The
following interview was taken from CMJ
New Music Monthly May 1998 issue.
Clutch
recently spent eight weeks on the road (promoting
the band's new album, The Elephant Riders
(Columbia)) with Sevendust and Limp Bizkit as
part of the "Ladies Night In Cambodia"
tour, which admits the first 250 women free. We
caught up with the hand's vocalist, Neil Fallon,
during the tour's second week. ~~~Jenny Eliscu
Q:
Do a lot of ladies show up for your shows?
A:
There are more females at these shows than have
ever been to any other shows. More and more, we
get more girls, but for a while we were strictly
a man's band. Which kind of bummed us out after
a while.
Q:
Do you think there's a perception that the kind of
music you make - and even Limp Bizkit and Sevendust,
too - that it's just guy-rock?
A:
I think that's definitely a perception. 1 guess there
is an element of truth to it as well. However; I certainly
don't want just guys to come to the show. The more
the merrier. We play with so many different bands
at this point that out crowds have gotten pretty diverse.
Along the way, more and more females have come to
our shows, which makes us feel more gentle.
Q:
Sometimes I look out at the crowd at a show where
it's really loud and crazy and I think, "Are
these people really listening?" Do you
ever think that?
A:
[sighs] You know, sometimes it's like the front,
the pit, the pit, it becomes such a feature of the
show that the first row will have to turn their backs
on us so they can make sure they don't get a boot
in the head. And that really irritates me. This whole
moshing thing, it's all well and fine in itself, but
it does get old. I mean a lot of these kids are just
jocks and are just using it as a vehicle to beat someone
up. And that's ridiculous. I mean it's about music.
I could say it's art and all that, but you know, that
would sound kind of high-falutin'. But it is. It is
art. Sometimes it just becomes more like a football
match. I can understand that they want to get out
their aggressions but sometimes it becomes very barbaric.
Q:
Do you feel like there's some sort of a great divide
between people who listen to punk rock and loud
rock, even though they're essentially similar?
A:
Punk rock is like, even though it sometimes tries
to pass itself off as being anti-establishment, it
is very, very strict in its rules to what you can
and can't do to be punk. Loud rock radio listeners,
they just want to be entertained. They listen to a
band on the radio, that's good enough for them.
