Interviews
Clutch interview with Neil Fallon
Interview with Neil Fallon of Clutch
Interview with Neil Fallon from Clutch.
Written by J.J. Ulizio
Photos by Jason Nelson
On a sun shiny and bleary eyed morning. Specifically 09/16/16 I had the extreme pleasure of sitting down and having a telephone conversation with the lyrical master behind one of my favorite bands of all time. Clutch from Frederick, Maryland. Since their debut album Transnational Speedway League was released in 1993, Clutch has become a mainstay in the live music scene. They earned an extremely loyal fan base through consistent touring since that release and several sequential albums all rabidly consumed by their legion of fans. Neil was a pleasure to talk to as we sat and chatted about various topics, spanning the changes in the music industry, his other projects, touring, and most importantly his lyrics. What you are about to read is the conversation that consumed roughly a half hour of my morning that day along with various cups of coffee and a chain of Marlboros. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed doing it.
JJ Ulizio: First things first, to get the ball rolling how have things been going with you guys? It seems like with the Clutch tours and now the Dunsmuir release you must be a very busy man.
Neil Fallon: Yeah, I guess I am busy, but that’s a good thing. That’s by design, Dunsmuir was recorded pushing a year and a half ago and it just happened to be released pretty shortly after Psychic Warfare. So it wasn’t as if I turned and burned to do Psychic Warfare after that. It was pretty much sitting in the wings. Most of my busyness has been comprised of touring with the band.
JJ: You seem to have been pretty much on the road constantly, which fits since Clutch has had a strong reputation for being a road band over the years.
Neil: Yeah, that’s what we do.
JJ: According to what I have read online you are having a bit of a small break between tours right now. Obviously you have some press stuff you have to do but are you getting any true days off?
Neil: Yes, we have about a month off, just short of two weeks before we head back out, but I have been spending a lot of time at home doing very un-rock n roll things, like right now I am sitting in the parking lot of a hardware store which is alright by me. It does suck being away from home, but then when we are home we are there 24/7. I don’t have to leave and go to a gig; I can just kick it with my wife and child.
JJ: It’s the little things right?
Neil: Yes exactly.
JJ: It’s been almost a year and relentless touring since the release of Psychic Warfare. Looking back how have things turned out compared to your initial expectations for it that you may have had prior to its release?
Neil: Better than I expected, but having said that I think we made a really good record. I also think we knew we were going to tour on it like we have for any other record we have had in the past 25 years. We have done some other things like headlining the main stage at Leeds. Going to Croatia or Poland for the first time and after 25 years being able to move in that direction is a very gratifying thing to say.
JJ: Since you have been doing this for so long do you get any jitters playing in a new county like that compared to at home or another place you have been?
Neil: I get jitters every time we play, no matter what, I’ll get jitters the next time we play Columbus, Ohio. That’s a good thing. Not getting stage fright but getting excited to play works in your favor if you channel it the right way. I do think touring can be a bit of a grind but when you go to new places it’s like your first tour again in some ways. I remember when something like going out of state was very exotic. It became less exotic over the years but then once you go to places like Greece or Croatia for that matter you get to the see the world in a very real and meaningful way.
JJ: How would you say the foreign fans are when compared to American fans?
Neil: You know, one thing I’ve learned is if you put a bunch of people together in a dark room with loud music and feed them beer, in the end everybody ends up exactly the same.
JJ: That makes sense, ha-ha! In your long career from albums like self-titled, Speedway, to Blast Tyrant and up to Psychic Warfare the sound and style has changed with your song writing. What do you attribute to the musical changes that the band has gone through compared to bands like AC/DC & Motörhead who in their long careers, while being awesome, have had very little, if any change to their music and song writing?
Neil: Life, experiences and being students. We’re always trying to learn new things. I take guitar lessons, JP takes drum lessons for example and trying to apply those things and never being satisfied. I would rather take a chance and fail than end up repeating something that wasn’t going to work anyway. Maybe its boredom as well, those examples are great bands and they do their strengths but I think if we had to do 11 versions of our self-titled record I would have gone bat shit crazy.
JJ: You need things to change after so long?
Neil: Yeah, I think any artist has a creative impulse to change. That’s what creativity is in its simplest ways.
JJ: Back in July, I think it was, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dave Bone and among many of the things we talked about, one of the topics that came up was where your lyrics come from.
Neil: He probably knows better than I do.
JJ: HAHAHA! His answer for me, and I rattled off a few song titles I think, especially from the Dunsmuir album, was that he hears them the same way I do. He said you are the only one who could give any insight on where you come from when you are writing or how you get inspired when writing your lyrics.
Neil: I get them wherever I can. If I hear a phrase out of context I’ll jot it down and it might become a lyric. Ideally a song is a short story in some ways whether it be a narrative or lyric of some sort. My favorite lyrics, outside of myself, is when I hear somebody telling a story and I don’t know exactly what they are talking about and it makes me want to know more. I try to do that when I write. To give enough evidence or characters or action that seems real but at the same time has to be ambiguous and fun. I’m not trying to inject lectures into these lyrics; they’re supposed to be an escape for me as well as the listener.
JJ: I can attest that you have succeeded.
Neil: Well thank you
JJ: I get that feeling every time, well specifically my personal favorite would be Blast Tyrant, I get that feeling every time I listen to that whole album. Do you approach your lyric writing differently depending on the band you’re writing for whether it be Clutch, The Company Band, or Dunsmuir?
