Neil Fallon - Clutch and Staying Relevant

Neil Fallon - Clutch and Staying Relevant - Neil is the lead singer of Clutch (pro-rock.com). The band's roots date back 30 years to 1991 when a group of high school friends started rocking. 12 albums later and the owner of their own label. Clutch has conquered rock. They remain, friends, touring and writing great music.  

Get all of Clutch's music at their website 

The band continues to do great things for the fans, on May 2020 the band re-released a new version of Smoke Banshee. Also on 15 May the band is playing music and making some announcements live on their YouTube channel.  

Haiku
It’s Clutch to be Neil
So Whenever it feels right
A rock n roll life

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Transcript

​Pete Turner  0:00  
Hey everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of your break it down show today's guests for the audio release of our formerly live show features get this Neil Fallon. Who's that? Well, he's the lead singer from clutch and you know clutch, you know their music. They've been all over the radio for 20 plus years now, clutch has been signed by a bunch of different labels, but ultimately always figured out like this is better for us to do on our own and they are one of the best bands. Absolutely. If you are into clutch, I don't need to tell. I'd say Neil Fallon, you're already off like, hurry up, shut up, get done with the intro. But if you don't know clutch, let me just tell you. There are a few acts that really do things truly for their fans. And this is one of those acts. ​​

They love them. They create content specifically for them. They reconstitute songs they have doing cover versions, new arrangements, all those kind of things but always putting out new material. I just I can't get enough of this jon and i and actually this episode's produced by Damien out in North Macedonia. Tony, so hats off to him as well. But john and i got a chance to sit down with just an absolute monster in terms of understanding what it is to lead a band to do it for 20 plus years to stay friends with your friends. Oh my god, what an incredible part of the conversation that is as well. So just that whole vibe of how does Neil do this? How does he do it as a guy who's basically the same age as me, you know, approaching 50 years old, and he's still out there giving it his all and let me tell you something. If you are the lead singer of clutch, you're not singing ballads and crooning into a microphone. You're working hard. So how do you stay relevant? How do you put out great new music? How do you continue to write music that matters? And those things are it's just an incredible adventure, and I know you're going to love who Neil is. And I appreciate all your guys's support with the show. I see all the tweets and all the shares and the likes and I just think it's just so fantastic. Thank you all so much for doing that. Continue to do the same thing. And if you're new to the show, hey, check it out. Five shows a week. Everything from musicians to combat guys everything we're going to illustrate live for you and I'm going to do it through the lens of a combat spy. That sounds interesting to you. Okay great. This is your kind of show do me a favor subscribe whether it's on YouTube or some other platform subscribe rate review that's how you help someone like me out we The show is growing so much and we continue to get up this massive podcast mountain are a lot of really like tanks coming up and I'm excited about them. And it's all because the people who support the show really help drive the engine. That's why I say your break it down show. Alright, enough about all that stuff. Save the brave save the brave org. Have a great day. And here comes the O'Fallon lions rock productions.

Unknown Speaker  2:41  
This is Jay Morrison,

Unknown Speaker  2:41  
this is Jordan. Dexter from the offspring named Sebastian yo this is Rick Mirage Stewart

Unknown Speaker  2:47  
COPPA. This is Mitch Alexis Andy

Unknown Speaker  2:48  
somebody there's a skunk Baxter

Jon Leon Guerrero  2:50  
Gabby Reese is Rob bell. This is john Leon gray and

Pete Turner  2:52  
this is Pete a Turner.

Neil Fallon  2:56  
Hey, this is Neil Fallon and you are watching the break it down show

Jon Leon Guerrero  3:02  
Yes, you are and we are fired up to have Neil Fallon on the show. Neil Fallon is the lead singer of a band called clutch. And if you're not working out to clutch you're not working out hard enough. That's what I say. clutches the band that everybody who's ever been in the band wants to be in. I'd be honest with you, Neil. I was I was not that familiar with clutch. And then demyan suggested that we have you on the show. And I was like, Well, let me check these guys out. And I figured out that you guys are my heroes, man. Well, shucks, you have the best setup for our audience. If you're familiar with clubs, you already know what's going on. If not, here's the deal. Your band has been together since 1991. Huh? You've been able to make a living playing music with your buddies. All this time. Same lineup, huh, remarkable. A Van Halen. From Frederick, you guys are from Maryland, right?

Neil Fallon  4:03  
Yeah. Right now we're based out of Frederick, Maryland,

Jon Leon Guerrero  4:05  
Frederick, Maryland. And how often do you get out to the west coast? Because I don't think we often enough.

Neil Fallon  4:14  
Well, we were just up there and well, she's September November with the Dropkick Murphys. Yeah. We do go out there pretty regularly. And we were supposed to be out there, I think right about now. But we're not. So we do. We hit the West Coast, usually two times a year. Okay. Sometimes it really depends, you know, what's going on for having the album just came out for, you know, things are petering out. Thinking about another album, so it's a big world. It's tough to get everywhere.

Pete Turner  4:48  
Yeah. We were talking with that dummy on off mic and he and I were seeing that. The next time you come to Greece, he wants you to pop north in North Macedonia, which is actually right next to Greece, but And he's gonna set up a venue and get you guys to play there. So we're already gonna put you to work up and you know, you come out all the way up to Greece, you may as well take a little our trip north and play there as well. So we want more.

Neil Fallon  5:12  
We're all about it. You know, it's, that's one of the great things about being in pan is traveling and going to see these places that you never dreamed of. and meeting people on not on it in the, in the tourist circuit, you meet people in a real way, make friends from around the world, and have a good time while doing it. So sign us up.

Jon Leon Guerrero  5:34  
This is a strange time to be in a band, especially in a band that like you guys have really gathered your fan base on the road, touring all the time. What do you see moving forward? Man, I hate to jump right to that question, but we kind of got to knock this topic out. Where were you guys pointed. Let's get the elephant out of the room.

