Clutch has weathered a long career that’s spanned three decades,
dealt with big and small labels & they’ve also survived a huge shift in the music
industry in the 2000’s and 2010’s. Their fans known as Gearheads have learned that
Clutch’s sound continually evolves & today, let’s talk about the history of the band.
For many people, Clutch first became popular in the early 90’s with their first full length
record Transnational Speedway League: Anthems, Anecdotes and Undeniable Truths which produced the
single A Shogun Named Marcus. The band’s origins dated back to around 1988-1989 when Clutch would
be formed by four friends who attended Seneca Valley High School in Germantown, Maryland
including vocalist Neil Fallon, guitarist Tim Sult,
bassist Dan Maines and drummer Jean-Paul Gaster. One story I read claimed that the
band didn’t form until after high school at least according to guitarist Tim Sult. -
When band originally formed and they called themselves Moral Minority. Before moving onto
the name Glut Trip.The band would try out a few singers in their early days before
Fallon fronted the band. By the summer of 1991 they officially changed their name to clutch
telling people it stood for City/State Liberation Union To Cleanse Humanity.
Due to the proximity of Washington DC, the band would be influenced by groups including
Fugazi and Minor Threat. And the band’s early sound was more representative of hardcore punk.
Frontman Neil fallon would tell Louder Sound “I can’t count how many times I would see
Fugazi roll up to a place that wasn’t suited to a rock show and play under fluorescent lights,”
“No light show, no t-shirts for sale, they just burned down the house.
That bare-bones ethic affected us deeply" he would say.
Fallon would tell psyhology today how punk influenced him early on revealing
“I got into singing just because it was something cool to do in high school … . I
hung out with people that were into music that were on the margins, kind of in the periphery of
acceptable music,” “There was a time where punk rock, hard core and heavy metal were shunned,
whereas now it has become much more acceptable. It seemed that much more of a threat involved.
And I think that what attracted me was the taboo of it" he would say.
While politics would play a heavy part in the band’s who originated from D.C. it never
really found it’ way into Clutch’s music. It wasn’t just bands like minor threat and
fugazi who influenced band’s music as the go-go scene was as equally influential.
Go go music would incorporate elements of funk along with hip hop, the blues as well
as R&B and included audience participation. Clutch would soon become well known for their
visual lyrics written by frontman Neil Fallon & he would tell psychology today I’ve always
been attracted to the idea of a tall tale, where you take a truth, and you exaggerate
it. But any story, like if you take myth for example, it may be filled with exaggeration
and half-truths. But ultimately, it’s to arrive at or depict a universal truth.”
The band would release their first EP, Pitchfork, in October of 1991.
Following the release of their first EP the band would attend a corrosion of conformity concert
where they gave out their EP which eventually found it’s way into the
hands of a kid named James Graw. Graw for his part ran a fanzine in Kansas and It
turned out earache records advertised in that magazine and they soon signed Clutch.
. The following year they would release their first major commercial EP 1992’s
Passive Restraints. And labels at the time were signing punk-metal bands like Helmet,
a band that Clutch bore some resemblance to. The group’s second EP would get them
noticed by major labels and they would soon sign with Atlantic subsidiary EastWest.
In 1993 Clutch would release Transnational Speedway League introducing the band to a
larger audience with the track "A Shogun Named Marcus"" Clutch would soon establish themselves
as one of the best groove bands out there. They also soon started to get labeled as stoner rock
alongside bands like Kyuss who I’ve done a video on. The link to that video is down below. The MTV
show beavis and butthead gave the band some love featuring the video for a shogun named marcus.
Neil Fallon would tell Revolver "We wanted Transnational to sound
like the Melvins.... The stuff we recorded there was a lot slower and representative
of our early influences, stuff like the Melvins and Swans. But I got burned out at that session
pretty quickly and we came back to New York for a second session. That's where we wrote
'A Shogun Named Marcus,' & 'Rats,' which were faster and had more of a sense of humor...I
discovered that I could just make stuff up and tell a story. To support the record Clutch
would open for the likes of Sepultura, Monster Magnet, Biohazard, Voidvod and Fear Factory.