Neil: No, I think every song is sort of its own entity. Like anyone else when I listen to music, well when I get a song its instrumental cause there is no lyrics obviously. So it’s just an exercise of closing one’s eyes and trying to decipher what the mood is that those riffs evoke. Having said that, I guess I’ll just completely contradict myself and say that with Dunsmuir it was more of a metal vibe so I knew maybe I could indulge some of those more metal images that wouldn’t necessarily occur, but I think that had more to do with the music itself than the idea of the band as a whole. It’s just the songs, if that makes any sense at all.
JJ: Yes, yes it does to me. Having been in the music industry as long as you have, what would you say is the biggest change you have noticed? Comparing now to when you were first getting started.
Neil: Well, when we were getting going there was two bands that kind of defined the music business, at least in how we were involved with it, and they were Pantera, and Nirvana. Pantera was a new kind of metal. They weren’t Guns ‘N Roses, Extreme, or any of those bands. Nirvana was a totally new thing, so most major labels signed up any band that remotely resembled those two. For the 90’s we got a lot of tour support and toured our assess off, that was a good thing. Now though, as we all know, selling CD’s is like selling water to the drowning. So that’s a big change. It hasn’t changed for us in that we have always been touring, but when I hear artists moaning about “oh now I have to go out on the road to make money” I kind of just have to chuckle a bit, or a lot. The biggest change now I think is the streaming. I think that’s the biggest factor recently to show that album sales are down 13% from last year. Having said that, I tend to take a broader view in that for tens of thousands of years music has been free. It has only been in the past 60 years that people have figured out how to monetize it. So in a lot of ways it’s kind of a return to normalcy, and the music business had a good run for about a century selling music and we still sell music and want to continue it but I don’t feel like the soul has been ripped out of it, it’s still music. People are always going to want that one way or another either live in concert or on their phone.
JJ: Do you think that, as a whole, as album sales decline that will make touring go up so more artists can make a living off of it? I know you guy’s tour constantly, I mean in general.
Neil: Yea, but it’s hard to say. The music industry, as soon as they realized that album sales are down they started looking at live venues. That’s why you see such investments going into Live Nation, brands, and branding festivals. That’s why when you go to a venue instead of being called CBGBs it’s called the “Home Depot Juke Joint.” They put their fingers in that, and I only say Home Depot because I’m sitting in the Home Depot parking lot right now. Live music will always be occurring, I don’t know if audiences will generally get bigger because most people are inherently lazy. It’s much easier to sit at home and see something streaming live on the computer. For me nothing can replace, both as a listener and a musician, the high you receive from the unique performance that you can’t experience unless it’s in the flesh.
JJ: I know that feeling. I know exactly what you are saying. There are bands all the time that I hear and I might not necessarily dig their records and you go to the live show and it’s something completely different. They can be an amazing live band and there is nothing like seeing an amazing band just kick ass on stage.
Neil: It’s not as if I have any worries about it. The ease of music, particularly the music we do, I’m 44 and I remember if you wanted to get a underground record you had to drive, and plan to go to the record store that had that kind of record. Now you can do that while sitting and waiting for the bus, on your phone. It’s kind of an embarrassment of riches. It is good, a lot of people have discovered a band like Clutch because of that, but sometimes in a lot of ways I think it can breed complacency to a degree.
JJ: Have you begun throwing down any ideas for new an album yet or have you just been focused on supporting Psychic Warfare?
Neil: That’s what we’ve been doing and what we will continue to do leading up to January 1st and then we are going to take off a considerable amount of time at the beginning of the year and buckle down and start writing the next record. We’ve got some riffs, but I think we write best when we drop everything and focus on that task.
JJ: In that time off are you planning on touring at all to support the Dunsmuir album? Dave mentioned the possibility of some festival dates.
Neil: I’m sure we would like to, it’s hard because Brads got Fu Manchu, Vinnie’s got all the things he’s doing, and I’ve got Clutch. To have those stars align is a rare event and I know I’m going to be busy but I would love to play those songs live.
JJ: I’d love to see them and I’m sure a lot of other people would too. Changing gears a bit, being out of the Pittsburgh area as several of us here are, I am going to be at the gig on October 1st when you guys are here, I know a lot of times when bands book gigs it is through an agent or on a tour package of some sort. But going to as many shows as I am fortunate to attend I’ve noticed that some bands come through more regularly and more frequently than some others do and I have seen you guys perform here several times in the last few years. Is there anything in particular that you like about it here?
Neil: There are a lot of cities for us to play, so when we book a show and the tour dates go out, usually one of the first things that happens is people complaining “why aren’t you playing in my home town?!” and you can only be in so many places so many times. Pennsylvania, generally speaking has been good for Clutch because that was the first place we played outside of Maryland. We played Allentown, Reading, Lancaster, York, Pittsburgh, and Philly. So there is a longer history for us in Pennsylvania in general.
JJ: That’s all I got for you, thank you for taking the time to talk to me this morning. Do have any parting comments or things you want to plug before I let you go?
Neil: Well, in regards to that show, it’s probably going to be the last time we are going to be in Pittsburgh for quite some time. Because we are going to take off a good part of 2017 to write the record. So get it while you can.
Tour dates and more information on Clutch can be found here.
More information on Dunsmuir can be found here.
And make sure to check out my interview with Dave Bone of Dunsmuir by clicking here.
“X-Ray Visions” By Clutch
“Crawling Chaos” By Dunsmuir
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Interviews
EIHWAR COME TO BALTIMORE TO BRING THE VIKING WAR TRANCE