Neil Fallon  5:58  
Well, you know I think without in our case, our fan base was built up for one word of mouth, and just grinding it out on the road. I think sometimes a band, if they have a huge hit right out of the gates, that's the worst thing that could happen to them. Because their expectations get set really high. And it's a very bitter pill to swallow when things start getting reduced. But if you have this mindset of you just you're happy to be at the show, no matter how many people are there. It's like the analogy I always use. It's like you can build a house out of sticks or stones it takes longer to build it out of stones, but it's going to be there long after you're gone. So for us trying to adapt for this has been a learning curve. We've set up us turning our jam room basically into a studio now. Video Studio, and I've spent the last two weeks learning OBS and Oh,

Pete Turner  6:49  
yes, you know, it's me.

Neil Fallon  6:52  
Know, I'm the last person you want to talk to. But you know, the reaction that we got from some very brief streams was phenomenal. It is odd singing to a laptop. But I think people enjoy the interaction. And that's what I think people miss most. And it's not just us, it's having their girlfriend or their buddy next to them, you know, spilling drinks on each other and having a good time and forgetting about life for a while. This is as close as it can get for them as well as us. And I think that's going to be going on for a while having said that, even when things go back out on the road, I think we'll probably continue with the streaming because to be honest, look, I'm 48 I've had a very get off my lawn attitude about the whole thing for many, many years. Now that I've learned more about in the bands learn more about it. I think we were okay with it. We've kind of warmed up to it as a concept. So I guess that's a silver lining to this mess,

Pete Turner  7:49  
I guess. I mean, it's better than being left behind by the marketplace, that's for sure. Just to poke a little bit of fun at someone like Gene Simmons who's always shaking his fist at you know, the advanced The reality is, this is what you have to do if you're going to be a relevant band, you guys have built a worldwide audience. But you're also still growing, you're still you're not putting new albums out because you guys are bored with putting out music and finding fans. You know,

Neil Fallon  8:15  
it's the end of the day, the fundamentals of it are the same. We enjoy playing music together, the four of us, and we enjoy playing music for people. And it's really quite that simple. Everything, everything else is secondary and subordinate to that. I think with rock bands in particular, there's there's a tendency to have a Arrested Development intellectually, and to think you're perpetually 21 years old, and the world should rotate around you. But you know, things will change whether you like it or not, you know, I asked my son is it weird for me to tell people on YouTube just hit the subscribe button and he was like, why would it be weird? That's all he's heard his whole that's all he's heard his whole life. Yeah. You know, I guess it will for you know, I take I see an analogy sometimes for a lot of bands that hated when music videos became a huge thing. And you can see the bands that embraced it. And the bands that didn't, we've always had problem warming up to that we did okay with it. But I see an analogy in this situation.

Pete Turner  9:19  
When you look at the, you know, the thing like selling out versus remaining relevant and doing things like hit the subscribe button, what other barriers are there for you? You're like, I just have to get over it. The band just has to get over it. This is this is how you do music nowadays. I mean, you've got to promote a Spotify channel. Maybe you guys have a SoundCloud account, you have YouTube, all these different platforms if you don't promote Heck, no one else is gonna. Yeah,

Neil Fallon  9:49  
you have to do it yourself. And I find you know we've in the 90s we were assigned to major labels after having started ourselves and then that went away. Round two. 2000 and we started again. And this is kind of a repeat. This is sort of like the third cycle for us where it's, you know, getting back in the mental van. And no one's gonna hold your hand and show you how to do it. I mean, I've tried instructional videos on YouTube. And that's a nightmare. The only way you can do it is just like dive right in and not be afraid to make the mistakes. I mean, the first time we did a stream was accidental. And for 15 minutes, people just saw my grill up against the screen like this, trying to figure it out. You know, that's the way it has to happen. Sorry, as far as I'm concerned.

Jon Leon Guerrero  10:37  
Your audience too seems to be the kind of audience that would get a kick out of you know, here's Neil figuring it out.

Neil Fallon  10:44  
Oh, quick, my quickly became a meme, you know? Yeah. I think it was the face of every dad trying to check into Google Classroom.

Unknown Speaker  10:55  
Looks like I'm also relate to.

Jon Leon Guerrero  10:57  
Let's roll back to basics though. And talk About songwriting because when you've had the, you know, long prolific career that you guys have enjoyed, what? What is songwriting like for you now that you know, how different is it from what it was back back when you first started? Because you guys have always been asking good time band.

Neil Fallon  11:18  
Well, thank you. I think at its core, it's exactly the same. We get together. And someone says, I have a riff. And we'll play it and it'll change and but and then it'll morph and over the weeks or months, it's hard to tell who wrote what my favorite bands are the bands that are like the sum is greater than the parts. Yeah, and that's what I hope we are. We don't have a sense of ownership where it's like, this song is going to be exactly the way I want it. And JP you got to play this beat. You got to do this. Now. That's no fun because it's sort of like do a I think the joy of doing something collectively creative as it becomes something you did not Expect. So that's true to this day. I think the other part is, you always got to look at it as an education. I took my first vocal lesson about a year and a half ago. I wish I had done it about 20 years ago. But, you know, unless you challenge yourself, you're not going to have your vocabulary is not going to grow. And in any field and musician, musics no different.

Jon Leon Guerrero  12:25  
Well, what makes a guy who's made a living at with a microphone in his hand for nearly 30 years, finally take a vocal lesson.

Neil Fallon  12:37  
I was blowing my voice out suddenly, and I was doing everything I thought I was supposed to do, you know, go out to the bar, go to bed, drink lots of water. Don't act like you're 19 and it was still giving me a lot of issues. And this gentleman by the name of Pete Strobel, who had been a vocal coach out in LA, for some reason decided to retire in Baltimore. Which is lucky for me. Yeah. And he kind of he changed the game for me. And it was all by just doing some simple warm ups to basically treat your vocal cords, like a muscle the way any athlete would warm up before a competition and you got to treat this the show, like that way and I'm in mindset, you want the last show to be just as good if not better than the first show and not limping your way to the finish line. And that that was really my reasoning behind it.

Jon Leon Guerrero  13:31  
So he taught you to be an endurance athlete

Neil Fallon  13:34  
a little bit, you know, he, he told me that, you know, my breathing was right, you know, it was more vaboutthe truth of the matters of the exercises, you got to push your falsetto range, which seems counterintuitive because of the way I sing. But if you can get up to this note, and sustain it, it's pretty easy to get up to this note and It'd be hard to be a cakewalk and feel good about it instead of struggling.

