Publication: Hot Metal
Date: October, 1994
Transcribed by
anonymous
anonymous
page: 20 title: METAL ART MACHINE author: Carl Hammerschmidt ( Note: The contents page displayed this summary... "Their debut EP 'Opiate', and first LP 'Undertow' were two of the most intense answers to alternative rock mediocrity that an indifferent public could hope for. Vocalist Maynard James Keenan talks about art and pain in a corporate world of making records. ") The best bands often end up in the 'too hard' basket, so Carl Hammerschmidt and Maynard James Keenan tell us why we need a second bite at Tool's cherry. "It's hard to describe without sounding like a new age fuck. I heard this theory the other day. I'm not necessarily saying this is what I believe, but I think it's a very interesting point of view." It's taken a while, but he's finally on a roll. Tool's lyricist and vocalist Maynard James Keenan is cagey. His reedy, nasal tone gives a contemptuous nuance to much of what he's got to say. Disdainful accents on all the topics we discuss, because no ma tter what we cover, conversation inevitably drifts back to what's wrong and how damn screwy that is. But now we're drifting inside his head. "God had his right hand man, OK, which was Lucifer," he contemplates, "and he decided that this guy was getting out of hand so he had to be taken out ofHeaven. So the theory goes that, perhaps, what we all are is fragmented souls of Lucifer living on Ea rth, and each piece is self aware. The goal for us then is to understand that we are all a piece of this larger idea and we're all working to get back together, and this particular planet we're on keeps encouraging us to stay separated.. I think that is k ind of a cool idea." Cool idea, yeah, epecially if you've invested four years stoking the metallic art machine of conflict that Tool are. As intense as it gets, they're the rage inducing frustration of unrequited purpose, which comes from living in a system which tells you one thing and does another. you are alone no matter how much you come together. They're about being like everyone else, and how crazy that makes you feel, and how you want to kill because of it. "I think that we're fragmented," he muses sardonically, "I think that alienation is inherent. People think that when they are together with their group of people that they're... together They're not really, they're an individual in that group. So no mat ter how many people are around you , you are definitely alone." Tool are a part of the new rock that severed the limb pulsing a blood of public adoration to glam bands everywhere. They severed it with the sound, and attitude , of contempt. Glam bands want to party with you, Tool want to provoke you. If they can, Too l want to fuck with you, because in the new sexual and social dark ages of the '90's, where so much popular art is driven by guilt or hate, then that's what's going to come across as being for all the right reasons. Their music is heavy like Sabbath, expansive like Zeppelin's 'Kashmir', forceful and retentive like Rollins and Helmet, but with all the inherent feeling and loneliness of a Tom Waits record. From their debut EP, 'Opiate', Maynard, bassist Paul D'Amour, guitarist Adam Jones and drummer Danny Carey, have been individuals who had to band together so they could express themselves as individuals. They made weapons out of their imperfections. This is a band whose bio spoke of profound influence from an obscu re 1949 text. Written by Ronald P. Vincent, 'The Joyful Guide To Lachrymology' reads as a literal study of crying. It states, "where there is no pain, there is neither the reason nor desire to think or create." In space, no one can hear you scream. Maybe so. How about in the white noise overload of Mainstreet, Anytown? No one can hear you scream there, either, and even if they could, they probably wouldn't give a shit. To the million kids that have bought Tool 's debut LP, 'Undertow', that makes ahell of a lot of sense. "Just living in a big city, there's so many strange things going on." Maynard's cluing me in on the needs from which the troupe of miscreants was formed. "The more you uncover, the more you find out, the more helpless and trapped you feel...Oh...fuck! I t's just everything. The dying oceans, the ozone, people hating each other for some fucking reason, I don't know why. I mean, I hate humans in general, but I don't single out any individually as me hating them more than the oher ones. I like to spread my hate equally." Tool are a sonic reducer. They go to great lengths and take great pains in dressing things down to their barest of elements. This ain't no even flow, it crawls up from the gutter, naked and fearless so as your fears become naked. It's the gutter of Main street, and shit, what are you going to do; storm city hall or catch a show at The Love Machine? In living our lives we fear, hate, eat, sleep and screw. Why pretend that we've anything more, and why pretend that we are pandered to on any higher level? "Look at so many of today's films and the sexist nature that goes on in them." Maynard vents. " 'Basic Instinct', why the fuck does that have to be made? I mean, are we evolving or not? We don't need to see that shit anymore, the only reason we do is be cause it sells and people have a very temporary view of their existence, and they're going