CLUTCH Enters Nashville Studio To Begin Recording New Album

Maryland rockers CLUTCH entered Sputnik Sound studio in Nashville, Tennessee with producer and engineer Vance Powell (THE WHITE STRIPES, RED FANG) on January 3 to begin recording their new album.

Guitarist Tim Sult recently told The Advocate that he was excited about finally working on the follow-up to 2015's "Psychic Warfare" .

"They're my favorite songs," he said of the new material. "At this point, we probably have more songs than we've ever had before going into the studio. The material is a little heavier. It has a more doomed-out vibe and feel. We're going to record more live.

"It's our first time recording in Nashville," he added. "Who knows? We might end up with something that sounds like a Garth Brooks album."

Sult told Chimera about the CLUTCH songwriting process: "Everyone in the band has ideas for songs. Everyone in the band comes in with ideas for songs. We also just get together and jam out ideas as well — you know, squash out new ideas together. That's also another big part of why we've been able to go so long — because we're all equally artistically invested in the band. It's not like it's just one person's project that a couple other guys are going along with for a couple years and then are going to leave and go do something else."

According to Tim, he and his bandmates are "pretty much all on the same page" when it comes to deciding which ideas to flesh out into full songs. "If there's an idea that we can tell is really not the best idea for a song ever, it's just not really happening, we dump it immediately," he said.

"Since the beginning of [2017], we've been getting together and working on songs for the new album. I would guess that we probably only used like 10 to 20 percent of the ideas that we actually laid down at this point. It's great, because we have a great rehearsal stage. We have time to get together and jam. That's really what keeps us going — [the desire to] just continue to write new music."

"Psychic Warfare" debuted at No. 11 on The Billboard 200 chart after shifting 26,000 equivalent album units in the week ending October 8, 2015. The disc was released via CLUTCH's own label, Weathermaker Music.