page: 140
 title: GOOD TOOL
author: Belinda Janssen

*This text is translated*

GOOD TOOL 

They form a welcome change between the brutal guitarnoise 
of the primitive men of Slayer, the wild chicks of Kittie and all 
that other noise that will be ravaging the Dutch version of 
Ozzfest this summer.

The American band Tool doesn’t make music. Tool makes 
compositions. How mechanical their bandname may sound, 
their music has next to nothing to do with simple handicraft. 
Theatrical, intelligent, spun out and hypercomplex. Dark, 
conjuring and for the analysts among us susceptible to many 
interpretations. For years they have been one of the press’ 
favorites and of the alternative public, but they’re also given 
a warm reception by the mainstream public, witness the fact 
that the band from Los Angeles (well, bassist Justin 
Chancellor is a true-bred Briton) recently received a well-
deserved  Grammy award for the song Schism. Whereby for 
convenience the band has been put in the category of Best 
Metal Performance, a category they all loathe. Because 
categories, that’s something Maynard, Danny, Adam and 
Justin don’t like. Just like publicity, an aspect of the 
musicbusiness they’re not particularly crazy about. Certainly 
when it’s about the trivial things of life.

- You’re never seen on album-inlays, you hardly do any 
interviews, you don’t play in your videoclips. It’s like you’re 
hiding behind your work.
Guitarist Adam: “No, we just don’t like the whole business 
around it. We make a record, and that’s it. At the moment 
the record is finished, it doesn’t matter to me what happens 
with it. Or what the critics will think of it, or how’s it gonna sell. 
That’s why we hardly do any interviews. Look, I’m talking to 
you right now, but at the moment you’re walking out the 
door, I have no more control over it. Ofcourse we know we 
have to do some marketing. But what does it matter what I 
do in my spare time? That kind of personal stuff is not 
important at all. That’s why we only talk to certain 
magazines, of which we know it’s of use to us. We’re very 
selective when it comes to that.”

ARTISTIC FREEDOM

Control is very important, if not of vital importance to the 
band. Contrary to many beginning musicians Tool demanded 
complete artistic freedom from the start. From artwork to 
videoclips to production, de bandmembers insist that they 
have a hold upon the whole proces.
Adam: “It wasn’t that difficult. We just said to the record 
company: let us do the video, then you can pay us less 
money. And if we do the cover art ourselves, we’ll give in 
some money for it too. And that’s how we did it with 
everything. Eventually the bosses of the record company 
think they won, because they think they made a good deal. 
Then they can say to their colleagues that they signed Tool 
for very little.”

TOOL MOVIE

For a while there have been persistent rumours that the band 
will be making a movie. Not so strange if you ask us, 
considering the beautiful, surreal videoclips that in the 
meantime more or less form the trademark of the band. 
That in combination with the fact that the studio annex 
practise space of Tool, The Loft, that once was the workroom 
of filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille, known of early Hollywood-
spectacle movies as The Ten Commandments and Samson 
and Delilah.
- Coincidence or not, the link seems to be made: when can 
the fans see the first Tool-movie? 
Justin sighes deeply. Adam: “ Yep, there you have it. You 
say to someone once that it would be cool to make a movie, 
and everyone thinks that you’re already filming. Well, that’s 
not the case. Yeah, ofcourse we think it would be great to 
make a movie. But then we’d have to have money first. So 
there are some ideas, but certainly no concrete plans.” 
Anyway, in that case the fans will be concentrating on the 
question when and if a new Tool-album will be released at all. 
Between the much–belauded Aenima and their latest album 
Lateralus, there was a spell of four years, at least if you don’t 
include the collectorsbox Salival. Add the outing of singer 
Maynard James Keenan, the very succesful A Perfect Circle 
with it and some doubts about the future of Tool seem more 
than entitled to us.
- But Adam and Justin absolute disagree with that.
“If A Perfect Circle forms a threat against Tool? No, ofcourse 
not, we’re standing here now, right? I just thought it was a 
good record.  After all Maynard doesn't worry about the things 
I do next to Tool. And a record is finished when we feel it’s 
finished, and no sooner”, says Justin. Adam adds to 
it: “Whether it takes a year before we make another record, 
or ten years, that doesn’t really matter to us. The real fans 
will wait for it, that’s what I would do too. If you think 
something is really good, you’ll look forward to it. If we are 
control freaks? Yeah, maybe we are, but to us this is the only 
way to do what we want.”

Posted to t.d.n: 05/30/02 13:50:07