Publication: Esky Magazine
Date: June, 2001
Transcribed by
Simon Fazio (kungfuonion@hotmail.com)
Simon Fazio (kungfuonion@hotmail.com)
page: 28 title: Tool come out of the Closet author: Dan Lander and Danny Keenan In 1996, Tool released the mega-selling Aenima. Then they disappeared. Five years on, a triumphant return beckons... It was a cold pale night in Canberra in 1997 : pale moon and that sort of chill that soaks its way through the warmest clothes. But even though a cold night in Canberra is colder than most, it hadn't stopped a massive crowd filing into the UC's Union Bar. Resplendent in beanies and hoodies, the punters were there to see the brightest new hope in heavy rock, well, since anything : Tool. The LA quarter - Maynard James Keenan, Adam Jones, Danny Carey and Justin Chancellor - were touring in support of Aenima, one of the most successful heavy albums of all time, and expectations were high. Tool represented the perfect combination of hardcore aggression, twisted imagination and brilliant musicianship, and the world was lapping them up. When the show started, Maynard - everyone’s favourite little man - appeared on stage painted an incandescent blue, and eerie figure in a dimly lit room, the perfect thinking guys rock god. He spent the first two songs facing the wrong way, amazingly shy despite that incredible voice. It didn't matter. The music spoke for itself. Not a soul walked away disappointed - the show had exceeded all expectations and Tool has cemented their reputation as the premier metal band in the world. Six months later, they had disappeared without a trace... It was the classic rock & roll story. Five years after releasing their debut EP, Opiate, Tool had finally realised their immense potential. They'd stunned the world and were poised to deliver the knockout punch; a band ready to write their name in stone next to the likes of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Then, like the script of a bad movie, they were thrown into the sort of chaos only a corporate world can create. Their record company, Zoo, went broke and was taken over by a new batch of businessmen. The executive types didn't approach Tool about recording another album - the band's old contract said the record company had seven months to do so - and so Tool thought they were free agents. The started to make plans for the future, as you do, but when Zoo (now known as Freeworld) got wind of it, the record company sued for breech of contract. Thinking they were in the right, Tool sued back. Things got messy, and before any clear sort of deal was sorted out, it was the year 2000. Tool hadn't released an album in four years, and most people feared the band were history. But good things come to those who wait. Tool eventually sorted a deal with their label that suited everyone, and the last 12 months have seen an unprecedented level of activity from their camp laying all fears to rest. The frenzy started with Maynard’s side project, A Perfect Circle, which saw the vocalist and Tool guitar tech Billy Howerdel produce Mer De Noms, a whole album of tunes that defiantly came from the same cerebral stomping ground as Aenima. This was followed at the very end of the year by Tool’s Salival, a box set of live and previously unreleased material with a collection of the band’s gob smacking video clips. Their first official release in four years, Salival was closely guarded, but not closely enough according to Keenan. “I had to yell at a few websites,” laughs the frontman, “because we had a few surprises in the Salival box set and they post them on their website as soon as they heard a rumour about them. Whatever happened to being surprised? Whatever happened to a kid going and buying a thing and taking it home and going ‘Wow! There’s extra in here for me that I didn’t expect.’ If you read these websites, your presents are open before Christmas comes. It’s fucked.” [Note from Kabir: Heh.] And Tool have always wanted to surprise, to challenge, to deliver their message with maximum impact. Artistically, the band are very pure about their vision, a fact which extends beyond the music and into the whole presentation of ideas. As guitarist Adam Jones explains, part of the beauty of tool is defiantly the fact that they have avoided overexposure despite their immense success. ”It’s where society is right now with music” says the guitarist. “There’s no mystery. It’s all about VH1 specials and there’s no vulnerability. There’s a reason why we don’t push our images and we push the music, although it’s really hard to try and conform to that and I don’t think we will.” Of course, the level of mystery surrounding the band has reached a high point with their extended absence, and this has only fuelled interest in what may be the album of the year: their third longplayer and first new material since 1996, Lateralus. “It’s four years later, so we’re more mature,” reveals Maynard of the record. “We’ve seen a lot more things. When you get to a certain age, you start to get a better perspective You get more hindsight and you write from that place, and it’s certainly going to be a different place, but a natural progression”. As one of the most anticipated comeback albums of all time, Lateralus has been more carefully protected than the pope in public. Tool wanted to kick the world in the teeth with maximum force – anything that might destroy that had to be avoided. But Maynard did manage to maintain a sense of humour about the whole thing. “Because blotter acid can’t be downloaded, we figured we’re gonna do the whole cover as a big blotter acid, and if you eat the cover, something strange will happen.” Lateralus was released worldwide on May 15th – and it has been certainly worth the wait. It sees Tool – already one of the most challenging and progressive bands in the world – taking things to the next level of sophistication. Hard Rock should prepare itself for a new revolution. Like Aenima before it, Lateralus sees Tool throw down the rock & roll gauntlet. “I hope that it would open a bunch of doors for people to see music a different way and, maybe, start writing a different way,” says Maynard. “That’s all you can hope – that you’re a stepping stone for a higher consciousness or something. That people be really conscious with what they’re doing with music, rather than just be a series of one commercial after another”
Posted to t.d.n: 06/07/01 00:07:58