Pete Turner  14:07  
When you get the songwriting thing when you've been around for as long as you guys have, it's, it's easy for a band to you know, just write songs, we're just gonna write songs, they put them out, you know, often like the best songs from a band come out when they were 18 when they're in that van, trying to figure it out. And later on, either we get bored with it or something. Something is missing from those magic moments. You guys have managed to put out consistently good material. I'm positive that you think you're still getting better as a songwriter and I agree. But what is it that separates bands that continue to make music that matters versus bands that make things because this is what they do? They write songs,

Neil Fallon  14:46  
honesty, and sincerity, that if you if someone got into this thinking this is the my ticket to be rich and famous and meet a lot of girls. You might get a taste of that, but change Chances are, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment and failure. But if what you truly enjoy is the creative process. That's all you need. And no, it's great to make a living at this because I, to be honest, I took it for granted for many years because this was not a dream of mine. I just kind of stumbled upon it and treated it disrespectfully. And then when I came to an age, where I realized, okay, we now have families in the picture, is this viable? And we roll the dice again. And once I did that, it was kind of liberating. I was like, Well, you know, this is this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go to my grave doing this and suddenly, I became much more respectful of it much more defensive about it took it much more seriously. Not that the first shows I just phoned in. I just kind of thought, well, maybe next year it will be over. I guess, the expression when you hear You do something that you love, you'll never work a day in your life. I think that's bullshit.

Jon Leon Guerrero  16:05  
Yeah, I hate that expression.

Neil Fallon  16:06  
Yeah. If you do something that you love, you work your ass off to keep it that way. And I think that's we collectively feel the same way.

Jon Leon Guerrero  16:16  
That's the theme. Really, I think when when we have guests whose work we admire, it will always come back to that. And the reason that we tend to gravitate to admiring, you know, people who've had a nice, long, sincere body of work is because of exactly that factor. You know, you've been called upon at times in your life where you got to turn it on, and you find it, and you find it because you love it and you continue to love it. And when you have a group of guys who've been together like you have, is one of the things I look forward to pointing out to our audience is that you guys, like every other band, have had periods where you push away From the band to do a different exploration, you know, like a solo project, but you always end up employing each other in your solo projects. So I think that's an indicator man that you have, you know that you found a chemistry that that you know what really matters and and what not to take for granted in this is that true? It is, you know,

Neil Fallon  17:23  
just for practical purposes a lot of that solos been instrumental stuff that we do. Because john paul, Tim and Dan write way more music than I could ever possibly write lyrics. And, you know, some sometimes it's a good exercise for me to learn how to shut my mouth and say what I need to say on guitar. I wasn't. guitar was new to me in when this band started and I'm still you know, figuring that out. It's like,

Jon Leon Guerrero  17:50  
Come on, guys. You keep reading music. I'm running out of towns in Texas. Here.

Neil Fallon  17:55  
Yeah. Thank God for atlases

Jon Leon Guerrero  18:01  
rhyming dictionary and a Thompson guide.

Neil Fallon  18:04  
You know, I got one right here. We

Jon Leon Guerrero  18:08  
got to be a certain age to get that joke. Hey, Neil. Do you know Ryan sickler? Ryan sickler? Yeah, he's a comedian, but he's from Baltimore. And he's, you know, he's around our age. So it's quite possible but I live in a cocoon.

Neil Fallon  18:26  
Yeah. I imagine you know, I mean, we're both kind of grinding you know, and but I you know, when I get home from tour, you know, it drives my wife crazy. I don't want to go anywhere. And she wants to see a band like,

Jon Leon Guerrero  18:37  
Ah,

Neil Fallon  18:38  
yeah, but you know, I have to cave to keep everyone happy.

Pete Turner  18:43  
What about when you guys were coming up? Did you bump into either Henry Rollins or Dave Grohl at all as you guys were, you know, playing the small joints. Because Robin same age.

Neil Fallon  18:54  
Yeah. Well, we were very lucky growing up in DC because the The scene in DC was incredible and I was naive thinking okay this is our local scene This is what every city must be like having miners threaten Bad Brains and food Ghazi right. But no, that wasn't the case. And I only later on realized how lucky we were. And believe it or not for guys, he was a huge influence in musically there might be a lot different. But those guys would go into any venue, community center church, fluorescent lights, no bar, no merge. And they would burn the house down every single time. And it really left an impression on us that we only realized later. I met Rollins only later on I was a little I'm a few years younger than that generation. Except my parents wouldn't let me get on the metro to see minor threat because I was you know, 13

Unknown Speaker  19:52  
Yeah. So

Neil Fallon  19:54  
it will you know, but it's amazing like when you hit 1617 now all of a sudden you're like, no, you're not stopping me. Then Then you go see those shows. But yeah, and I met Dave Grohl Actually, I saw his old band scream at the 930 Club well before he joined Nirvana and, man, I saw so many great bands in that club and some other clubs in the area at the time.

Pete Turner  20:19  
What makes DC such a hotbed for that? Because and I figured you had to be influenced by that just by by your timing. I mean, yeah, you can't you can't avoid for Ghazi or you know any of these other bands. And if I'm saying just one name, there are so many from that area from that time. But what made the DC sound and I'm including Virginia, Maryland in that what made it so popular 20 years down the road.

Neil Fallon  20:44  
You know, it's it's hard to say sometimes there's there's something in the water. You know, New York, as it's of course it's punk rock and metal scene and the new wave. But it's so big. I think it was kind of its to its own detriment. Whereas DC is a smaller city, and I think it was easier to kind of become its own voice. And I kind of look back at that time as the clutch as the product of three scenes and that was the you know, the DC punk rock scene, the Maryland doom metal scene and then there's another scene of the DC gogo seen which that rhythm and swing played a big part in john Paul's drumming. For sure. So we kind of are in the middle of that triangle. Yeah.

Jon Leon Guerrero  21:29  
Well, I want to shout out john paul, because I'm a drummer. And you know, as I listened to collect records, man, I love job I love DC sound attack. I love Chuck brown and you guys have like the you guys take Chuck brown influence.

