I believe...

[The Aphex Twin]

Ticks and Leeches has to do with the new age of stealing music. There are so many "ticks" or "leeches" just waiting for a CD to come out, after many years of hard work, just so they can steal it for free. I do believe Maynard and Co. are not fond of these people and this song is in relation to this.

Maybe I'm way off but this is the vibe I get after listening.

[rickiep00h]

As far as the digital music thing is concerned...

I think the industry is killing itself. I don't think downloading a song or two from each album is so bad, because a lot of albums are total crap nowadays. Lateralus is the first new CD I've bought in years that I haven't skipped songs on.

However, there's a difference between downloading a couple songs, and downloading whole albums. If you like the album, go buy it. Support the artist.

I make it a point to NOT download songs from bands if the band needs my money to make a living. Metallica, for instance, is set for life, I'm pretty sure. I have a pile of their shirts, all their CDs, and a concert vid. They have plenty of my money. If they want more, they have to impress me now.

A band like, I don't know, echoBrain, needs to sell albums to make a living. Phantom Planet. Fantomas. Tomahawk. Meshuggah.

There's quite a few albums that I intend to buy as soon as I have the money because of the fact that I can preview a band before buying the whole damn CD and finding out it's crap.

As far as I'm concerned, it's no different than trading tapes with your friends, or recording a song off the radio.

Bono said it best: "At-home taping isn't killing rock music, ROCK MUSIC is killing rock music." If it's good, people will buy it anyway. Why else would Lateralus be one of the highest selling albums of 2001?

[within]

Ticks and Leeches could be directed towards groups on both sides of Tool: The music industry and/or music "thieves." Didn't Tool go through some major legal issues with their label between the releases of Aenima and Lateralus?

Each side is yanking on one of Tool's arms.

[LateralUndertow]

Didn't Tool go through some major legal issues with their label between the releases of Aenima and Lateralus?

Ya, they did. There were actually two of them. One was pertaining to the record company (something about them looking for a new lable) and the other pertaining to their producer, whom they had fired (with that one the producer said he owned the rights to some of the songs or something). If I have any of these wrong, sorry, kinda forgott about them; it's been so long. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong! For totally acurate information look in the FAQ, I know it's in there; I've read it.