IVE BEEN SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THE UPCOMING TOUR FOR EIHWAR. I FOUND THEM ON THE INTERNET AND THEY BLEW ME AWAY WITH THEIR VIKING/FOLK/PAGAN MUSIC MIXED WITH ELECTRONIC. EIHWAR WILL BE COMING TO THE RECHER IN TOWNSON MARYLAND ON AUGUST 30TH. EMPIRE EXTREME GOT TO ASK THE DUO A FEW QUESTIONS BEFORE THE SHOW.
ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT DOING YOUR FIRST AMERICAN TOUR? ANY AMERICAN THINGS OR PLACES YOU WANT TO EXPLORE?
ASRUNN: For now, I have to admit I’m still completely stunned. I’m not excited or imagining it yet at all. Right now, I feel like I’m about to go to a country that only exists in TV shows, so I’m still kind of wading through disbelief.
Once I’m actually there, though, I’ll probably start talking way too fast and way too loud, and I’ll want to go way too everywhere.
HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN VIKING WAR TRANCE AS A GENRE OF MUSIC?
MARK: Viking War Trance is basically what happens when you mix Nordic folk influences, tribal rhythms, electronic music and something much more primitive and aggressive. We wanted music that makes you want to dance, fight and enter some kind of trance at the same time. So instead of trying to fit into an existing genre, we just called it Viking War Trance. And about the word “war”: it’s not a war against others, but a war against ourselves. Against our rigidity, our limiting beliefs, our fears. Victory is letting go.
WHAT CAN FANS EXPECT WHEN SEEING THE BAND LIVE?
MARK: Our concerts are much more physical than people sometimes expect from listening to the albums. We want people to dance, scream, jump, crowd surf and completely lose themselves for an hour. It’s somewhere between a concert, a rave and a pagan ritual, but with a lot of joy. “Joyful chaos” is the word that Asrunn often use.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE PLAYING HELLFEST AND WACKEN?
ASRUNN: It’s basically spending an entire hour on stage thinking, “Seriously, what the hell am I doing here? This makes absolutely no sense,” and then, the second it’s over, thinking, “Fuck, that was WAY TOO SHORT!”, hahahahaha!
In reality, it’s a mix of intense concentration and this explosion of joy inside when we manage to bring such a huge crowd into our madness with us. It’s as if, all of a sudden, we’re no longer men and women, but one human tribe, united by joy and raw energy.