Neil Fallon  21:42  
There's nothing that we used him as intro, you know, intro walk on music.

Jon Leon Guerrero  21:46  
Yeah. So, you know, I have to carry on to what you're saying about New York is so big and there's so much there that you can ignore influences. And DC is the kind of scene where it's like everything's right there. You gotta soak it all up. You got to take it all in.

Neil Fallon  22:03  
Yeah. And it was I don't I never really understood the the kind of motivation to for bands to move to New York and LA. I mean, I guess maybe that's why the record labels and that's what you're supposed to do but so many will get lost in the shuffle whereas the labels were looking to places like DC or Minneapolis or Kansas City for these bands

Jon Leon Guerrero  22:23  
that had a scene

Neil Fallon  22:24  
that did yeah, have its own unique voice and of course, DC being DC there was always that politically charged, you know, energy, because it was right there. And I think that was you can't you couldn't get that in that kind of potency anywhere else. Yeah.

Jon Leon Guerrero  22:43  
I saw it. Gavin degraw. One time was talking about moving to New York and he said that I moved to New York and everybody was moving to New York around me and they were moving to New York to get signed. And I wanted to move to New York to get good

Neil Fallon  23:00  
Yeah, I think that's that's a fair statement. You know, there's there are musical echoes throughout the world, you know. And then there's New York. There's Austin, there's Nashville, Seattle. What? I think a lot of some towns just foster an Arts Movement. And it's always usually the typical process where the artists can't afford much. So they have to, by default move to the not so great section of town. And then the artists being artists make that a very appealing place with artwork and music. And then that attracts other people. And then the rent starts going up. So then the artists have to flee somewhere else to another city. And I remember in DC, half of my music friends are moving to Austin in the early 90s. Yeah, and I it's almost like sort of like this. Chasing one's tail in a way, but you're describing what's happening to Austin right now. Yeah, you know, I just I think kind of reached critical mass. I mean, it's, I don't even recognize it. It's I remember I mean, it's still cool. Don't get me wrong. But I remember going there for the first time thinking man, I want to move here. This is this is a weird ghost paradise.

Jon Leon Guerrero  24:22  
weirdos paradise. But you know, you can look back at you know when Memphis I mean Memphis kind of. You know it's people don't look to Memphis anymore. Memphis is an incredible town is still

Neil Fallon  24:35  
incredible. Yeah, there's Minneapolis often overlooked Spokane it's it's above in Portland. That's another one. And you know these things exist in every small town in America too. It's just it's hard to to see but you got to you got to look under the hood. There's there's good stuff here.

Pete Turner  24:58  
Yeah, the good stuff. How do you find inspiration? I know the fellas give you music and you try to find the words. But how do you find the good stuff? I mean, Jesus on the dashboard is a great fucking line. I mean, that's once you hear that you are instantly Listen, you're instantly in that car. My buddy Michael Perry had a Galaxie 500 and that song didn't exist when we were kids. But once you had it, you put me in that car, and then you attach to Jesus on there. Where's that good stuff these days?

Neil Fallon  25:28  
Wow. Well, I think a lot of it has to do with being a good listener. And I think I mean, in the 90s I used to walk around with a notepad three m little neck reporter's Notepad. Yeah, now I have a cell phone. And I can either type it down real quick or jibberish and I find the best stuff comes first thing in the morning. And or last thing at night. I think it has something to do with the brain like being closer to the dream state but a lot of the best stuff I've just heard out of context and Just try to come if I like one line or two lines then just try to build a world around it. And I'd rather not have all the answers to a song. I if all the mysteries taken out if it's just about a, you know, breakup with a girlfriend or Neil's bad day, it's kind of boring. You know, revisiting that, but if there's a mystery and a fiction to it, then not only can the listener put their perspective into it, like your car that you're talking about. So you're not wrong. And there's feast and famine I there's sometimes where it's can be so frustrating. I think I'm done. Like I should just retire and throw in the towel. And then usually when I've stopped pulling my hair out, and just doing something mindless like pulling the weeds out in the backyard, thought will come in my head and then I'm scrambling to write it down. And then it's The most fulfilling feeling in the world thing. Wow, that's cool. And I can't wait to share it with people.

Jon Leon Guerrero  27:06  
Do you have any stories that germinated for like a long, long time before they finally became a song? Is it something where your process is, you know, you go to the book, or you might go to your notes, and you got to get it out quickly? Or do you have those tails that kind of just lingered for a long time that eventually became a song,

Neil Fallon  27:25  
I would say, vast majority of songs that I think of, we get that get played the most during our sets of the songs that were written the quickest. Sort of like when the words just kind of come out like a torrent. Sometimes it's gonna be difficult that there are occasions where I've had an idea and I'll put it down on paper, almost like a poem and just let it sit there waiting to hear the music that matches the movie that's going on through my head. That's one of the cool things about being in a band is you get to listen to the instrumental And close your eyes and say and describe that movie. In words, and sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it's not. But one example is a on the last record, the title song book of bad decisions. Those were lyrics I wrote years prior to it ending up in a song. I was just waiting for the right mood. And when those guys played that riff, I was like, there it is, there it is. And it was pretty easy to write.

Pete Turner  28:28  
You talk to another interview about using covers for to find inspiration and to change things around. Do you ever look at covers and say, or look at a song and say, we should cover this, but from a totally new perspective, I'm not talking just like, you know, do a new arrangement. I mean, like, maybe even write the opposite view from that song, just to kind of take the cover thing and really push it out there.

Unknown Speaker  28:52  
Thanks for the idea. We will now

Unknown Speaker  28:55  
do what they should have done.

Neil Fallon  28:57  
Yeah. That's an excellent idea. You know, I think covers are good because you get into the brain of a stranger. Like, for example, we covered zz tops, pressures and grace. Yeah. And we heard it so many times growing up, you're almost Deaf to it like, Oh, that's an easy song. It's not an easy song. And once you get into the headspace, you're learning in a way. But that's cool writing the perspective, you know of a character that's in the song, and maybe, maybe the villain isn't the villain. Maybe it's the other way around. And yeah, possibilities are endless. I like that. And, again, thank you.

