title: "Got the time"

[I'm transcribing it verbatim, so you'll notice a mistake early on where
Adam Jones is referred to as the bass player.]


In talking to Tool's bass player Adam Jones before the band's set at
Sydney's Alternative Nation, his health is pretty much an approximation
of the weather - shithouse.

The band have been touring Undertow for almost a year and a half, and are
now undertaking these shows in Australia as a break to their time off,
the time in which they've started writing material for the new album.  A
fairly indefinite task when your last album sold over a million copies
without the help of radio or TV.

"We don't write pop songs," Adam explains rubbing the swollen glands on
his neck, contemplating the current writing process and staring forlornly
at the downpour outside.  "We're constantly fighting with our record
company, they want us to do three minute songs, but we don't want to have
to stick to formula, we're just not writing these songs to get played on
the radio."

In keeping with the progress Undertow - with its flowing, moody nature -
made on the hard block rhythms of their debut Opiate, the new material
looks to expand even further outside the regular formats available to
currently commercial styles.  "In England it's just like a cancer at the
moment," Adam observes ruefully, "you only get signed if you are a pop
band and so it's just all this corporate music which is paid to be safe
and successful.

"It's very experimental music," he continues, trying for a handle on how
he sees the album sounding, "and we like it that way.  It just keeps
branching off instead of flowing down the same river.  At the moment
we're just trying to rout out everyone's influences because everyone is
coming from such different directions.  It started out as just such high
energy and now it's more open.  The circle in which we operate is a lot
bigger now and basically our songs are going to be as long as we think
they should take."