Adam Pfleider
06/17/10, 02:33 PM
Clutch certainly have a place in rock music after surviving - and still thriving - two decades of industry and reinvention. This past month saw the release of Clutch Live at the 9:30, where the band can be seen performing their entire self-titled through. The live DVD also contains a second disc containing the documentary Fortune Tellers Make A Killing Nowadays with footage never before seen of the band's early career. Frontman Neil Fallon took the time to talk about the band's legacy and how they got through the last two decades by simply "being a band."
I'm curious why the 9:30 Club was chosen for the DVD. Was that planned from the beginning? What's special about that venue, to do it there, and perform the self-titled all the way through?
Well, we did some other shows in some other venues. The intent initially was to get the best show, it didn't necessarily have to be at the 9:30 Club show. Things being the way they panned out, that was the best as far as things being technically and performance wise. That's fortunate because that's one of the clubs we started playing here in D.C. That's kind of where we learned the ropes in a lot of regards. That's also a club where we saw a lot of bands that influenced us coincidentally. The first generation of [the club] when it was a small dive was a very historical site with all the punk shows and hardcore shows that went on there. It got a lot larger, but it's still a very cool vibe and somehow managed to transfer that.
[B]On the flipside, there's the documentary DVD. What was your reaction to sitting down and seeing some of the older footage? What was the band's reaction to seeing some of the older footage? What came back rushing through your mind about seeing that?
It was pretty shocking because I for one, and I think the rest of the guys are the same way, I don't like watching footage of us whether it's yesterday or ten years ago. I'm concerned with what's happening next. This is the first time I've looked at it since we've done it. One, obviously, we were a lot younger. It was the same guys, but it was pretty amusing seeing us do the same thing we were doing now in a much more - and I don't want to say the word "naive" - but we hadn't toured as much and we hadn't learned nearly as much. It was sort of like watching a before and after photo. It was amusing more than anything else. Sometimes it was hard to watch, like if you read your old diary entry when you were a teenager. You have to grimace at it a little bit.
Clutch's sound has certainly evolved over the years. Being around for a little under two decades now, was it just hard to sit there and be like, "I was just so young." Now where that sound evolved, was it humbling in a way to see where you've grown as a songwriter and as a guitar player?
There's a lot to be proud of and a lot to be grateful for. I'm grateful that we're in a position to be able to do this as long as we have. I know that there's a lot of people that I know personally that wanted to do the same thing, but circumstances dictated otherwise. There was a lot of hard work involved. One of the things that happens when you do do something for a long time, or at least hopefully, you do get that humility when you realize you go on to do bigger things, you [still] realize you're just a small drop in the bucket of what you do. I think that's really been the case with us. The more I learn about music, the more I'm overwhelmed by what is out there. Looking back and realizing you made a career and a life out of it is a really rare and fortunate thing. Looking back at 20 years is pretty gratifying. We don't take it for granted at this point. Maybe when you first start out you're young and you don't give a damn and you think, "Well this is what I do," and you live in ignorant bliss of what it is you do. Then you look back after 20 years and say, "Wow, we're really lucky to have done it for as long as we did. It could have gone to shit for any number of reasons."
Is it weird to think about growing up in the '90s with that sort of pool of bands touring compared to the massive pool of bands touring the last decade? How does it feel to survive two different decades with a complete shift in the industry and the way listeners are getting their music now?
Well, if you look at the beginning of the '90s, when we got in bed with major labels, is because of Nirvana. I think that's the case with 99% of rock bands, even metal bands, that were signed. All the major labels dropped all the hair bands and new wave bands and said let's get in on whatever was not part of that. We got signed up with thousands of other bands and like thousands of other bands, we got dropped because we didn't make them their platinum hits that they were after. That's okay. We didn't see that as a defeat. I think one of the mistakes that bands made in the '90s is they continued to look at major labels as a goal...That's not the point of making music. That might be a tool, and that's all we saw it as. If these things went to hell, like they invariably did, we just went on to the next thing. When that kind of paradigm ended and the Internet allowed bands [to connect] directly to their fans, we kind of, either as a business model or emotionally, we were already there. We were already putting out our own records. We were touring like crazy. We didn't see any significant money from record sales. It was always selling t-shirts at a night club. It sort of baffles me when rock critics talk about bands having to go back to working and touring. I have to snicker, because a lot of bands have been doing that, and that's all we have ever done. I think that's the way it should be. It's live music. That other stuff should always play second fiddle to the live performance.