The experience opening for these bands would be mixed from the members themselves
with fallon tellng Vice I remember doing shows opening up for big metal bands, and just being
hated because it looked like we were having a good time. Metal is a very conservative genre—there are
a lot of close-minded guys and gals. There’s an irony to it. There are a lot of metal fans who
claim to be only into extreme things, but their list of extreme things is very, very narrow."
By Late 1994 the band entered Silver Spring, Maryland's Uncle Punchy Studios to record
their self-titled sophomore album. Considered some of their most commercially successful
work their self titled record would see an eclectic range of influences including metal,
and classic rock. Fallon would tell Revolver Magazine Prior to this album,
we were listening to a lot of metal and hardcore, like Prong, Bad Brains, and Cro-Mags. Then we
rediscovered classic rock, which added more swing, more riffs, and less power chords to
our music The album would peak at number 33 on the heatseakers album charts moving over 200,000
units. The album is held in high regards as one of the best stoner rock albums of the decade.
By the mid 90’s the band signed with Columbia Records who put out their 1998
album The Elephant Riders. But the band ran into problems. Musical tastes had changed.
Grunge and so-called alternative rock was gone, now replaced with Nu-Metal. The band started
recording sessions for the album renting a house in West Virgina. & the area the band
stayed in was rife with civil war history and the band wanted the surrounding area’s
stories to seep into their new album. But the label columbia, was disappointed with
the album the band submitted and they forced the group to re-record the album in New Yok City with
veteran producer Jack Douglas who had previously worked with John Lennon, the Who and Aerosmith.
Fallon would tell Revolver "It was a great luxury to go to New York and record with Jack Douglas,
but at the same time it wasn't the easiest record to make because of [the label's] involvement.
It's embarrassing to think about how much money [Columbia] dumped into this record. It wasn't even
money in our pockets! That's not to say I don't like the record; it's just I associate it with
things that the listener doesn't.. " While the album charted it wasn’t enough
for the label and Columbia soon dropped Clutch. Their follow up record 1999 saw the band go back
to their indie roots and release the album Jam Room. Once again major labels showed interest
and the band signed with Atlantic Records who put out their 2001 album Pure Rock Fury.
Atlantic like their previous label didn’t know how to market the band. A perfect example of this was
when a program director for North Carolina radio station or WXQR (Rock 105), Brian Rickman, told
the label they should change their first single from the album and the label agreed. Their first
single from the album which was largely influenced by rap-rock which was popular at the time and the
song started to get airplay.. However, Fallon didn’t agree with releasing the song as a single
because he was worried people would think Clutch was cashing in on what was popular at the time.
The band would eventually depart atlantic signing with an indie label DRT. The band would end up
releasing an album in 2004 titled Blast Tyrant which had a hit with the song mob goes wild which
bam margera directed the video for. Neil fallon would tell songfacts the song was a rare social
commentary around the second iraq war revealing Neil: That was written at the beginning of the
Iraq War. I don't want to open up this door and go into that, but I found it to be kind of
surreal on a bunch of different levels. That was my way of transcribing that onto paper. I think
it was some kind of civil discontent on my part. Soon enough more publications started noticing
the band and there music started showing up other mediums including video games such as Tony Hawk
Underground and Hitman and the video game Rock Band. Clutch would follow that up with 2005’s
Robot Hive/Exodus and it marked the addition of a new member of a band with keyboardist Mick Schaur.
By 2008 the band was done dealing with other record labels and formed their own label.
Drummer jean paul gaster would tell metal express radio why they went this route revealing
"In the early days, working with the labels was always a source of great frustration.
We bounced around from label to label quite a bit in the first half of our
career. You end up thinking about a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with making
music or playing music. And as soon as we started our own label, all of a sudden,
that was no longer an issue. The music can work hand in hand with the business as well" he'd say.
He would go on to reveal how the band was very hands on with their label with personally being
involved in packaging and shipping albums to europe and other parts of the world. The band
has a lot to be proud of considering they’ve consistently charted on the billboard charts
with each release they’ve put out on their own independent label since 2008. Their most recent
release the book of bad decisions came out in 2018 and peaked at number 16 on the album
charts. That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like
button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.