page: 54
 title: Tool  What Next?
author: Frank Hunter

Tool have made quite a name for themselves over the last few years 
by twisting the normal conventions of rock and roll into new and 
previously untested directions. Throughout their career, this 
admittedly unusual unit has wormed their way into the psyche of hard 
rock fans everywhere through both their musical explorations of the 
dark side of the human psyche, and their bold journeys into the often 
grotesque underbelly of societal perversions. Somehow, despite the 
distinctly unsavory aspects of their presentations, Tool have emerged 
as one of the most respected and successful bands around, a group 
capable of both selling millions of albums and packing the largest 
concert halls in the world.
   To put it bluntly, vocalist Maynard James Keenan, drummer Danny 
Carey, bassist Justin Chancellor and guitarist Adam Jones seem to get 
a special kick out of making us feel just a little bit uncomfortable. 
Whether it is through their pointedly off-center lyrics, the strange, 
almost unearthly photographs that comprise their album covers through 
the haunting imagery that inhabits their videos, this Los 
Angelas-based quartet have brought a uniquely bent musical and visual 
sensibility to their work. Yet for all their unusual posturings, Tool 
have also proved capable of appealing to the music masses with 
surprising dexterity.
   Their breakthrough release, Undertow, sailed past platinum, and 
their video efforts for that album, including Sober and Prison Sex, 
won a variety of industry kudos- especially for their inventive 
utilization of clay-mation, that painstakingly time-consuming form of 
video art where clay figures are moved slightly from frame to frame 
until the illusion of actual movement is acheived. Their next effort, 
�nima, served to further cement Tool's position in the rock and roll 
hierarchy of the late '90s. But now the shock value of their intial 
successes has begun to wear off, and it's time for Tool to start the 
whole creative process over again. For many bands the challenge of 
inventing a new persona even more perverse and perverted than before 
might prove to be an intimidating challenge- to these 
slightly-off-center guys, however, it's all part of the rock and roll 
masterplan.
   "I don't think we really stopped to concider making a new album as 
any sort of daunting challenge," Jones said. "We've never approached 
our music from the vantage point of commercial acheivement. The fact 
that the last few albums have done well is certainly welcomed by us, 
but it hasn't changed any of our perspectives. The same, strange 
things that motivated us before still motivate us now."
   The fact is that one would be hard pressed to name a major band 
that has ever been stranger, or more cloaked in mystery and intrigue 
than Tool. Born as an "ugly idea" in Jones' fertile brain, from the 
moment their debut disc, Opiate, was released in 1992, the band began 
perfecting their unique formal success- creating some of the most 
thought-provoking, experimental and downright unusual music in the 
world, dressing it in an array of superficially "metallic" trappings, 
and then releasing it on an unsuspecting world. At first, the band's 
approach was met with reactions ranging from confusion to outright 
disgust. But slowly and surely, as they relentlessly toured the North 
American continent, Tool began the difficult task of winning over the 
uninitiated. By the time their second disc, the aforementioned 
Undertow, hit the streets in the spring of 1993, the ground-swell of 
support the group had been cultivating began to evolve into a seething 
swarm of fanatics, all of whom were addicted to Tool's decidedly dark 
musical stylings.
   "Going on the road was very helpful to us," Jones said. "Some 
people may have heard our album or seen our video and developed a 
certain image of us. But once they got to see us on stage, and 
actually see what we look like and what we do, I think they began to 
understand us that much more."
   Somewhat ironically, for all their apparent strangeness, the roots 
of Tool's music are actually far more conventional than the band's 
members might want to admit. Jones says that the group's influences 
range from folk singers like Joni Mitchell to country crooners like 
Dwight Yokam to pedal-to-the-metal rockers like AC/DC and Metallica. 
But rather than borrowing directly from any of these inspirations, 
Tool has chosen to take snippets from each, turn those pieces inside 
out until their guts are showing, then cover them all in the thick, 
impenetrable, guitar-heavy musical morass that has quickly become 
Tool's trademark. But just because the band's music has drawn heartly 
hails of support from both the metal, and alternatvie communities, the 
group wants us all to know that we may be in for a big surprise in the 
near future.
   "The fact that so many of our heavier songs appeared on our last 
few albums was something of an aberration," Jones said. "It just 
happened that was the direction we chose to follow. It was something 
that kind of developed when we were in the studio. But we didn't feel 
limited this time; we didn't see any reason to try and duplicate what 
we did before. Some of our other sides may very well rear their ugly 
heads the next time around, and I believe people will find that to be 
very interesting."
   Apparently, those who felt they knew and understood Tool after 
their initial introduction to the band will be quite shocked by the 
band's next attempt to delve into life's musky underbelly. All the 
"classic" Tool elements will promise to still be there; including 
Keenan's cry-from-the-soul lyrics and Jones' soundscape guitar 
musings. But the group members promise that there will be some 
startling different elements housed in those new songs as well. Tool 
understand that they're running a bit of a risk by toying with the 
musical "formula" which has already brought them such acclaim. But 
believe us, they're not losing any sleep worrying about the possible 
consequences of their upcoming actions.
   "One of the distinguishing things about us is the fact that we'll 
ALWAYS place our desire to enjoy what we're doing over the promise of 
big rewards," Jones said. "People may not believe it due to the natue 
of our music, but this is FUN for us. It was great that the press and 
radio, and MTV got behind us the last few times, but who knows what 
will happen next? Quite often those same media people who love you one 
year turn against you the next. Who knows why? It's just a fact of 
life. So why should we spend even one second worrying about it? We 
just proceed like always, just the way we've been doing it for the 
last seven years."

Posted to t.d.n: 02/06/99 18:21:29