Clutch’s Neil Fallon Shares One Secret to Longevity

Clutch have three decades under their belt and would like to have many more, so how do they reach the long-running marks of such bands as Aerosmith and The Rolling Stones? Singer Neil Fallon tells Full Metal Jackie on her weekend radio show that realizing how much music can be a physical thing is one of the first realizations you need to have when preparing to try to reach certain longevity goals.

“When you’re in your 20s and 30s, you think you’re unstoppable. But music is a physical thing, and if you don’t have your health, you can’t really deliver the music, whether it be singing or playing drums,” says Fallon.

It may not be very exciting, but Fallon says, “Going out to the bar after the show isn’t nearly as appealing as it was in 1997. I like to put on my shorts and go to bed, and that’s okay because I’d like to do it the next day.” The singer also details a bit of his own post-show process as well.

Jackie also speaks with Neil Fallon about the art of creating music and what makes it satisfying, how his appreciation for music changed as he became more adept at songwriting and they discuss revisiting the band’s debut album, Transnational Speedway League, for a newly remastered vinyl reissue.

Plus, Neil also gives us a loose timeline for the next Clutch album. Check out more of the chat below.

It’s Full Metal Jackie. I’m so excited to say we’ve got Neil Fallon from Clutch back on the show. Neil, Clutch develops songs by jamming together and fleshing out an idea. But not every idea becomes a song. Neil, what makes the process satisfying?

I think two things immediately come to mind. Sometimes I think the best songs are the ones that wrote themselves the fastest. They seem to kind of fall out of the sky, especially when you’ve got four people trying to think as one brain. Sometimes you can get synchronicity and sometimes you get friction.

But I think that the satisfying thing is when you have that kind of eureka or aha moment when you realize “Oh, this is what the song is about.” It could be incredibly frustrating, but I think that’s what anyone who does something creative understands – that when you look back at it, especially when you see someone singing along or playing air guitar from something you did years ago, that never gets old.

Clutch, “Slaughter Beach”

I’m very excited to be having a couple of chances to seeing Clutch back on the road here. And I’ve read that it looks like you guys are looking to work on new music next year.

We’ve started the writing process. We’ve done a little pre-production, which is just basically making demos. And we’ll do that again after we finish the tour with Rival Sons in October and December and kind of keep doing that and hopefully record early to mid-spring, I’m guessing. That would hopefully put an album out by the last quarter of 2025. That sounds like it’s far away, but I think that’s going to come up a lot quicker than we realize.

Neil, songwriting usually begins by emulating, then develops through repetition into a full fledged craft. How did your appreciation of music change as you became more adept at writing songs?

We’ve been doing this so long, and we were all very young when we started. I was 19 when I started with these guys. And when you’re that age, you kind of have a very narrow view of music. You’re only like this and only like that.

But having been in it all these years and being exposed to so many different kinds of music, I like to think I’ve come to appreciate all sorts of genres and things that I never would have thought I listened to 30 years ago. I think you realize you could listen to everything 24 hours a day, and you still only scratch the surface of music that humanity has made. So I think I’ve become more philosophical about it, that I feel blessed to participate in this conversation.

Neil, your lyrics are very noir, very much in the vein of Pulp Fiction. How has an English Literature degree benefited the way you construct musical stories?

I never would have thought it actually would have come in handy. It was sort of a very, very happy accident. I think my favorite songs are ones that are stories, specifically fictional ones, because you can always sing the song over and over again and have the movie play in your head a little bit differently.

I like lyrics that have a bit of mystery to them. You don’t want to have all the answers for the listener because that takes away the mystery.

I guess I try to treat it as not every song. Some songs are more lyrical. They’re more about the sounds than the actual action. But you write a chorus, you got your work halfway done, and then you write a verse, one, two and three. And I try to treat those sort of almost as like plot points – first act, second act, third act. Not all songs that we do are like that, but that’s something I try to do.

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Neil. Transnational Speedway League has been remastered and newly released on vinyl. What’s fun and what’s trepidatious about revisiting who you were back then?

Speaking personally, I know I can sing a lot better than I used to. I was just kind of throwing it over the fence to see where it landed. And most of those lyrics were written the day before we tracked them. It sounds like a different person to me, both in the delivery and the lyrics.

There were two sessions. There’s the first session, which was much more dark, and we were listening to a lot of Swans, or at least I was. And it sounds like then there was a second batch where you got things like “Rats” and “[A Shogun Named] Marcus” and whatnot. It’s sometimes reading like an old diary entry. You can wince a little bit, but that’s who you are. And when we went to go do binge and purge for the first time, it was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be. I’m very, very glad we did that.

Clutch, “A Shogun Named Marcus”

Neil, let’s talk about Aerosmith for a moment. Obviously, recently they announced their retirement from touring. The Rolling Stones just finished a tour that showed little sign of them slowing down. What do you think makes the longevity of other bands a roadmap for Clutch?

Sometimes you think, “Oh God, we’ve been doing this for 30 years.” And then you hear about those two bands you mentioned that were putting out albums when we were soiling our diapers. One thing comes to mind is that when you’re in your 20s and 30s, you think you’re unstoppable. But music is a physical thing, and if you don’t have your health, you can’t really deliver the music, whether it be singing or playing drums.

You can do your best and sometimes fate deals bands and artists an awful hand despite their best efforts. So I think we’re very lucky. But you can alter the odds a little bit if you take care of yourself. Going out to the bar after the show isn’t nearly as appealing as it was in 1997. I like to put on my shorts and go to bed, and that’s okay because I’d like to do it the next day.

So where are you 40 minutes after a show’s done? Are you in your hotel room or bus with a pint of ice cream watching reruns of something?

Pretty close. I mean, if we don’t have that option, I’m taking a shower and just kind of sitting back and not talking. That’s one thing I’ve learned is the voice, you gotta treat it with kid gloves. I could probably come across as very antisocial. It’s just that I don’t feel like talking after screaming for an hour and a half. The minute that we’re finished with the set is thinking, “Okay, now let’s do it again tomorrow and do all the right things that will get you to that tomorrow.” If that means a pair of sweatpants and watching Breaking Bad, so be it.

Clutch and Rival Sons have the “Two-Headed Beast” North American tour. And we have next year to look forward to some new music. What else can you tell us that is on your “to do” list for the rest of this year?

Well, we just finally, after 30 years marked off a big bucket list moment for us as we played a bunch of countries in South America for the first time as well as Mexico City, and that was a blast. They were, in comparison, not the largest shows we played, but the passion of the people that were there that was off the charts.

It was really inspiring. The rest of the year will be spent writing and begging the muse to be generous with us and make plans for next year.

Thanks to Clutch’s Neil Fallon for the interview. The newly remastered Transnational Speedway League is now available on vinyl. Stay up to date on all the band’s activity through their website, Facebook, X, Instagram and Spotify platforms. Find out where you can hear Full Metal Jackie’s weekend radio show here.