Pete Turner  29:34  
Yeah, I think about that, because like Nancy Sinatra, when she was gonna sing these boots are made for walking. Her dad was gonna sing it. She's like, you can't sing that song. It's cruel when you sing it. And so like, I always thought, like, what if you look at a lot of songs that way, or even just the opposite version, like the person being walked on and you sang, you know, call and response to it.

Neil Fallon  29:54  
It's just such a powerful storytelling thing. It is all about liberation.

Pete Turner  29:59  
Yeah, exactly. Yes, Yes, she did.

Neil Fallon  30:01  
Yeah. And it's it's a classic and I can't imagine her father doing it.

Jon Leon Guerrero  30:06  
Yeah, it would have just been about an asshole.

One of my favorite covers is a Michelle and Daigo cello did Who is he? And what is he to you? Oh, really? She's saying it just like that. But the lesbian dynamic, like what are you looking at him about made it kind of a different song. So that that was kind of cool. But, you know, the thing that you mentioned about your ability to write songs and that you've gotten, you know, you guys have have done it for so long that you have a bigger toolkit, I'm sure now, that just you know, things kind of come to you. And you've been saving riffs and you've been saving lyrics and a book just like, you know, just like the guys have been saving riffs. And those things kind of come together. One of the reasons that I thought about Ryan Stigler is not because he's from Baltimore. Because he's a comedian, and we have a lot of comedians on the show, too. You guys have a comedians kind of process. I don't know if you know this, but most comedians, they just churn all the time. They're always in the book. They're always making notes. They're always kind of seeing the world through their lens, and then they take it on to stay onto the stage and they work it out.

Neil Fallon  31:21  
I can I can understand that. I mean, it's the creative processes. You can't just wait for it to fall out of the sky. It's work. And for every one good idea, you have to come up with 20 shitty ones. Yeah, and a lot of Yeah, a lot of times you something sounds great in your head. And you bring it on stage and you walk off like, no. Especially in the studio I found we found very early on if you write something in the studio, it's the performance one, you're not doing it so well because you're just trying to remember the parts too. It can sound great because it's new. And three, you can do a lot of trickery you can you know, triple guitars, double the vocals, what have you, and then you bring it on stage and break it down. It doesn't really translate. So what we always do is try it when we can is play these songs on the road over and over again before we get into the studio. Because it's a completely different

Jon Leon Guerrero  32:23  
Yeah, yeah, performance is different,

Pete Turner  32:25  
which songs have moved the most for you from their inception recording in the studio, you know, 1021 year later and you're like totally different song now.

Neil Fallon  32:36  
that's a that's a good question. I would say the first one that comes to mind is spacecrafts. Okay, the one you mentioned, we recorded that a few months back because one it had changed. It's faster. I know I sing it better. Much better at john paul plate says he plays the drums better. I know. And I understand when people think that's almost sacrilege for any band to rerecord. The original because that's what people are used to. In band world that's called demo. itis is like when you make your demo, and you fall in love with it. And when you go to record the real thing, it's never as good as the demo. And I understand that. But for us, we were like, well, this is kind of how we play it. Now. Same with electric worry, it's a lot different. Just by both those songs were written in the studio and putting through the crucible of stage after stage after stage, suddenly, we're playing off each other in ways we never would have been capable of when we were looking at a clock wondering how many dollars per hour we're spending, trying to record this thing and trying to just get it done like that.

Jon Leon Guerrero  33:43  
As fans, we should get excited about that. You know, that rerecording?

Neil Fallon  33:48  
Yeah, I think Yeah, sure. Some of them are, you know, it's a very visceral reaction. It's either Oh, this is great, or what the hell you guys doing? It's also good to be completely transparent. We never did solely digital releases and we wanted to do stuff that wasn't new. Because we didn't know how the digital release would pan out when people like it, we believe in know about it, because rock and roll fans, particularly fans like us, they still love physical, you know, albums, CDs, and I understand, but this is also adapting to the future. I mean, I think music fans, musicians and music fans hang out with each other. So we think everybody's an audio file. Yeah, the fact of the matter is most of the lot the majority of people just don't care for happy to listen to these terrible Sony earbuds through their phone. And we have to provide for that, while at the same time never abandoning, you know, things like high fidelity. There's room for all these things.

Jon Leon Guerrero  34:55  
Yeah, the people with the cheap headsets get to go back to Michael Perry's galaxy to

Pete Turner  35:02  
Let's talk about the future a little bit though, because you guys toured with ZZ Top. I remember, you know, maybe a couple of decades. ZZ Top. No,

Neil Fallon  35:11  
we never turned off but you

Jon Leon Guerrero  35:12  
guys did. You should oughta okay. Okay, if they knew what was good for him

Neil Fallon  35:19  
when you were gone with,

Pete Turner  35:21  
and there are so many bands that have done this for a long time, you know, they're still out there Rolling Stones ZZ Top still hits the road from time to time. You know, YouTube is still out there a lot of bands that have been playing for 4050 years now. Does that look like a future for collect? Do you think you guys will continue to go? And if so, will the music be so visceral? And that's how I'm going to call you music visceral, working out music, or is it going to is changing already?

Neil Fallon  35:48  
The short answer your first question, yes, as long as we get I'm physically capable of doing it. This is what I'm going to do. And you know, those bands that you mentioned, they're not going out on the road for them. Honey, I mean, I can't imagine they are. They're going out on the road because they like it. I think they just get bored when they're sitting at home. I mean, what Mick Jagger say go, I need to pay the rent? No, you know, the man had a heart attack, you got a four year old, like a two year old child. And he's now he's doing, you know, a dancing workout routine so he can get back out on the stage and behave just as he did in 1970. And that's badass. Yeah. And the older you get, the more you have to take care of your body. I take much, I'm a much better I could outrun my 1991 version of myself. You know, as far as like, stamina goes. You have to do that because music is a physical thing. And if you don't take care of this, there's no way you're going to be able to execute what you need to. As far as visceral Sure, I mean, things will get toned down. I mean, you can't expect backflips in Never did those in the first place. But I think people I think the sincerity is in the delivery. You know, it doesn't have to be. Now how am I saying this? I think one of the things that clutch never did was kind of depend on like, the guitar player spinning the guitar on his neck and myself jumping out into the crowd never did that. So people aren't expecting it. Thank God because it's not going to happen.