It's interesting that you say that, because it seems like Clutch, at this point in their career, has this cult like following. A lot of people feel that has to do with your extensive tour schedule. Do you think that touring is the majority of why Clutch has lasted so long and has that following? Do you think there's other aspects of what you're doing that takes more precedent?
If you take a band that enjoys a number one hit on the radio, sometimes they can go out on the road and they get fifty people at a club, or even if they get a thousand people and those fans are fans of a song and not the band. There are bands that tour for a long time to build up the following. I kind of draw the analogy of building a house with sticks or bricks. You can build a house with sticks very quickly, but it doesn't last. It takes a long time to build a house of bricks. It will stay around a lot longer than you will. I also can't discount the power of the Internet. A band like ourselves isn't going to appeal to everybody. At least the Internet provides the vehicle for us to find the people who like us. We couldn't do that a few years ago.
Have you guys begun writing the follow-up to Strange Cousins from the West yet?
We have begun writing. Our plan for the rest of the year is we are going to re-release all the DRT Records...We went to court with DRT and they didn't pay us the money we were owed and what the court owed us in our favor, so we got the records back from them. We're going to go in the studio to record the new record in January.
And quite a few people were wondering if there's going to be a Company Band follow-up, or was it a one time jam session amongst friends for fun?
It was for fun. We didn't go in there thinking we're going to make a shit ton of records and go out on tour. It's difficult for The Company Band to do a whole lot since half the band lives on the East Coast and half lives on the West Coast. Everyone in the band has other bands. It's a rare occasion that we can all get together to write. I'd like to do it. It's a lot of fun to play with people outside your band. It's a learning curve. It's always an important thing to keep an eye out for.
Usually I don't ask this question, but based on Clutch's legacy, any words for your long time fans and those just discovering your music and making their way through the catalog?
For our long time fans, thank you, and we're certainly going to do this as long as we can. For the people just finding out about us, come check us out at a show if you can, and if you can't, we'll probably be back around in a few months because we just seem to tour that much. Other than that, thank you.
I'm curious why the 9:30 Club was chosen for the DVD. Was that planned from the beginning? What's special about that venue, to do it there, and perform the self-titled all the way through?
Well, we did some other shows in some other venues. The intent initially was to get the best show, it didn't necessarily have to be at the 9:30 Club show. Things being the way they panned out, that was the best as far as things being technically and performance wise. That's fortunate because that's one of the clubs we started playing here in D.C. That's kind of where we learned the ropes in a lot of regards. That's also a club where we saw a lot of bands that influenced us coincidentally. The first generation of [the club] when it was a small dive was a very historical site with all the punk shows and hardcore shows that went on there. It got a lot larger, but it's still a very cool vibe and somehow managed to transfer that.
[B]On the flipside, there's the documentary DVD. What was your reaction to sitting down and seeing some of the older footage? What was the band's reaction to seeing some of the older footage? What came back rushing through your mind about seeing that?
It was pretty shocking because I for one, and I think the rest of the guys are the same way, I don't like watching footage of us whether it's yesterday or ten years ago. I'm concerned with what's happening next. This is the first time I've looked at it since we've done it. One, obviously, we were a lot younger. It was the same guys, but it was pretty amusing seeing us do the same thing we were doing now in a much more - and I don't want to say the word "naive" - but we hadn't toured as much and we hadn't learned nearly as much. It was sort of like watching a before and after photo. It was amusing more than anything else. Sometimes it was hard to watch, like if you read your old diary entry when you were a teenager. You have to grimace at it a little bit.
Clutch's sound has certainly evolved over the years. Being around for a little under two decades now, was it just hard to sit there and be like, "I was just so young." Now where that sound evolved, was it humbling in a way to see where you've grown as a songwriter and as a guitar player?
