Clutch to hit studio in January

Clutch will start recording their 11th album in January – but frontman Neil Fallon says they’re not aiming to follow the format of 2013’s Earth Rocker.

The band will spend the next three months in pre-production before aiming to complete studio work by March 2015.

Fallon tells Lithium Magazine: “We’ll take October, November and December to finish up writing. We’ll do a run from Christmas to mid-January out to Texas, where we plan to record. Then we’ll record in January, February and probably the beginning of March, take a little bit of time off and go back out on the road.”

The vocalist says of their writing: “I think the best thing is just following your gut. I think if we tried to make Earth Rocker 2 it would be DOA.”

But he adds: “Then again, you don’t want to completely abandon it. We started writing pretty quickly, so it does bear a lot of similarities to Earth Rocker, just because we’re coming off the heels of that. If we waited five years it would be a different story.”

And Fallon says they’re becoming used to having a trademark sound, even though it sometimes causes issues when they’re writing. “We play a riff and say, ‘We’ve heard that before’ and discard it. It pushes you to find something new.

“But it’s important to accept one’s strengths. An example is a song on Earth Rocker, DC Sound Attack – that opening riff. We played it and said, ‘We’ve done this before. It sounds too much like Clutch.’ Our producer said, ‘Well, you are Clutch, so what’s the issue?’”

Not only is one-time online news editor Martin an established rock journalist and drummer, but he’s also penned several books on music history, including SAHB Story: The Tale of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, a band he once managed, and the best-selling Apollo Memories about the history of the legendary and infamous Glasgow Apollo. Martin has written for Classic Rock and Prog and at one time had written more articles for Louder than anyone else (we think he's second now). He’s appeared on TV and when not delving intro all things music, can be found travelling along the UK’s vast canal network.