The following interview was done for Mr. Dewey Newsletter in the fall of 1998. The web site for MDN is temporarily down right now, but you can contact the by e-mailing IceVs11@aol.com or Childlyke5@aol.com. If you send an e-mail w/ "SUBSCRIBE" in the header to IceVs11@aol.com, you can get their monthly "flaccid excuse for a news thang" via e-mail.

Special thanks to Bittersoldier for hooking Pro Rock up w/ the interview.

Neil Fallon: Well, we never did a video, period, for our 2nd album. That was because... well... I don't think Atlantic even knew we were on their label. We were just kinda there because when EastWest dropped us, we had to stay on a label in the WEA system if we wanted that album to come out. We could have done it on another label, but we would have had to do the album all over again, and
we didn't want to do that.

MDN: How many new songs do you have written for the next album?

Dan Maines: Hi

MDN: Hi

NF (To DM): How many new songs do we have?

DM: Nine. No, wait. Ten songs. We have Ten new songs. I forgot "Stuttgart Jam".

MDN: How was the European tour?

NF: It was killer! 3 weeks. Some shows were really good, some shows were not so good. It was our first time headlining in Europe, so we didn't know what to expect. We thought Italy would be the best, because we had a really good show there with Sepultura, but that was one of the worst. Then we went to Norway where we had never been before, and it was sold out!

MDN: With "Transnational", you could almost smell the tequila rolling off of the CD. The "Moon" album was a little spacier, while the new record was more realistic. Where do you see your lyrics going next?

NF: I don't know, I haven't really written any. I usually wait till the last minute. It all depends on what's going on at that point. It's hard to gauge.

MDN: Each record seems to change your sound a little bit. Will this next record stay more in the vibe of "Elephant Riders", since you hope to do it so quickly?

NF: There will be continuity between the next record and "Elephant Riders" than there was between "Elephant Riders" and the 2nd record, because that took three years, and hopefully this one will only take a year and a half to two years. There will be continuity between the two, but it will be a step ahead.

MDN: For those who haven't heard you, how would you describe the sound of Clutch?

NF: Rock and roll. Hard Rock, I suppose. Even Heavy Metal... If you had to.

MDN: I notice a lot of religion in your lyrics, is spirituality a big part of your life?

NF: I was raised Roman-Catholic. I would definitely say I am more of a spiritual person than a religious person. It's a great source of words. If you were raised in that sort of environment, it just adds to your vocabulary. I can't ignore it, and it just sort of creeps into what I do. I don't have any answers, I never try to make a song that says about one faith: yea or nay, regarding something religiously. I just kind of put it out there for people to decide for themselves.

MDN: What are your favorite songs to perform live?

NF: "Big News One" is fun to sing. "Soapmakers" is cool to sing and play. It's one of the few songs that I play guitar on all the way through. "Muchas Veces" is fun, but it's hard to remember all the words to it.

MDN: Are there any songs that you dread playing now?

NF: Yes and no. It goes in phases. Like "Marcus" we got sick of for awhile. That got played so many times. I'm kinda getting sick of "Elephant Riders", because that's been on every setlist for the past year and a half. Actually, "Ship of Gold", probably more than that. because that song is nearly four years old now.

MDN: I noticed at the show 2 days ago that you had changed "Soapmakers" a lot. You seem to do that to your songs a lot. Do you do that to trip up the fans, or just out of sheer boredom?

NF: Sometimes we do it by accident. Jean-Paul will slow down the middle part in "Soapmakers" for example, and we wont even expect it. We just kinda have to follow him. That's to keep ourselves interested in the set, because if we know exactly what he is going to do, then it's not much fun anymore.

MDN: You seem to bridge a lot of your songs together with jams. Do you plan that out beforehand, or do you just let it happen onstage?

NF: We have a rough idea beforehand. Some things may come out spur of the moment. Whoever's doing the setlist that night will sit down a couple of hours before the show, and try to come up with a couple of cool transitions to do.

MDN: I really like the transition between "Big News One" and "8X Over Miss October".

NF: We do that one quite often. You gotta make people pay attention to you. Otherwise, if it gets too easy it just kinda becomes a techno-dance party.

