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Clutch frontman Neil Fallon provided updates on the band’s progress with their new album in a recent interview with Neil Jones of TotalRock. Fallon discussed their songwriting sessions and shared some insights on their creative process for the record, which will follow the 2022 release of Sunrise On Slaughter Beach.
“We’ve been getting together, on and off this year, just writing. And then that sometimes that just means writing a riff, not necessarily a song. But right now, as we speak, behind me, [producer] Tom Dalgety, he flew in from Bristol [United Kingdom] a couple of nights ago and he’s done a load of albums, he did our last record, Sunrise On Slaughter Beach,” said Fallon.
“We’re doing a pre-production session this week. We’ll do another one probably in January. And then again, right before we record, hopefully in March. And what that means is we’re just kind of fleshing out these demos. So when it comes time to record them, we know them and don’t have an excuse to say, ‘I don’t know how to play this song.”
When asked about the timeline of the musical ideas for the new album, Fallon explained, “I think maybe the first ones are maybe from March of last year, but it was pretty piecemeal ’cause we’d go out on the road and then no one really wants to get together after a show and say, ‘Hey, let’s jam.’ So, it was kind of piecemeal, like I said.
“But there’s a riff that Tom said we did on the last session almost three years ago that he’d like to kick around that was actually from — I think we’ve been kicking that riff around since [2015’s] Psychic Warfare. It’s sort of like this orphan riff that — it’s good; it just needs to find some friends to live with.”
Fallon also delved into how he crafts the themes for his lyrics. He remarked, “I wish I knew there was a very succinct system for doing this. But I’ll come up with lyrical ideas. I’ll jot ’em down in a notebook or a voice memo on my phone and I’ll come up with an idea for lyrics. And sometimes they seem to write themselves.
“Other times I’ll say, ‘Well, they don’t really sound that good. Let’s try it on this song.’ And eventually, it’s like… I don’t know. You whittle away at stuff until you find its final form. I find that songs that have stood the test of time are the ones that were the quickest to write. The ones that take months, but usually those don’t last very long as far as live rotation on stage.”
When questioned about whether the band considers how new material will be received in live performances, Fallon replied: “No. And I think that’s one of the things that Clutch fans like about us. I think there’s a sincerity. If you kind of premeditate it, then it becomes less of an artistic enterprise and more of a marketing scheme. And I think because if we like it, then by extension Clutch fans like it, because that’s what we’re all here for, as far as this band goes. There’s been occasions where we’ve had songs and I’ve listened to it, and I said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know about this thing.’ And then that became to be some of the most popular songs that we put out. And so I’m not a good judge of that.”