HOW DO YOU FEEL THAT YOUR STYLE OF VIKING MUSIC AND IMAGE DIFFERS FROM OTHER VIKING AND FOLK METAL?
MARK: What sets us apart from folk metal is simply that we’re not metal. We don’t use distorted guitars or acoustic drums. As for pagan folk, I think the differences are pretty obvious too. Most pagan bands take a fairly ceremonial approach, resulting in atmospheric, ambient music. Some of them are even very serious. From our point of view, seriousness is a symptom of bad digestion. We prefer to fool around.
As for the peace you find in atmospheric ritual music, we don’t know much about it. Asrunn, our leader, is nothing like a priestess in a linen dress singing with butterflies in the forest. She’s living anger. Our music is joyful and brutal, primitive techno made to dance to until the end of the night.
The biggest difference is also, and perhaps above all, harmonic, in the musicological sense. With ancient instruments, it’s difficult to modulate frequently or to play every note in every octave. We use machines, and that gives us much more freedom to create melodies and chord progressions that evolve constantly and are far more pop-oriented than ancient instruments would normally allow.

DREAM TOUR: YOU CAN GO ON TOUR WITH ANY 2 OTHER BANDS, WHO DO YOU CHOOSE?
ASRUNN: MmmmdzgebhfugzFDBZueisfg that’s WAY too hard to choooooose HAAAAA! I’d say……….. NIN and… well, Sofia Isella, lately. She’s tooooooo good to be true.
MARK: The Prodigy and Peter Gabriel
FAVORITE GAME OF THRONES CHARACTER?
MARK: Don’t know, but I like the soundtrack.
ASRUNN: Bree Van De Kamp.
IF YOU COULD RESURRECT ONE HISTORIC VIKING WHO WOULD IT BE?
MARK: Honestly, my memories from that time aren’t clear enough for me to really know. But I was very fond of the monk Eadwig of Durham, and I’d be curious — and happy — to see him again.
ASRUNN: Lagertha, to prove to Mark that he’s wrong when he says she had bigger boobs than me.