Pete Turner  37:33  
Hey, this is Pete Turner from lions rock productions. We create podcasts around here and if you your brand or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me. I'll give you the advice on the right gear, the best plan and show you how to take a podcast that makes sense for you that's sustainable, that scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at breakdown show com

Neil Fallon  37:54  
Let me help I want to hear about it. People aren't expecting it, thank God because it's not going to happen.

Jon Leon Guerrero  38:01  
Well, I think one of the things that I mean, you, you should be an act that goes on the road with a band like ZZ Top, but not because of the spinning the guitar around, but because you guys are organically, pretty similar in the fact that oddly, you like to write songs about Texas, but just that they're the same kind of band and that they've been loyal to each other. They have the same kind of organic process. They take stuff around the road and put it through the crucible just like you know, like you described. And I think that that's the that's the audience that you know, that has found them year after year and they see audience that's found you after year and it all matches up.

Neil Fallon  38:46  
One of the things that rock and roll so I've only learned until now is like sometimes you get a Pam into your head is like yo You're too old for this like this is a young man's game and I kind of see it as the The opposite like if you can look back and say I made a living, and I still could take, make a living 30 years that that's unimaginable, it's a blessing and most bands, you know, sure they might be very intense and burnout brightly that happens sometimes fate just hands him a bad hand. Sometimes it's self inflicted. But to be able to say like the Rolling Stones doing this for 50 years, man, come on. That's, that's awesome. And that's kind of the way I look at it. And I think we have a lot of fans that have grown up with us. You know, we I've met fans that, you know, boy, a young man and young woman met at our show, fell in love, got married. Now they bring their kids to our show, and they're old enough to know the lyrics mazing that's not dating anyone. that's a that's a legacy. And it's right. I hate when labels refer to bands his legacy acts as sort of like, okay that Here comes the blue plate special. You know, it's, it's no, no, no. Hey shit if we're legacy acts, so be it. I'll wear that as a badge of honor.

Jon Leon Guerrero  40:15  
Absolutely,

Pete Turner  40:16  
yeah. Yeah. You know what, like, what are the standards here on the show? is can you sing people into love? We had Taylor Dayne on the show, she absolutely does that, you know, and her songs become people songs. And you guys for sure. I mean, people go to your show. Like I said, they're spilling drinks are having a great time they're dancing. If they're allowed, they're probably smoking a cigarette on the dance floor, and they're just gone. You just take that room, and I'm gonna want artists on the planet, especially musician who wouldn't want that kind of a legacy. So be a legacy act legacy of fucking getting people together, and having a great time and falling in love. Fuck, man. That's a great legacy.

Neil Fallon  40:54  
Yeah, it's a great feeling. You know? And even me, people say, Hey, I had a really bad bad time in my life and your music got me through it or I was on a deployment for six months and your music got me through it. That's that's the reward it you know, and also just getting on to the club and seeing people strangers dancing or high fiving each other. That's it's priceless.

Jon Leon Guerrero  41:18  
Yeah, the flip side is a band like jet, you know, they come out, they have an enormous hit. They're just everywhere, planned during the Superbowl and then gone. And all the guys are like they hate each other. They can't stand the business they can't do they just didn't. You guys have made it a blessing every time you get dropped from a label. You know, you sign a major label deal and it's like everybody's dream to do that. And then suddenly, you get dropped from the label and you come back stronger with a better record. You put it out yourself and all these years later, you know really what we can look to you guys out if we're if there's a legacy, there is just the tenacity of just

Neil Fallon  42:00  
grinding it out. I'll tell you, you know, we've been dropped like a bad habit from many labels. And when we got dropped, we would High Five each other. We're like we hoodwinked them, you know, they gave us so much tour support. So we could go out and open up for septoria and Slayer and Iron Maiden and they're dropping us. Okay, let's do it again. Yeah. And, you know, later on and end of the 90s when all the fun money for labels dried up. We went with a label and that deal, didn't work out. We had to go to court and we were awarded Some are three masters back in at that point. So let's start our own record label so we can just not play that game anymore. And it was the best business decision we ever made. And it's, it's astonishing to us that to this day, we'll meet people in the industry for lack of a better word. We we say they'll say what who you assigned to? And we'll say, well, we put out there our own records and they're like, sorry. If that's like some kind of desperate ploys like, oh, here you are bragging like you just signed your band to a seven major seven album deal. Yeah. of indentured servitude. Yeah, yeah. In 2020 Come on. Ah, it's it's it's sad, but it's fine if they feel sorry for us. It's no skin off our back.

Jon Leon Guerrero  43:29  
Yeah. It's like It's like getting kicked out of a party. get dropped from a label. It sounds like you guys are just like, Yeah, we got a jacket right on. Let's go to the next one.

Neil Fallon  43:39  
A little bit. It was kind of like a wreck shop attitude. We kind of always we were a lot younger we had a very antagonistic view towards them. We never looked at them as being a patron. We were happy to take the tour support that's what we are really after. Big Eclipse clutch was always hard to market. You know, they didn't know what they're like was this a heavy metal band is As a punk rock band, we said we don't know. Just give us a tour support, we'll go on the road. And we worked our asses off in the 90s. And then paid fruits, you know, 1015 years later.

Pete Turner  44:12  
Yeah, I mean, no lady. No labels gone. But because they signed clutch to a contract like that was the straw, you know, collect

Neil Fallon  44:21  
a funding for, you know, the whole model. It was like, Okay, we'll sign you know, 50 bands, and 49 of them will not do anything, but that one band will make up for all 49 100 fold with the money that it generates. And we're always one of the 49. And that's all right. Now we're one of one because we have our own record label.