MDN: On recent setlists, it seems like you are panning out a lot of the older songs. Will there come a time when those older songs won't be there anymore?

NF: Like what?

MDN: Like I haven't seen "Wicker" for a really long time, or much from "Passive Restraints" lately.

NF: We played "Impetus" yesterday. We played "Passive Restraints" yesterday, too. Now, "Binge and Purge"... we will never play that song again. That's the only song that we just say we won't play. It's almost lack of interest, but maybe if we get sick of the "Elephant Riders" stuff, then we might start looking towards "Pitchfork" again, but it's really not that challenging now for us to play. The songs are easy. Very, very easy. We played "Monster Trucks" last night too.

MDN: I saw a great setlist in late '96 where you actually played "Bacchanal".

NF: Now, that's a song we might bring back. But we got sick of that for awhile, and it takes awhile to get interested in playing it again.

MDN: On the lyric sheet to "ER", every time the word "God" is mentioned, it is spelled "Gd". Why?

NF: It's something I learned from my Jewish friends back in elementary school. It was that you shouldn't be able to hypothetically put down God's name. When they were writing a paper they'd just put down "G*d" or "Gd", and I thought it was really cool. I've done it all my life since then on.

MDN: I've heard rumors of live albums, Pitchfork CD reissues, a rarities record, etc... What can you say to lay that all to rest?

NF: Those are all things that we want to do. Which I think will happen. It is just that I don't know when it will happen. I told some kids that we want to do a B-sides album, and that turned into "There's a B-sides" album coming out in February", which is NOT the case. We've been on so many labels, and we'd have to go through all those labels, and all those lawyers... it's very difficult. As far as Pitchfork is concerned, we own that, and it's up to us to put it out, but we need to get the lump sum of money to press it up and distribute it. And we will do that. We are in the process right now of getting another website going where we are gonna sell t-shirts. Reissues of some old shirts, and some exclusive new shirts. Hopefully, before the end of 1999 we'll have it set up so that you can buy Pitchfork on CD, maybe a few other things, too.

MDN: Does it surprise you when fans come up and ask what happened to stuff like "Hale Bopp Blues" and "The Package"?

NF: Yeah, it really does.

MDN: Does it bother you?

NF: No, it doesn't bother me at all. The only thing that really irks me is when someone gets a hold of a demo that they shouldn't have. If someone receives it, it doesn't bother me. What if someone had a demo of a band that I like, like Monster Magnet. I'd say, "Sure, Let me hear it!". It's not ready to be put out. That's why it's a demo.

MDN: The demo version of "Wishbone" is great.

NF: That could be a b-side, right there. But when someone asks what "Hale Bopp Blues" is about, I think that's really cool. If someone's so interested in what we are doing to keep up with what we are not doing, that's pretty cool.

MDN: Anything you would like to say to the teeming masses?

NF: Just be patient with us. I know we get a lot of requests for B-sides, live albums, and Pitchfork. That's all things that we are gonna do, but it's gonna take time like anything else.

MDN: Are you taking time off after this tour?

NF: Our plan for 1999 is: tour in little increments, like three weeks on, and three weeks off. I think we'll go into the studio like March, maybe even February. Hopefully, we'll have an album out as next fall. Then again, I thought that "ER" was gonna come out a year and a half before it actually did. The first time Atlantic heard that album, they basically said it wasn't good enough.

MDN: "ER" took me awhile to get used to, but now it's my favorite record of yours.

NF: The best records are the ones that you have to listen to a few times to like. Like the Led Zeppelin BBC sessions records that came out. It took me awhile to get used to it, but now it's like my favorite Led Zeppelin record.

MDN: What were your musical influences, and what do you listen to for fun?

NF: I listen to a lot of blues. I like King Crimson quite a bit. I don't really listen to any heavy music anymore, I'm just so sick of it. I like classic rock quite a bit, even classical. By the end of a tour I don't want to hear anything remotely similar to rock and roll for at least a month. So, I listen to a lot of folk music. Influences from the get-go were bands like Black Sabbath, the Bad Brains, Cro-Mags, Led Zeppelin. Prong was a big influence on this band. Corrosion of Conformity was too.