IF YOU HAVEN’T BOUGHT UR TICKETS YET GET THEM HERE
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Interviews
INTERVIEW WITH KURT DEIMER

EMPIRE EXTREME GOT TO INTERVIEW KURT DEIMER ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM “A GROG IS BORN” HIM WORKING WITH GEOFF TATE AND JOSH TODD AND BEING KILLED BY MICHAEL MEYERS AND HORROR MOVIES

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Empire Interviews
Inferious—Interview
by Josh Drespling
I was at Preserving Underground to cover Filth and Resistor. I was all set with my photo pass and cameras at the ready. And then this young band exploded onto the stage. No grand entrance, no intro music, no flashy lights—just a wall of noise from the first guitar chord and a guttural growl that seemed to come from somewhere below the floorboards. I was blown away. Thoroughly impressed.
This band was Inferious, out of Dayton, Ohio. If you look up the word “inferious,” most dictionaries will tell you it means something low-status, submissive, or fit for sacrifice. But this Ohio metalcore outfit Inferious has spent the last several years proving that definition couldn’t be more wrong. Tonight in the basement of a converted church, Inferious delivered raw, sweat-soaked fury to all who were smart enough to show up early.
Before their set was even half over, I made up my mind that I had to talk to them and let our readers know about this band. Here is how it went:



Empire: This was the first time I have ever seen you guys. I’ve heard your name before but never had the chance to listen. The show tonight was freaking awesome. I loved it from the first few notes. The vocals and the guitar tone just hit ya right in the chest.
Since I am a new fan, can you give me the nickel tour of how you came together and I understand you are from Dayton, Ohio.
Shaun O’Shaughnessy – Guitarist: I live in Dayton, and the original band members all formed in Dayton, but it was kind of a collage of multiple band folks. People from the southwest Ohio area. Gabe [McQueen – vocals] and I were there at the beginning, and then through some line-up changes, this is our current and most solid touring line-up so far with Cody and Kyle. They also are from the area and have been in several bands. So they were always in the same circles, at the same shows, talking to the same people. It all worked out one day.
Empire: Given that, it seems like there is a healthy music scene in Dayton. Are there any good clubs, any fields to play in?
Shaun: It’s hard to say Dayton, Ohio, specifically so much as just southwest Ohio because of the way that Dayton, Columbus, and Cincinnati form like a little triangle. You’re only an hour apart from each other. So we can get into that larger music scene pretty easily. So Dayton itself has venues, but the whole collective area has stuff. There’s some house venues, like Gnome House, there’s Bob’s, but then Cincinnati has Madison Live, and Design Collective [DSGN CLLCTV] was doing shows for a while, but I think they got in trouble.
Cody: Yeah, it some code stuff.
Empire: I think there are a couple decent places in Akron, and even across the border is Huntington, WV?
Shaun: Yeah, that area still does have sick stuff. It’s just farther away from our personal local scene. Cleveland is kind of separate from us too.
Cody: That’s not necessarily our scene, but there is such a good underground local scene from the Huntington / Athens / Charleston area. Shout to Feverwar.
Shaun: We were just at the Grog Shop [outside Cleveland].
Cody: We were at the New Foundry not too long ago.
Empire: Oh, yeah, like upstairs?
Shaun: No, it is Foundry’s new location.
Empire: I’ve not been there.
Shaun: It looks basically like the old one, but it’s new.

Empire: You mentioned the Grog Shop. Were you guys there with Filth and Resistor?
Shaun: Yeah, we’ve been on tour with Filth and Resistor. The first half of the tour had Two-Piece on it; we missed them, but now Mono’s [Monochromatic Black] on for the second half, and they’re homies.
Gabe and I toured with them in Inferious a couple years ago with band called AMTAE, and Monochromatic Black. So, those are long-time homies as well. So, we’ve known Tanya [Elizabeth (Beickert) – Vocals] and Eddie [DeCesare – Drums] for a long time, and Pierce [Akers – Guitar] is our new best friend as well.
Empire: So, it’s just like a big hang for you guys.
Shaun: Yeah, all the homies are back. We’ve toured with Filth before too; we were out with them on the Oceano tour, and then actually a year ago, I think like right now, like today a year ago, we toured with Filth also. So, it’s Filth and Oceano, and then Filth again.
So, it’s been fun to have a full circle of friend hangs, and every night’s been sick. The show turnouts have been amazing, and then just hanging out with all our friends has been amazing.
Empire: That’s part of what makes it fun. Whether you have 50 people or 1000, you have that camaraderie and shared experience.