Jon Leon Guerrero  44:47  
Yeah, you know, but if you look at the 49, how many of the 49 are still around, so really, you might have been, there was the one and then there were two others and there were 47

Neil Fallon  45:01  
Yeah, that a lot of bands, you know, once the the hammer came down, that was the end of it. And it's not always because they were their financial dreams are dashed. Some of them were just like, you know, this is too damn hard and there might be something else that they're really into, you know some other career because that's what it is and you have to ask yourself, how much time and energy and emotion Are you going to dedicate to this because if you love it, it's no problem but you got to have that reflection on dark night of the soul. It's it's an, it's a healthy thing, even if it doesn't work out the way you thought. If you have a positive mental attitude, you can find something else.

Pete Turner  45:46  
Hopefully a marine author who writes about post post apocalyptic stories. His name is Jean Michel Hoff. And he got signed by Penguin or you know, one of the big publishing houses, and he built an audience up because he's prolific People love his stuff. And then it just got harder and harder for him to stay tied to these publishing houses because they wanted more more and more cut of the money. And he's like, you know what, I'm just gonna do this myself. So here's this guy that built this enormous audience, for Self Publishers, and he gets a bigger cut of the money, and he's directly tied to his fans now, not told that he can't do something or you know, whatever. You guys have figured that model out for yourselves. Is that a viable model for the next band up the road?

Neil Fallon  46:28  
I hope so. I mean, like I said, there's still a psychology where you think you if unless you're signed to a major label that you haven't succeeded. That's not the case anymore. I mean, especially in this day and age, I will say, I don't envy young bands coming up now because to be heard through the noise of YouTube and Facebook, I can't imagine what that's like. But if you can just break it down to its most rude, rudimentary form, just get on the stand. Just get on the stage. And still to this day, word of mouth will do all the heavy lifting for you be like I saw this band open up for you guys. Let's see that they're playing here next week. Let's go. And that person told three in those three tools three and you know, all the thumbs ups. Those are no one remembers that. I mean, I don't remember the last thing I looked out on Twitter, but I can tell you what I was wearing when I saw the Bad Brains play in 1988. And I remember who I was with, because it was a life changing event. And that's what music is. And it goes go dance your question. I think also fans dig the idea of buying directly from the band. I think that author you mentioned there, his fans liked the idea they're buying from him. It's like, it's like buying direct stock and saying, you know, thank you. Here's something of value for something of value with no middle people.

Jon Leon Guerrero  47:57  
Yeah, I think you're right about that. I mean, it does. means something when you go see a performance that moves you, it also means something when you can look at that CD that you bought from the guy. You know, it does mean something I think you guys have also in common. The prolific attitude with, you know, just churning out music. I mean, you guys have 12 studio albums, five Live albums,

Neil Fallon  48:26  
something like that. I'm like that

Jon Leon Guerrero  48:27  
it's a lot of stuff. And a lot of labels are like, hey, slow down, we got to put this out, and we got to put it through the machine. And you guys are just trying to deliver for your fans, and they're almost getting in your way.

Neil Fallon  48:39  
That was one of the big hang ups and actually, that was the hang up with us. We would go out on the road. And then in 12 months time, we would have another albums worth of material on the label be like whoa, no, you got to grind it out for another three years and do the album cycle that model that they still use to this day, which really great It put a lot of bands through the wringer just doing shows after show after show when all they really want to do is something creative as well. And when we got dropped, you know, we had an pretty much an album ready, you know, jam room was it was a it's a it's a really wild strange record because it was sort of a release in a lot of ways. Like here's all the weird stuff that we couldn't do a year ago. And that's what we've been doing pretty much ever since.

Pete Turner  49:33  
Is there a disco album in your future? Just a check.

Neil Fallon  49:37  
Not No, no, it's a short answer.

Jon Leon Guerrero  49:43  
No, but you know what? So you guys we talked about the gogo influence because you grew up in DC and the the twist you guys put on it as you use a heavier cowbell because that's just Meteor and more masculine and Yeah, hey, I think that's great. And I think that's a new twist on you know, maybe something molden and I don't know, I were I was even going with that. But I just had to mention that because I love. I love what you guys do there.

Neil Fallon  50:12  
But you know, we all grew up listening to go go, you couldn't get away from it in the 1980s. Yeah, the mother hated it. If you weren't in the mood for it. It was annoying, but if you're in the mood for it was the best thing you ever heard it? Yeah. Party Rock. Yeah. And I think sometimes people think it's like, Wow, what a stretch it is for a band to combined heavy guitar and go go. The way I look at it. Is that, you know, Chuck Brown, he started as a rhythm and blues guitar player, roughly, maybe a few years older than Tony Iommi, who started as a rhythm and blues guitar player. Yeah, I would hazard a guess that both those men listen to the same records growing up. They just took them off into two different trajectories. So when you listen to the Sabbath, they go They have a swing that's not that dissimilar from Chuck Brown. You feel listened like done that and Dan did it it did it. You could put a gogo beat on that for miles. Yeah.

Pete Turner  51:14  
Damian, who is producing this episode, he's offstage. He wanted to ask you about the time you guys were playing the burning beard song and a guy got on stage and literally burnt his beard. It's sort of like your guys's moment, your trumpian moment, you're like, disinfected? Yeah.

Jon Leon Guerrero  51:33  
He doesn't love the scent of burning hair.

Neil Fallon  51:38  
really gets gets people in a mood. Yeah, don't do that.

Jon Leon Guerrero  51:43  
It's frowned upon.

Hey, wait a minute. That guy was your neighbor too, right?

Neil Fallon  51:50  
Yeah, and if memory serves, he didn't get up on stage. But he lived about I just moved into the neighborhood. And this was 16 years ago, and maybe five or so years when he became a teenager it he kind of like slowly walked by the house with a clutch hoodie on and kind of eyeball me taking out the trash, or whatever, which is odd because he was never said a word to me is very reclusive. And first time he ever tried to get my attention was at a show at the 930 Club. And he just kind of came up to the Barrett he had a beard at that point. And he just took a lighter and the thing went.And then he just started you know, patented. Maybe he had a lot of booze in it.flammable aspect.Yeah, he was my neighbor. I guess that story got around.

Pete Turner  52:45  
He got all the way to Macedonia for crying out loud.

Jon Leon Guerrero  52:48  
Yes. You're not still in touch.

