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The Tool Page: An Article

Publication: Sain Magazine

Date: May, 2001

Transcribed by
Ray (rcollard@start.com.au)


  page: 40
 title: Better Late Than Never
author: Unknown
Tool fans must live by the creed "patience is a virtue". They 
had a five year wait for a follow up to 1996's Ænima. The 
highly anticipated third CD Lateralus was titled Systema 
Enchephale and set to be out on april 17. That was singer 
Maynard James Keenan's Birthday. It's now out May 15, 
Arriving with secrecy.

The 13 tracks have titles Tool fans would expect - "eon blue 
apocalypse","Triad","Faaip de oiad","Mantra","The patient", 
"The Grudge","Schism","Parabol,"Parabola","Ticks and 
leeches","Lateralus","Disposition" and "Reflection"

Keenan explains that part of the reason for the silence was 
that Tool was working out "Business" problems, mostly with 
their old record company. He points out though, That of the 
five years, the art-metal band was touring for two. Then 
Keenan toured with his other band, A Perfect Circle

Now Tool are back in the action. This month they do four 
shows in the U.S bfore starting out on a month long tour of 
Europe from May 25th. 

Guitarist Adam Jones concieved and directed the video for the 
first single "Schism", which was shot in Los Angeles. Jones 
handled director for the videos "Stinkfist" and "Ænema" from 
the last album, and "Prison Sex" from their 1993 debut 
album Undertow.



Q:When you started in 1992, you started this new rock sound 
with Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden 
and Rage Against the Machine. How do you feel that so many 
of your contemporaries are no longer around?

Maynard:"Like i should be looking forward to a pension plan 
(laughs) I want a retirement homr in Florida"

Danny Carey (Drums):"It is satisfying to see that we had the 
strength and the courage to maintain a relationship with each 
other. It's tough. It's tough to stay married to one person for 
10 years, let alone stay married with three people for ten 
years. We've had one change along the way, but it's all 
worked out."


Q: What do you think is the key to your longevity?

Justin Chancellor (bass) "Just having alot of respect for each 
other and really respecting each other's ideas and keeping 
an open mind."

Danny: " Keeping that white-hot vision of the end product in 
mind. It's worth suffering through each other's pet peeves 
and all that stuff if you know what the end product is going to 
be and that's so rewarding. That's why we're still together. If 
that wasn't there, we would've kicked each others asses ages 
ago and broken up."


Q: Four or so years is quite a long time. The general public's 
attention spans are short and music has changed 
considerably. Was there any concern that four years was too 
long?

Maynard: "No."

Justin " We wanted to come up with something unique, ya 
know. It takes alot of experimentation. It's Discovery.


Q: Any songs on the new album that will surprise the hell out 
of your fans?

Danny: "Yeah, there are a couple of songs that people would 
never imagine us doing. On this record, there are a couple  
of departures. They're towards the end of the record. It gets 
weirder as it goes."


Q: You've toured Australia a couple of times, any fond 
memories?

Danny: "Eating pies and watching The Bombers." (Laughs)

Adam: "Yeah. Aussie rules was fun. For me, and my 
perspective of the band, it's definetly been one of my 
favourite places to tour."

Danny: "We definetly look forward to going back, hopefully in 
your spring."


Q: How do the Australian fance compare?

Maynard: "They seem more intelligent."

Adam: "They're really passionate, but they're not as knuckle-
headed as the fans are here in the U.S and I consider myself 
to be knuckle-headed. It's like, they are still going nuts, but 
they're still really respectful at our shows."


Q: I certainly hear a natural musical bridge between Ænima 
and this album. Do you agree and is there a lyrical bridge?

Maynard: "Sure. We're right in the middle of it, so it's hard to 
figure it out, but definetly we write from our own experiences. 
So it's four years later, so we're more mature people and 
we've seen alot more thing. When you get to a certain age, 
you start to get a better perspective, you get more hindsight 
and your write from that place, and it's certainly going to be a 
different place, but a natural progression."


Q: Maynard, did your touring commitments to A Perfect Circle 
alter the way you guys wrote songs for the album?

Maynard: "Scome of the process. We all worked on alot of 
music before I left. The actual arrangements tightened up 
once I was gone. We used FedEx a lot this time basically."


Q: You are renowned for keeping tight control over what you 
do. Do the powers that be try to infiltrate your world?

Maynard: "They gave up. At one point they probably were 
trying to, but they went "Oh Fuck it, we can't Fuck with these 
guys, coz they'll stop doing things until we go away."

Adam: "They still try to find that loophole to try and suggest 
something, or to try and bend you. But we've made it this far 
making our own rules, so I think that they know what to do."

Danny: "Usually it's more like trying to over-expose or 
market us. They know better than to attempt to tell us to 
make a short song, or play this way. They would be severly 
chastised."


Q: Ænima broke down a number of barriers for Tool. What 
barriers do you hope the new album can break down?

Danny: " We've established ourselves in what we do. It's 
great if it keeps on growing. But there's certain sacrifices that 
need to be made beyond the level we are. We're pretty 
content where we are, not having to plaster our faces all over 
TV shows and magazines everywhere. We're pretty discreet 
about that and by doing that, we've been able to keep a 
quality of life that is high. We can still go to most of our 
shows and walk into the crowd and watch the support band 
play and people will not bother us. It's not as easy for 
Maynard, as he is much more of a focal point, but for us 
three, we can still get away with that and that's a pretty rare 
thing in this business. So I'm fine with the way progress is 
going right now. If it gets bigger, that's fine, but we don't 
want to sacrifice our integrity in any way."


Q: What do your fans want to know?

Danny: "It's those things other bands are displaying all the 
time. There's a stupid show on MTV called Cribs or 
something, where the viewer sees where you live, what you 
like, what you eat and stuff. It gets to the point where it's go 
ridiculous. I want to hear that they are saying artistically or 
musically. The face behind It dosen't really make any 
difference. But that's what gets exploited all the time and I 
think that's kind of grim."



Posted to t.d.n: 06/27/01 11:17:20