‘You’ve got to keep peoples’ attention’: Clutch tour comes to Wichita on Friday
As someone who has been fronting the hard rock band Clutch for more than 25 years, it’s obvious Neil Fallon has found a lot to like about music.
“I love writing music. I love performing music. Recording music has never been my favorite of those three,” Fallon said in a phone interview.
Yes, making albums can be a grind sometimes, as recording sessions tend to involve disagreements over aspects of the music and a good bit of tedium can come with making sure the small details in a track are just right.
But Fallon found the making of Clutch’s current album, “Book of Bad Decisions” to have involved fewer of the downsides of being in a studio.
A key difference was Vance Powell, who produced “Book of Bad Decisions.” In talking to Fallon, it’s obvious that choosing Powell, a six-time Grammy winning producer, was anything but a bad move for the veteran band.
The album was recorded in three weeks — an unusually short amount of time for Clutch — and Fallon found working with Powell to be one of the best experiences he has had in the studio.
“I think half the battle is personality when you’re in a studio because you’re holed up with other people in a small space and it can be frustrating,” he said. “But Vance is very zen in the way he works with artists. And I kind of almost went a little weird about the process when all was said and done because I didn’t feel the typical amount of hair pulling. I didn’t feel like I had done anything, even though we had. It was frighteningly easy because Vance, not only does he know how to place a microphone in the right place, he knows how to interact with people in the right way, which is an important part of the process.”
Whatever producers and studios Clutch has used over a 12-album career that began in 1991, when Fallon joined forces with guitarist Tim Sult, bassist Dan Maines and drummer Jean-Paul Gaster in Germantown, Maryland, the group has turned out consistently compelling music.
Signed early on to East West Records, a Warner Brothers subsidiary, and later on to major labels Columbia and Atlantic, Clutch had its biggest commercial breakthrough, not on those labels, but with “Blast Tyrant” (which featured the single “The Mob Goes Wild”) on the indie label, DRT Records. The group started its own label, Weathermaker, in 2008, and has seen “Earth Rocker” (2013), “Psychic Warfare” (2015) and now “Book of Bad Decisions” each debut in the top 20 on “Billboard” magazine’s all-genre “Billboard 200” album chart, while experiencing steady growth in the size of its audience.
Those three most recent albums also have seen the band’s music take a somewhat subtle, but notable shift. Where early Clutch albums were noted for having some extended songs and elements of progressive rock and so-called “stoner rock” mixed with burly hard rock, Clutch more recently has opted for more concise songs with faster tempos.
That is certainly true of “Book of Bad Decisions,” whose 15 songs are nothing if not energetic and full of life, as they integrate elements of metal, blues and Southern rock — all wrapped in big, ear-grabbing riffs and lyrics from Fallon that are smart, frequently cryptic and also laced with bits of sharp humor.
While “Book of Bad Decisions” is still considered Clutch’s current album, the group has been releasing newly recorded songs digitally through what it calls the “Weathermaker Vault Series.” Some of the tracks released so far include “Willie Nelson” (a song that the band wrote some 20 years ago), “Spacegrass” (original version on Clutch’s 1995 self-titled debut album), “Evil” (a Willie Dixon song originally made famous by Howlin’ Wolf), “Precious and Grace” (by ZZ Top) and “Fortunate Son” (by Creedence Clearwater Revival). Fallon said the group plans to release a song roughly each month through this series and will focus mainly on cover versions of songs by other acts and re-recorded versions of songs from Clutch’s back catalog.
Fallon said the Weathermaker Vault Series was launched to address the way the public consumes music in today’s digital era.
“In this day and age, you’ve got to keep peoples’ attention and I think we are no exception,” Fallon said. “Rock and roll has a very traditional way, still, of putting out music, compared to things like hip-hop or EDM. So we kind of wanted to dip our toes in the water of just putting out songs digitally on a regular basis.”
Before the pandemic hit, songs from the Weathermaker Vault Series were starting to appear alongside songs from “Book of Bad Decisions” and some older material Clutch hadn’t played in years. Fans can expect set lists to vary from night to night as the band returns to the road, including a stop at The Cotillion on Friday, May 13.
“We’ve kind of perusing our back catalog, playing some songs that we haven’t played in years and years and years,” he said. “It’s a good exercise. Sometimes you forget about these things and it’s good to revisit those songs to triangulate your position in some way.”