This interview was conducted by Philip A. Wickstrand with guitarist Tim Shult at the Roseland Theater in Portland, OR on February 11, 2011.

Heavy Rock titans CLUTCH have been going strong since 1990 with nine studio albums under their belt thus far and countless live performances to exuberant audiences. With February's tour in support of MOTORHEAD, the reissue of 2004's Blast Tyrant with a full disc of bonus materials coming this April and a new album due before the end of the year, 2011 looks to be another great year for CLUTCH.

Phil:  First off, how's the tour with MOTORHEAD been so far?

Tim:  The tour with MOTORHEAD has been incredible - playing shows with MOTORHEAD is the greatest thing ever. This is our second tour we've ever done with them. They took us out in England actually in 2006, so that was the most weight I've ever gained on a tour from drinking too much, [laughter] but I'm trying not to let that happen this time.

Phil:  Tell us a bit about the upcoming reissue of Blast Tyrant.

Tim:  Yeah, we have a reissue of our, I guess, fourth-to-last album that we put out. It came out in 2004 I believe, but  we've expanded it to a double CD where we've got several acoustic tracks as well as demo versions of the Blast Tyrant songs that have totally different lyrics, so it's got about ten extra songs on it and… I don't know - that's about it.

Phil:  What would you say are your favorites of the extra tracks, like the demo versions - is there anything that you think that is not necessarily better, but just different and interesting aside from just the lyrics?

Tim:  Well, you know, I think the songs themselves are just so different that that was really the reason we put them on there. If they were just straight forward demo versions of those songs we wouldn't have done it. But all the arrangements are different, the production's totally different and, like I said, all the lyrics are different. But as far as the new stuff that's on that CD, I basically like the acoustic stuff just because we've recorded that most recently; we've recorded that within the past month or so, so that's kind of the freshest of the CLUTCH material that's on there.

Phil:  Speaking of fresh material, you've got an album coming out towards the end of the year - what can you tell us about what's going to be on that?

Tim:  You know what? I can't tell you anything about it yet because we're really still in the early stages of working on it. We're just kind of throwing riffs out there at this point. After this tour, you know, we're really going to start to get a little more serious about writing.

Phil:  How much time do you guys typically put into the lyrics? 'Cause I've noticed that your lyrics are usually quite a bit more intelligent than your typical Rock or Metal band.

Tim:  Well, Neil, our singer, writes all the lyrics, thank God I don't have that job in the band. [laughter] I'm pretty sure the time it takes for him to write his lyrics ranges somewhere between about a minute and several years, depending on the song, so I don't know. I'm just happy to have somebody in the band that writes great, catchy lyrics and I don't have to worry about it.

Phil:  Are there any ideas that you kind of want to put into the next album as far as, you know, new things to try that you've been thinking about fore awhile but you haven't gotten to yet?

Tim:  Yeah. I mean, I could definitely see more acoustic tracks on this album, for sure. I mean, I know we did a couple of acoustic songs on one of our albums, I forget which one already… Robot Hive/Exodus maybe? And I might be able to see a little more acoustic influence creep in there. But then again, we might just start jamming and end up with an album that sounds like SLAYER or something, I don't know. [laughter] I don't know to tell you the truth. We're still in the early stages of writing, so…

Phil:  Your other band, LIONIZE, did a tour with CLUTCH about a year and a half ago or so, what was it like pulling double duty on that tour?

Tim:  Well, I love the LIONIZE guys and everything, I don't know if I would consider it my other band because they were a band before I met them and I just kind of came in and played guitar with them on their album and I ended up playing some shows with them. And now I've played on their newest album but, you know, I just do that when I can. They've always been their own thing and… what was the question again?

Phil:  Pulling double duty.

Tim:  Actually, honestly the more sets that we play at night, the easier it is to play. Like for example we've done a tour where it's THE BAKERTON GROUP opening up, which is our instrumental project, and then two CLUTCH sets. That's actually easier than playing just one CLUTCH set believe it or not. The longer on stage per night, the easier it is to tell you the truth.

Phil:  Just get more into it?

Tim:  Nah, you just get more warmed up I think. I do anyway.

Phil:  So do you think it will be a challenge on Warped Tour only playing for a half hour?

Tim:  Um… what?

Phil:  With LIONIZE. Or are you not going to be playing on that tour?

Tim:  Oh, well, I've never ever gone on tour with LIONIZE except for when they've gone on tour with us.

Phil:  Oh, okay.

Tim:  It's really their thing and I just, you know, have fun with it. But having said that, I was actually talking to them about maybe doing some of the Warped shows, so I guess we'll see. Is that our set time, a half hour?

Phil:  It's what everybody plays on Warped Tour.

Tim:  Oh, really?

Phil:  Yeah.

