there’s this kid. Hunter Alexandrow on the Clutch fan page. Both legs were amputated at the knee. I think he’s legally blind as well. He’s a huge Clutch fan.
NF: Yes. If memory serves, I think his parents brought him to a show.
DB: He just got a turntable and posted, “This is great. I’ve got four albums to listen to”. A person on the page decided he would set up 1000 albums for him. They’re trying to get the staples of a good music collection set up for him.
NF: Wow. That’s awesome.
DB: Yeah. I thought it was a cool thing.
NF: Is there something on the page we can look at?
After talking with Neil, I was speaking to a well-known musician when Clutch came up in conversation where he said “Neil Fallon. His lyrics are really smart. In a different time and place, he’d be looked at like Bob Dylan”. Despite my initial doubts, there is wisdom to the statement. Both have that same feeling of a poet writing to music. If you have any doubts of the comparison, slip any two songs from Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde into a Clutch lyrics sheet and ask someone to find them. The lyrics create clear and memorable mental pictures. Whether the pictures are portraits, abstract art, or dogs playing poker, they make you think in mental snapshots. Apart from musical styles, the sharp contrast between the two is found their sense of connection. Where Dylan was aloof and enigmatic, Fallon and the rest of the band have a sense of engagement and relatability with their audience, which draws people to the music and fellow Clutch fans.
A few weeks ago, I saw a post from a very happy Hunter excited about the note and signed album he received from the band, along with a big Clutch fan response supporting his discovery of music. Between the album and the support of the band’s fans, the response is enough to make anyone a believer. We have good news. You’re in the right church.