Neil Fallon  52:51  
No, his family moved.

Jon Leon Guerrero  52:54  
So hopefully he's not doing that anymore.

Pete Turner  52:58  
Yeah. Tell us what you Guess we're working on now how what are you guys putting out? How are you staying relevant?

Neil Fallon  53:04  
Well, we're doing these digital releases we had one come out today smoke Banshee, which is a recording of a song. I'm pure fury. We've got a couple more in the can we're gonna release them throughout the summer. We had already planned to do this before the new year because we knew we were not gonna be ready to record a new record, probably till the end of the year. We want to keep putting stuff out. Because you do have to keep people's attention these days. There's a lot to choose from. And that's the record label side of us talking and but because we can't be out on the road, we are doing the streaming thing, which is a learned by doing activity. It wouldn't be called Building the airplane in mid flight. But it's been it's been fun. And I think we're going to start looking at doing concerts whether it be you know, free and selling some merchandise. Maybe a reasonable ticket price for, you know, full length concert. The our landlord still wants his rent on our practice space. So we got to be fair to the fans, and also be practical. And I think there is a sweet spot and that we can arrive at it just getting there because it's so odd. It's a wild west out there in the streaming world of concerts, and we're prospectors trying to stake our claim at this point. Looking forward to get back on the road supporting a new record. I don't see that probably happening until mid 2021. To be honest, wow. Yeah, I think everyone's hoping that these shows are, you know, best case scenario we're looking mid late summer, right. But there's also part of me thinking you know what, it all depends on governments and decisions that are well above our pay grade. Because some government, you know, maybe the United Kingdom says, okay, you can do shows. But then Germany says, No, thank you. No one's allowed to do show. So what do you do? You fly all the way over to do one show and then sit around for 10 days and then go to US, France. It's financially impossible. So, you know, knock, hopefully, you know, things sort themselves out. Yeah, we're all in the same boat. So we'll just keep doing what we do best.

Jon Leon Guerrero  55:31  
Yeah, I just got an email before we came on. I had some tickets to go see also motley. Nice in April. And then the April show got rescheduled to June and the June show got rescheduled to August, and the email I got today was is canceled. So further notice, so it's like, man, we don't know what it's gonna and we gotta figure this app.

Neil Fallon  55:55  
Same here. We had a slew of shows for South America. That was supposed to To be coming up, and we had never been to Chile before, and we really looking forward to this. Those have been rescheduled a year from now. Wow. And I have a feeling that's for practical purposes. That's what people are looking at. We can fill in dates if things open up Easy enough, but there's, like festivals, yeah, you know, insurance companies and municipalities. That that's a whole nother conversation. It's

Pete Turner  56:29  
a whole timeframe you have to work with and it just it can only move so fast.

Neil Fallon  56:32  
A lot of moving parts,

Pete Turner  56:34  
right. When you when you look back, there's bands. Like, I saw a ratio about two years ago, and they were just fantastic. 15 plus albums. Every song is so much fun. It's a hit, whether you know it or not. They're just great at it. And you guys are a lot like that where you have all these albums, well over 10 albums, ways to play songs and international audience you just said you were one of those 49 bands that that doesn't see Done. touring Europe, South America. I mean, what have you not been to besides Antarctica when people don't do shows?

Neil Fallon  57:08  
Well, we have. Well, that's another we're supposed to do show in South Africa, that would have been our first time in Africa. got taken away. Yeah. You know, we've, we've played in Japan, we haven't played in China or India or in the Mideast. But we want to play all these places. I mean, it's such a reassuring thing that you know, you go around the world. And if you watch the news, you think everybody is so completely different, that there's no way anyone can get along. But I tell you this if you put people in a dark room together, listening to music that they enjoy and drinking beer at the same time. If that's, that's the great equalizer,

Jon Leon Guerrero  57:48  
sign me up. Yeah,

Neil Fallon  57:50  
it's, it's a universal language. So, you know, those places have been around a long, long time longer than clutch. So hopefully we'll be around long enough to be able to see those places. And you know, and jam out so to speak.

Jon Leon Guerrero  58:06  
I don't know a ton about Africa, but I do listen to music from all over the place. And when I hear African artists one of the things that you immediately know when you go from one artist to the next is they don't like varnish down there. Everything is unvarnished when you hear those artists like man, this guy is baring his soul. So I would say Hey, you guys have never been to been to Africa. And I bet you're gonna be well received down there because you guys don't have done varnish.

Neil Fallon  58:37  
Know that. We find that to be a distraction. I think that's one of the things clutch fans have liked about us. And you know, huge Fela Kuti fans, we listen to them all the time on the road. You know, a lot of there's a ton ton of great rock coming out of West Africa right now that are supposed to see some of those bands these past week. So they can Which is a big bummer. So, it's life's Tuesday, you know, life's a buffet. You know, do it all while you're here. That's the way I look at it. Yeah,

Pete Turner  59:09  
yeah, you don't just gotta eat bananas. You go to the banana bar you get Bananas Foster you get a chocolate dipping in and get a frozen banana frozen chocolate. There's, you know, I'm totally with you man buffet works. Life with the works. Yes.

Neil Fallon  59:23  
Well, he's got the banana bar all lined out. Yeah, I got the banana bar

Pete Turner  59:27  
banana daiquiris. Yeah. I appreciate you coming on. JOHN, do you have any other questions at all?

Jon Leon Guerrero  59:34  
No, man, I'm just gonna say, Hey, I'm proclaiming right now. I'm a gearhead. So all right, whatever you're doing out here. I'm gonna muster in a

Neil Fallon  59:42  
crowd. Well, thank you, john. We will take the free publicity.

Pete Turner  59:47  
And when you come out to Orange County, I'm gonna look you guys up and we're gonna go, we're gonna hang out and I'd love to get the whole band on the show next time.

Neil Fallon  59:54  
Yep, please do well, we'll be back around. I don't know when but we hit up the Bay Area and You know, la Orange County, at least twice a year. So keep an eye out.

Pete Turner  1:00:08  
Thanks for coming on pick hanging out with us on this Friday. Thank you,

Jon Leon Guerrero  1:00:12  
Neil Fallon, everybody.