to cash in and make their lives more comfortable as quickly as they can." Politics, religion, the media; Tool want to know who's responsible for distorting the currency of our lives, and until someone owns up. they are going to twist the wrench and distort things into a caricature that stands a testament to so much gone wrong . Sometimes the truth not only hurts, it's the most painful thing you will encounter. I let Maynard flow, he's at his most meaningful when he's specific and sarcastic. "Even the guys in the Hip Hop scene that portray themselves as being the homies down in the 'hood, packing their guns, and having to look over their shoulders. That's garbage, most of them live up past Bel Air and Beverly Hills in these beautiful homes, and their friends in their BMW's and Mercedes' come over on the weekends in their polo sweaters and they sit around and have a barbecue. Not packing anything but a fat wallet, while there's a million kids out there buying the fashions, packing the guns and shooting each other over these fucking idiots. They're just fucking lying and there's no reason for that shit anymore. I just guess these people don't believe in an after-life or a karmic balance." Whether Maynard and the band believe in this sort of salvation is hard to determine, "I was raised a Southern Baptist," he says of his upbringing - part of which he also spent in the military. And despite the priest sculpture on th cover of 'Opiate', he maintains that he doesn't view religions negatively. Rather, he looks at leaders and followers with contempt; the abuse of power, the manipulation of people, and the motivation of music as a way to break from social constraints. In the world of mainstream rock, Tool commit crimes of the heart in the same way that Colonel Kurtz did twenty klicks past the Mekong Delta. It's a forceful sound - drumer Danny plays with the power and feel of few others - with the sum of each part pulling much more than it's own weight. All life's ambiguities are racked into the band's complete vision. "I think a lot of the attitudes and music on the album have a lot to do with a Rapid Eye Movement state, tota dream state." he ventures. Take a look at the artwork for 'Undertow'. With it's surrealistic fetishism, the weight of a sublime nagging horror, contained in the photos of the naked obese woman floating over a sea of silk, the sadistic dental brace worn by Maynard, the forest of acupuncture covering Paul's face, the shaved pig on a bed of forks, the cow licking it's own arse hidden in the underlay. These are men who take Gieger's 'Necromonicon' as seriously as they do John Candy in 'Caddy Shack". Not to mention two of the greatest stop-motion clips ever made, for 'Sober' and 'Prison Sex'. Watch them, and find yourself cursing about how criminally weak the medium usually is. "I really like the idea of an undertow," Maynard continues, "just like that that feeling that you get when you are standing out in the surf, you just feel like you are being pulled under and out whether you like it or not. I would hope that the music ta kes you to that place, it kind of pulls you under and throws you around and you go with it." The band have never done anything with regard for anything, by the same token, they also play the game with a dose of cunning. Total creative control has always made for the most emotionally potent material, as well as material which record companies fi nd the most unmanageable. "I never expected it would have much appeal here, I thought it would in England and Germany but the record company isn't doing anything, so I guess I was wrong about the audience." I suggest that, the reason for us conversing is that the record company are re-releasing 'Undertow', sensing lost opportunity and wanting to make up ground. "We call it dropping the ball." he quips dryly. "Unfortunately creative control doesn't have much to do with some guy in the distribution office who would rather listen to Take That. It's just like Soundgarden and Robert Fripp and The Young Gods; it's artists trying to make sure that treir considerat ions come first, before the machine ruins what's good." To call them alternative is useless, all it means is they're not Guns N' Roses, and they're not Phil Collins. They've tapped into an eager audience which has defined itself by putting the bands they identify with in the charts. "I think it's about as big as it's going to get and then it's going to taper off." It's a tone of hopefulness. " A lot of the young kids are going to realise, we're not just about fucking and moshing, it's more about sounds, and so I think a lot of them are going to move on. "It's like...," he pauses, searching for the simile. "There's people that would get into watching me do a card trick because there's a mathematics behind it that really intrigues them and the joker keeps coming back up. And then there's the ones that ge t really excited to see you shuffling the deck, the noise and the cards flying everywhwere. So that's how I see our audience evolving, the ones that are into the technique and the emotion are going to be there, and the ones that are really into the flash of the shuffle are going to move on to some other flash." (Did you notice the interv iewer writing about 'The Joyful Guide To Lachrymology' as though he'd read it?!)
Posted to t.d.n: 10/08/97 12:50:24