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Tool Hammer Away At New Album


The members of Tool aren't at all jealous of frontman 
Maynard James Keenan's commitment to his other band, A 
Perfect Circle. They enjoy the downtime. And when they get 
antsy, they can get to work on new ideas without having a 
hands-on singer getting in the way.

For months, drummer Danny Carey, guitarist Adam Jones 
and bassist Justin Chancellor have been jamming together, 
and they've already got the framework for 10 to 12 new 
songs.

"They're very much in the infant stage, where we have all 
these different jams and we start piecing them together," 
Carey said. "There are no true arrangements yet. We like to 
develop ideas, but we don't want to solidify anything too 
much until Maynard gets involved."

Tool will continue to write as a trio until mid-June, when 
Keenan finishes touring with A Perfect Circle. Then they'll work 
through the songs with their singer for another two or three 
months before hitting the studio, Carey said. While it's too 
early to get an overall read on the new songs, Carey 
described the material as heavier and more intense than the 
group's last disc, 2001's Lateralus.

"There seems to be a little more brute force going on in the 
music, rather than being lighter and more intricate like some 
of the stuff on the last record," Carey said. "It still has quirky 
time changes, but so far we've been working on really heavy 
stuff."

In part, the aggressive vibe of the material has been a 
reaction to Tool's tours with thunderously intricate bands like 
Fantômas and Swedish death-prog band Meshuggah. 

"[Fantômas singer] Mike Patton and [Fantômas/Slayer 
drummer] Dave Lombardo — those guys are a good, heavy 
influence," Carey said. "And we did most of the dates on our 
last tour with Meshuggah. They're incredibly heavy, so it was 
a good kick in the teeth playing with them."

Carey said he hopes the new Tool record will be ready for 
release by the end of the year, but he added that it may not 
be issued until early 2005 in order to avoid being lost in the 
Christmas shuffle.

In addition to rehearsing new songs from noon to 4 p.m. 
every day, Tool-minus-Maynard have also been putting 
together a DVD of footage from the Lateralus tour, which they 
plan to release this summer.

"It's going to be something really cool," Carey said. "It won't 
be just another band-playing-live video."

Tool are also editing footage of a lengthy conversation 
between themselves and Alex Grey, the psychedelic painter 
who created the artwork for Lateralus, for future 
release. "Alex is in the process of releasing a book on his 
function in the Lateralus tour with his artwork, so we're 
thinking we might release them as a package together," 
Carey said.

When he wasn't working with Jones and Chancellor, Carey 
spent his free evenings in his home studio writing and 
recording with Pigmy Love Circus, a band he originally played 
with before joining Tool. Following a reunion gig at the House 
of Blues in West Hollywood last year, Pigmy wrote the record 
The Power of Beef, which Carey drummed on and produced.

"It's a good-time, straight-on power band," Carey said. "Tool 
is a lot more intricate and more dynamic, but there's nothing 
like playing full-ahead, balls-out, raw power, too, and I don't 
get to do that as much in Tool."
Posted to t.d.n: 05/16/04 13:11:30