Neil Fallon, the singer/guitarist from the heavyweight stoner rock outfit Clutch speaks to FasterLouder about their beginnings and shares a few tales on the eve of their first Australian tour.

Neil started off by talking about how Clutch got started.”We got together in Maryland in 1991. It’s been the same four guys since our inception and about a year and half ago we got a keyboard player on board named Mick Schauer.”

“It’s a fairly typical story – in high school four guys that wanted to set up a band for fun. We really did it in a garage; then we just started doing shows and before we knew it we were touring full time. Really there’s not a whole lot else to it.”

He then went on to speak about the development of the band to what it is today.”Our first few releases we were really trying to figure it out and it was our self titled 1995 record that we sort of figured out the direction we wanted to go in.”

“Everything we do is fairly inceptual; we don’t play around with we don’t want to do this and we do want to do that we just kind of go with our gut.”

“I think our early stuff was much more closely related to the bands we were trying to emulate and then we stopped doing that.”We were listening to bands like Black Sabbath, The Bad Brains and Prong, I think anything you listen to is an influence but influences are best when you’re not consciously making a decision about it.”

Neil outlined some of the highlights with the band as they got bigger. “Some of the highlights are playing with bands we really admire like Wayne Kramer, Slayer and Sepultura; ending up in very strange bills in France with The Specials and Cradle of Filth.”

“I think for the most part my highlights are going to new places and the great opportunities to see the world and meet people on a very real level. It’s an education that you can’t get anywhere else.”

Neil then went on to share his thoughts on coming to Australia and what we can expect from Clutch down under.  “I’ve wanted to visit Australia ever since I was a kid. I think the further away a place is the more exotic it becomes. I watched a wildlife television program on Australia trying to psyche myself up. I’ll be very excited to get there. It looks so hectic that I think it’s just going to be airports and nightclubs, so the only wildlife we are likely to see is at the shows; which will probably be enough!”

“Our shows are very straight forward rock and roll stuff. We get up there rock through the tunes and maybe there will be a couple of portions during the set where we just jam it for a little bit. You’re just going to see and hear a very sincere rock and roll show. In the States sometimes when we headline we’ll play more than two hours; whether or not we’ll be doing that over there I don’t know, we have to find out what the schedule’s like. We like to make it an event!”

You can catch clutch at the following shows in March:

15th and 16th of March, The Annandale Hotel, Sydney with Fort
17th March, The Corner Hotel, Melbourne with Fort
18th March, Overcranked Festival, RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
19th March, The Corner Hotel, Melbourne with Peeping Tom