Q&AQ&A with with drummer Jean-Paul Gaster
IF YOU GOWhat: Clutch and Hellyeah featuring Kyng and MonstrO.When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday.Where: Track 29, 1400 Market St.Admission: $25 in advance, $28 at the door.Phone: 521-2929.Venue website: www.track29.co.Clutch: www.pro-rock.comHellyeah: www.facebook.com/hellyeahband
When the wind blows, goes the adage, the stubborn oak is the one that falls while the willow survives by bending with the gusts.
Jam-metal artist Clutch gives the lie to that saying. Despite refusing to compromise its music due to pressure from labels, the Baltimore-based quartet has survived for more than 20 years.
“Even in the ’90s, when we were on major labels and radio was a very, very important thing to them, quite honestly when we tried to write a radio song, it just didn’t sound like a Clutch song,” said drummer Jean-Paul Gaster.
“We really don’t know how to make music other than how we make it,” Gaster added. “I think that was a source of frustration for the major labels.”
Despite their frustration, the labels kept calling.
For most of the ’90s, Gaster said, Clutch signed contract after contract as companies grew excited by the quartet’s growing fanbase before throwing their hands up at the band’s intractable nature. In 2008, the band members decided enough was enough and formed their own independent label, Weathermaker.
Gaster said being in charge removed a lot of the hassles that had marred the experience of being in a band since the band was formed in 1991 by a group of friends fresh out of high school.
“We jumped in, and we’re still figuring it out — it’s been a learning process — but it’s really made being in the band a lot easier,” he said.
Saturday, Clutch will share the stage with metal supergroup Hellyeah, consisting of members of Pantera, Damageplan, Mudvayne and Nothingface.
Clutch’s sound borrows equally from heavy metal, hard rock, blues and funk. That distinctive approach made the band a bridge group in the ’90s, linking the world of harder-edged acts with the burgeoning jam-rock scene, which was reaching its peak through groups such as Phish and Widespread Panic.
Despite their oak-like commitment to their musical principles, the band members are fine with being flexible, so long as the end result is songs they can be proud of, Gaster said.
“Many people get into bands to make a million dollars or because they want to date models or because they want to party,” he said. “The truth is, we didn’t do that; we wanted to make music.”