LiQUiFY Magazine December 2013 | Page 96

SOUND WAVE Interview and words | Rachel Syers Pedal to the metal with CLUTCH D ouble decades, a bucket load of slamming power-rock and grungy funk records, and their foot is still stuck to the floor. Clutch are returning to Australia for a string of shows and are armed with a powerhouse new record - it’s a record that music industry folk are claiming has taken the band up another notch, and is their best album yet. Well don’t worry if 20 years ago you weren’t aware of Clutch’s hard rock funk metal, because this four-piece from Maryland have pulled what is near impossible and highly improbable for most bands from the nineties – their tenth album Earth Rocker released March 2013 this year has actually been hailed by critics as their best album yet and a global tour of 12 countries later, they are on their way to tour Australia and play the Soundwave 2014 stage. Bassist Dan Maines had just picked his nineyear-old daughter and seven-year-old son up from school when FROTH punched in some stolen digits and got him on the line from the US, an d was quick to man up to admit his first ever attempt at surfing was hectic back in 2010 when they last toured Australia. “I grew up in the Washington DC area which is on the East Coast and I had a pretty big fascination with all things Californian and