There's a lot to be proud of and a lot to be grateful for. I'm grateful that we're in a position to be able to do this as long as we have. I know that there's a lot of people that I know personally that wanted to do the same thing, but circumstances dictated otherwise. There was a lot of hard work involved. One of the things that happens when you do do something for a long time, or at least hopefully, you do get that humility when you realize you go on to do bigger things, you [still] realize you're just a small drop in the bucket of what you do. I think that's really been the case with us. The more I learn about music, the more I'm overwhelmed by what is out there. Looking back and realizing you made a career and a life out of it is a really rare and fortunate thing. Looking back at 20 years is pretty gratifying. We don't take it for granted at this point. Maybe when you first start out you're young and you don't give a damn and you think, "Well this is what I do," and you live in ignorant bliss of what it is you do. Then you look back after 20 years and say, "Wow, we're really lucky to have done it for as long as we did. It could have gone to shit for any number of reasons."
Is it weird to think about growing up in the '90s with that sort of pool of bands touring compared to the massive pool of bands touring the last decade? How does it feel to survive two different decades with a complete shift in the industry and the way listeners are getting their music now?
Well, if you look at the beginning of the '90s, when we got in bed with major labels, is because of Nirvana. I think that's the case with 99% of rock bands, even metal bands, that were signed. All the major labels dropped all the hair bands and new wave bands and said let's get in on whatever was not part of that. We got signed up with thousands of other bands and like thousands of other bands, we got dropped because we didn't make them their platinum hits that they were after. That's okay. We didn't see that as a defeat. I think one of the mistakes that bands made in the '90s is they continued to look at major labels as a goal...That's not the point of making music. That might be a tool, and that's all we saw it as. If these things went to hell, like they invariably did, we just went on to the next thing. When that kind of paradigm ended and the Internet allowed bands [to connect] directly to their fans, we kind of, either as a business model or emotionally, we were already there. We were already putting out our own records. We were touring like crazy. We didn't see any significant money from record sales. It was always selling t-shirts at a night club. It sort of baffles me when rock critics talk about bands having to go back to working and touring. I have to snicker, because a lot of bands have been doing that, and that's all we have ever done. I think that's the way it should be. It's live music. That other stuff should always play second fiddle to the live performance.
It's interesting that you say that, because it seems like Clutch, at this point in their career, has this cult like following. A lot of people feel that has to do with your extensive tour schedule. Do you think that touring is the majority of why Clutch has lasted so long and has that following? Do you think there's other aspects of what you're doing that takes more precedent?
If you take a band that enjoys a number one hit on the radio, sometimes they can go out on the road and they get fifty people at a club, or even if they get a thousand people and those fans are fans of a song and not the band. There are bands that tour for a long time to build up the following. I kind of draw the analogy of building a house with sticks or bricks. You can build a house with sticks very quickly, but it doesn't last. It takes a long time to build a house of bricks. It will stay around a lot longer than you will. I also can't discount the power of the Internet. A band like ourselves isn't going to appeal to everybody. At least the Internet provides the vehicle for us to find the people who like us. We couldn't do that a few years ago.
Have you guys begun writing the follow-up to Strange Cousins from the West yet?
We have begun writing. Our plan for the rest of the year is we are going to re-release all the DRT Records...We went to court with DRT and they didn't pay us the money we were owed and what the court owed us in our favor, so we got the records back from them. We're going to go in the studio to record the new record in January.
And quite a few people were wondering if there's going to be a Company Band follow-up, or was it a one time jam session amongst friends for fun?
It was for fun. We didn't go in there thinking we're going to make a shit ton of records and go out on tour. It's difficult for The Company Band to do a whole lot since half the band lives on the East Coast and half lives on the West Coast. Everyone in the band has other bands. It's a rare occasion that we can all get together to write. I'd like to do it. It's a lot of fun to play with people outside your band. It's a learning curve. It's always an important thing to keep an eye out for.
Usually I don't ask this question, but based on Clutch's legacy, any words for your long time fans and those just discovering your music and making their way through the catalog?
For our long time fans, thank you, and we're certainly going to do this as long as we can. For the people just finding out about us, come check us out at a show if you can, and if you can't, we'll probably be back around in a few months because we just seem to tour that much. Other than that, thank you.