Empire: So do you currently have an album out? Where do you guys stand with that?
Gabe: We have music out everywhere, on all music platforms: Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play, and YouTube Music. Shit, if you even got to rip that shit, YouTube to MP4, do it, man!
Shaun: We got your back. We got three full lengths and an EP. We are working on a new EP with a label we’re signed to that we’ll announce here soon, but that’s going to be really exciting stuff, and just stoked to be able to get that out soon.
Empire: Cool. So don’t say the label name, but your deal is in place, and then the new album in the fall, winter, spring?
Shaun: Yeah, the EP should be coming out sometime this year, if all the schedules align and everything, but that’s in the works.
Empire: Cool. Filth tour, what’s after that?
Shaun: Finishing up the EP. Record release cycle, and then hopefully touring in support of that. Whether it’s co-headlining with somebody or doing some more support stuff, we’re down for whatever. Hopefully we can fill up the rest of the year.
You know, touring is hard financially, so while we’re able to still make ends meet on the road, it’s hard to pay all the bills, so we’ve got to go home, stack our bread back up, and then be ready to go back out again.
Empire: I understand. Is this your first time in Pittsburgh?
Shaun: We’ve actually played Preserving. This is at least the fifth time.
We played the DIY room, we played this room, this orientation, we played this room when it was facing the other direction. AJ, the owner, has been good to us. He is a rad dude.
Empire: AJ is great.
Shaun: The record shop and merch store upstairs is sick, I just bought a shirt, a Never Ending Game shirt, because we have to do a laundry soon, and I bought a shirt to extend one more day to get through.

Empire: Anything you guys want to add, anything going on? Shameless plugs?
Shaun: This has been a kind of sick tour, because I think we’ve all got to see family members. Gabe’s dad dropped him off, so we got to see Gabe’s dad. We got to go get breakfast with my mom and some family, I saw my aunt. Cody’s mom let us stay at her crib, and we got to hang out with her and his family. Kyle’s family came out last night and hung out, and that was pretty sick, so it’s been a good time.
Empire: Kyle hasn’t said anything, so tell me about your family coming out and seeing the show.
Kyle: I mean, it was my sister’s first time seeing us live.
Empire: What did she have to say? I mean, I’m sure she knew the style.
Kyle: Oh, yeah, she’s conditioned to it.
Empire: She’s not like a Britney Spears fan at a hardcore show?
Kyle: No, no, she’s by far not a normie, but close to it.
Empire: Thank you, gentlemen. That’s all I have today. Appreciate it, and thanks for the show. It was great; loved it.
Shaun: See you next time.


Before that night at Preserving Underground, I’ll be honest: Inferious was just a name on a show flyer. Another opening band before the acts I actually came to see.
That’s the thing about this level of heavy music. The headliners get the lights, the longer set, and the crowd that’s already warmed up. But the openers? They get twenty-five minutes, a soundcheck that barely counts, and a room full of people who are mostly looking at their phones. Inferious didn’t just overcome that. They incinerated it.
What struck me most, sitting down with Shaun, Gabe, Cody, and Kyle after the show, was how unpretentious they were. No egos. No rock-star posturing. Just four guys from southwest Ohio who’ve been grinding in the same circles, playing the same basement venues, and slowly building something real. They talked about the small venues with the same reverence other bands reserve for stadiums. They shouted out Feverwar. They bought merch from the shop upstairs to make it through one more day on the road.
That’s the part you don’t see from the crowd. The financial grind. The van trouble. The “stack our bread back up” reality of modern touring. And yet, here they were—genuinely stoked to have seen family members at shows, genuinely grateful for AJ at Preserving keeping the doors open for underground bands, and genuinely excited about an upcoming EP they couldn’t even name the label for yet.
Inferious may have a name that suggests something low-status, something sacrificial. But after watching them level a converted church in New Kensington, and after listening to them talk about their scene with the easy confidence of people who have nothing to prove, I think the definition needs an update.
Check them out on all the streaming platforms. Catch them when they roll through your town on the next tour. And for the love of God, show up early.
You never know which opening band is going to blow your doors off.
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