Tim:  I've never been to a Warped Tour in my life; I know nothing about it.

Phil:  I've been there three times. The last few have been… I've looked at the bands that are playing and this year's lineup and honestly, LIONIZE is the only one that doesn't make me cringe. [laughs]

Tim:  Who's on it? Who are the big bands?

Phil:  I'm trying to remember… like, I remember THE ACACIA STRAIN just got added and I'm just like ughhhh….

Tim:  That's full-on Metal, right?

Phil:  Metalcore, so eh.

Tim:  But I mean, it's not Pop Punk or anything.

Phil:  Honestly, I preferred it when they had the Pop Punk bands. Well, I don't know - maybe that was just the trendy thing at the time; I see that as being better musically, but that's just personal preference.

Tim:  I really need to check out the lineup for this year's Warped Tour.

Phil:  There are probably some good bands in genres I just don't care about 'cause they usually get a few Ska bands and that's never been my thing, but maybe some of those bands are really good. I couldn't say.

Tim:  But anyway, LIONIZE is an awesome band. I hope their huge someday. For their sake.

Phil:  Okay, recommend a book for our readers and then explain why you recommend that particular work.

Tim:  Oh, wow… there's always the Miles Davis autobiography. There's one I haven't read, actually, but I should have read that I know our drummer and bass player have read and highly recommend, it's the autobiography of Ginger Baker, the drummer for CREAM. Apparently that's just absolutely mind blowing. There's a good book about John Coltrane; I forget exactly what it's called… it might just be called A Love Supreme. That's a good one. Unfortunately, the latest book I've been turned onto is called Omnivore's Dilemma and it's about food in America, like the high fructose corn syrup industry and just the horrible, horrible, massive farms they have and it's a complete and utter nightmare, but unfortunately, I'm kind of obsessed with that stuff right now.

Phil:  No KFC for you then.

Tim:  You know, honestly I have started hearing about this. I haven't read the thing - I've just picked it up a little bit here and there, but… this is just something within the past couple of days that I've been checking out and Jesus Christ… yeah, I haven't eaten meat for a few days because of that. It's very scary. I need to not read it to tell you the truth.

Phil:  I was vegetarian at one point, I'm not anymore, but even before I decided to do that after hearing what KFC does, I'm like, "I'm not ever eating there again."

Tim:  All right, how about this - our sound guy, when we went on tour with MOTORHEAD in 2006, our sound guy was not eating very well, and he's the one that turned me on to this book. He was not eating very well at all and he got really, really, really fat because MOTORHEAD had a great caterer [laughter] and from drinking all the time. So he ended up getting really fat and that was 2006, that was like five years ago, he'd been trying to lose all that weight, right, since then. All he had to do was quit high fructose corn syrup, there's like no exercise involved, he just quit high fructose corn syrup, he didn't lose any actual weight but he looks like he's lost thirty pounds at least just by doing that, so it's really scary. I need to not talk about that or even think about it. [laughter] I should just start drinking more Dr. Pepper. [laughter] I don't know why I brought that up. That's just what I've been thinking about for the past couple days - it's been on my mind the whole time.

Phil:  Well, it's definitely something to think about, for sure. [pause] Don't let it keep you up at night, though.

Tim:  It has been. [laughter]

Phil:  What is a place you've always wanted to play but haven't had the chance to yet?

Tim:  We've never played South America. I would love to play there. Or Africa. Israel. Those are places we've never played. China. China would be good.

Phil:  A lot of bands have been going through there lately.

Tim:  Yeah. I know BLACK LABEL SOCIETY's going there.

Phil:  Yeah, and I think EDGUY and maybe EXODUS played there in the last couple years.

Tim:  Oh, really? That's very underground.

Clutch's Tim Shult

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

February 13, 2011

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PHOTOS BY PHIL A. WICKSTRAND

(Click on Photos to Enlarge)

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Formed: 1991
Germantown, Maryland  USA
Label: Weathermaker Music
Genre: Hard Rock / Heavy Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Neil Fallon:  Vocals
Tim Sult:  Guitar
Dan Maines: Bass
Jean-Paul Gaster:  Drums

DISCOGRAPHY:

Transnational Speedway League: Anthems, Anecdotes &
                           Undeniable Truths (1993)
Passive Restraints (1994)
Clutch (1995)
The Elephant Riders (1998)
Jam Room (2000)
Pure Rock Fury (2001)
Slow Hole to China (2003)
Live at the Googolplex (2003)
Blast Tyrant (2004)
Robot Hive/Exodus (2005)
From Beale Street to Oblivion (2007)
Heard It All Before: Live at the HiFi Bar
                                                              (2007)
Full Fathom Five: Audio Field Recordings
                                         2007-2008 (2008)
Live in Flint, Michigan (2009)
Strange Cousins from the West (2009)