It's our second interview with Neil Fallon of Clutch!
From Beale Street To Oblivion is out NOW, read all about it here!
Clutch has a new album From Beale Street To Oblivion, which hits stores TODAY. It is yet another slice of rock n roll heaven from literally one of the greatest bands on earth. I know we have a bunch of readers who are already itno Clutch, but if you haven't gotten into them yet...seriously...what is wrong with you? NO ONE rocks like Clutch, so it's a no-brainer that our first ever two time interview subject would be Clutch vocalist Neil Fallon. I called him up to get the scoop on the album, and he answered many of the questions that readers sent in after reading our last interview as well. So, read the interview, and then get your ass up out of your chair and go buy From Beale Street To Oblivion, because dammit...you deserve a little more awesome in your life!
Anarchy Music: It’s good to talk to you again, and congratulations on once again putting out a smoking’ album!
Neil Fallaon: Thank you
Anarchy: Tell me about How From Beale Street To Oblivion came about. What was the impetus behind this batch of songs/
Neil: Well, it was pretty much the same process as we’ve always done with the writing, but one thing we did different this time which in retrospect I wish we’d been doing all along, which was we wrote the material and went out on the road with it and rehearsed it for 2-3 weeks on stage, so by the time we were ready to go into the studio we knew all the songs front to back and we even knew what was going on the record in what order. Because of that we were able to record something that I think sounds more confident and we weren’t writing in the studio. That can be a big time and money waster. Hopefully we’ll do it like that in the future.
Anarchy: This seems like much less of a Stoner Rock album and a whole lot of Blues and straight up Rock stuff. Was that just naturally coming out of you or are you listening to a lot of Blues these days?
Neil: We’ve always listened to the Blues but I think the older we get the more we listen to it, maybe the more we play it, and the more cognizant we are of the fact that Classic Rock bands, the ones that we really listen to in our free time like Deep Purple, ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they were basically taking Blues riffs and amplifying them. I think the more we move on, the closer we go to that. Not really intentionally, it’s more of a natural progression. We didn’t go in saying we want to write a Blues record, but it just kind of happened that way with a couple of licks here and there that kind of tickled our fancy and we ran with it.
Anarchy: Your albums sometimes have a theme to them, not really a concept per se’, but is there a connecting theme that runs through this one?
Neil: Not so much, maybe sometimes there is. It’s never too intentional but I find that when songs are written in close succession sometimes they have similar themes. There might be a couple of themes, but right off the top of my head I’d say traveling and the classic “tears in my beer”. Maybe not that melodramatic, but a little bit of that expressive frustration. I’ve never really thought about it. I just wrote the lyrics and that was it.
Anarchy: They always kind of seem to tell a story, even if it doesn’t. It also seems like the past few albums have had an aspect of spirituality to them. Is that reflective of your own life or are you just using that as a lyrical device?
Neil: I never go in with the intent of doing that, and I never, ever want to sound like I’m preaching for something but having said that I think that when I sit down to write a song , if it just deals in with strictly material thing it strikes me as being potentially boring. Whether it be a reference to mythology or something vaguely spiritual, I think that brings it into a world that, at least for myself, is more interesting. I definitely don't have an answer or a stand on anything. I think it's more of a curiousity into the subject that kind of leaks into the lyrics.
Anarchy: Is there a single planned?
Neil: I believe that the first single will be a little bit of a shorter version of "Electric Worry". I alwayshave to wash my hands of that. I can't tell what a single is and isn't because I'm too close to the music. On the last record "Burning Beard" was a single and I never would have guessed that. I leave it up to the experts.
Anarchy: In thiscase the experts would be DRT. This is your third record for them and even though they are thought of as a small label, they're doing some miraculous stuff. They even got Gwar on the radio! What's it like working with them?
Neil: I think they're a label that understands what an artist is and, more importantly, is not. When we were with major labels there was a lot of ego stroking how next summer was going to be the Summer Of Clutch and basically a bunch of smoke and mirrors. I understaood it for what it was. The people at DRT don't mistake us for the nextpotentail cash cow. There's a glimmer of hope there, but they know what kind of band we are. I think when you have more honest expectations you can have more honest returns. We would just get lost at a major label, I think, especially with the climate at major labels as it is.
Anarchy: Let's say that 2007 WAS The Summer Of Clutch and you could do a Clutchfest type show, who would you want on that bill?
Neil: I would like to take out a lot of bands we've taken out before, but just on the same bill. Bands like Wooly Mammoth, William Elliot Whitmore, Stinking Lizaveta, Five Horse Johnson...I could go on and on, there's so many great bands. The Rellrays is another one. We're fortunate in that we can pick some bands that we really dig to go out on the road with and it makes touring a lot easier.
Anarchy: When I saw you with The Bellrays and Year Long Disaster, we were all kind of thinking "when was the last time you saw a tour this awesome?". You guys definitely aren't afraid to put some badass bands out in front of you.
Neil: I don't think it's lost on people. No one wants to spend X amount of dollars on one-third of the bill, even though they might be there to see one band, it's the whole deal. It's supposed to be a night out on the town. I think we play better when the bands on stage have got chops and play great. A band that sucks, technically or creatively it's just a super bum-out. No one wants to see that.
Anarchy: "One Eyed Dollar" was on Jam Room, what was the reason to bring that back for the new album?
Neil: The reason for thatwais that when we were rehearsing those songs live, one day one of us suggested that we go from "Electric Worry" straight into "One Eyed Dollar" as kind of a really lengthy piece. We kept doing it night after night because it sounded cool. When it came to writing the record, we tried writing a song like "One Eyed Dollar" that would fit the bill, but nothing beat it. So, we said "screw it, let's just do it the way we were doing it live and it kind of works". We changed some of the lyrics a little bit to improve the song and there you have it.
Anarchy: Clutch can sound Country or Blues or whatever you want, but you always still sound like Clutch. How do you manage that, and is there anywhere that you don't think would be appropriate for Clutch to go? Also, whats the process of writing a song like? It starts with a riff, right?
Neil: Yeah, a riff comes. Myself, Tim (Suit, guitarist) or Dan (Maines, bassist) will write a riff and the others will learn it. We'll just sit there and stare at each other and wait for someone else to come up with one to compliment it. I think that because it's the same guys it's kind of an extension of our personalities. We play through the same set-up year after year after year. We're not adding some kind of signature effect or anything. It's just honest guitars and drums. After a while of kicking some riffs around, I bring it home and bang my head against a wall trying to think up lyrics. Sometimes they come in a day, sometimes it takes months. Sometimes they end up in the trash can, then they reappear. The guys in the band are really prolific. They write more riffs than i could ever write lyrics to. i just try to keep up with them.
Anarchy: You guys have so unreleased songs out there, "My Friends Call Me Bullseye", "Hot Off The Grill", a bunch of others...any plans to collect those or are we waiting for the 20 disc box set?
Neil: Well, we did something like that with Slow Hole To China, which collected a bunch of unreleased stuff that we could get our fingers on. I guess the unfortunate thing about being on so many labels is that a lot of our B sides are owned by companies who, just because they can, will not give them up even though they're not marketing them. They're just sitting on a shelf somewhere. We can only collect those releases that we owned. There's quite a few. We're just always so preoccupied on the future that things of the past get thrown by the wayside.
Anarchy: Speaking of the past, how do you view the more early, more hardcore stuff like The Passive Restraints and International Speedway League in comparison to what you're doing now?
Neil: I think it's the same guys but a different band. A more obvious thing to do when we realized what we wanted to do fromour self-titled or Elephant Riders would have been to rename the band. We just never did. Anyone's going to grow, if you listen to anyones work. That early stuff is when we were just teenagers. Biw I'm in my mid-thirties, as is everyone else. Hopefully you'll grow. that's what happened. you had to start somewhere. I think the aggression kind of turns me off a little bit, but I think that's because I heard it so much I just wanted to go somewhere else.
Anarchy: Do you have a least favorite or favorite song of your own?
Neil: That's like picking your favorite children. The new ones are always some of my favorites. I like "Black Umbrella" on the new record. I think I'd pick something off Transnational like "Heirloom 13" or some other jam like that.
Anarchy: This has nothing to do with you at all...Sabbath with Ozzy or Sabbath with Dio...who ya got?
Neil: Tough one, sort of like whats the sound of one hand clapping. I'm going to say...Ozzy.
Anarchy: Ah, interesting. that will add to the debate my friends and I are having over which is better.
Neil: You know, the reason why I say Ozzy is because I always think of their first couple of records, Black Sabbath, Sabotage, Volume 4, those are the best Sabbath songs. When Dio joined they should have just renamed the band, because those are great songs too. Later on, the newer material is not my favorite.
Anarchy: How did you hook up with the band Lionize to do a song?
Neil: From about 1985-1989 I worked for the singer's father, who owned a fish market. The singer, nate was 5 years old at the time. He coincidentally got into rock n roll and now he's in his 20's. He caught up with me and I met up with his dad. It was just old friends. they asked me to sing on one of their songs and I said "sure", and thats it.
Anarchy: Do you what what the set list is going to look like for the tour? Any plans to bring back "Binge And Purge" or some of the more obscure stuff?
Neil: It's tough to say. Our set list is 18 songs long, about 50% of which will be brand new stuff. At this point we can only pick 2 songs from each record. the songs that we don't play from Transnational Speedway league never come up in the discussions. I was always put off by that song just because it's kind of long. It's reputation kind of exceeds itself. We didn't play it for awhile and then when we did play it was kind of like "so what". it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Anarchy: What is the agenda as far as touring goes?
Neil: We're going out for 3 weeks in the states with Dub Trio and Five Horse Johnson. Then we're going to Europe and coming back and doing the states again. We're breaking the US into 3 little runs, about 4 weeks each so we'll be everywhere in teh US by mid-June.
Anarchy: Clutch fans, it's not like a lot of bands where they say 'Oh, I like 3 Doors Down" or whateevr. they LOVE Clutch. Who are these people? What is their story?
Neil: It's pretty widespread, which I like. It's not very specific. It's not like if they like "A" then they'll like "B". They either get it or they don't. I dont know exactly what it is that they latch onto, I'm just glad they do. we're lucky that we have fans that fans of live music. i think that has a lot to do with it. they're not just worried about what's hip. They probably saw us opening up for some other band, then they've been coming to the shows ever since. I'd rather have a relationship with the fans who come see us play then call in on the request line at the radio station. not that I don't want that to happen, I'm just trying to illustrate a point. I think they also don't take themselves too seriously. they've maybe latched onto a bit of the sense of humor that the band has.
Anarchy: Everybody I know that has seen you live will say that Clutch is the greatest band on the face of the earth, so i definitely think that the live experience plays into that.
From Beale Street To Oblivion is a great record, and it's really accessible...could this be The Year Of Clutch?
Neil: I'm not concerned about that. 2006 was a a great year for us. I'm not looking at the glass as half empty. If some more people want to join the fray then come on in.
Anarchy: Hopefully they will. I like to think of you as musical missionaries, preaching the gospel of kickass music. I'll take you over "Honkeytonk Badonkadonk" any day.
Neil: (laughs) To each his own.
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Once again, thanks to Neil for taking the time to talk with us. You can check out our previous interview with him RIGHT HERE and go to Pro-Rock.com for more info on Clutch!