blp

Yeah, I was thinking ... "if Jr. doesn't know about it, no way it can happen"... but then I thought... well, if this is a sorta last-minute thing they maybe they are waiting until it's confirmed to get everyone together for the tour. But then also, maybe Jr. knows about this and just can't tell anyone... not sure how long DuranDuran is on tour for really, but it might be wrapped up soon enough for him to his the road w/ Tool in say August or something...

I dunno. lol, I mean this is exactly what they and Blair want, us to be like "WHAT'S GOING ON!? WHAT'S COMING DOWN THE PIKE" etc... so they are probably sitting back w/ a smile knowing we are all confused heh. I read somewhere in the Revolver Mag about Adam saying one of their favorite things to do was to get record company dude's cards and then go hand them out to cover bands and tell them to "call us tomorrow" and leave ... hahahaha, in other words, they ENJOY fucking with people. More power to them =)

Man, actually the more I think about this, a tour probably doesn't make much sense at this point.

jwb

Just checked for the hell of it. The Duran Duran tour ends next week.

musicmansf

If its rock band licensing, I'm going to kill a whole family of badgers.

blp

wow, short tour.

i agree, licensing for rock band would be sorta weak, but you have to admit, that is a fun friggin game man. i'd like to see some dude try to play 46&2 or the grudge on the rock band drum kit lol

i think the bottom line here, is that we can't get enough Tool. no matter what the format, so whatever it is, should be a good thing.

i would so much prefer them to just go write/record. it just doesn't matter what i/we want though so much. so i guess we wait and see.

btw... i know this has been spoken about here before, but does anyone really think toolarmy is worth the fee? i am about to go pay just to get access to the forums. are they that much better than here? i guess for the next tour, the advanced ticket sales is a pretty good thing too.

blp

btw... Junior, can you divulge the name of the company that created/supplies the light rigs you guys use?

oceanminded050

I could care less about having Tool songs on Rock Band or Guitar Hero. I'd rather play a real guitar than beat off on a plastic toy.

I hope the next album is being hinted at here. I'd bet money that Adam, Danny, and Justin have atleast gotten together and experimented with various directions they would like to take with the next album. I gotta say, reading magazine articles and playing Rock Band is pale in comparison to putting on the headphones and listening to a new Tool album for the first time. God I can't wait.

blp

Well, duh, of course. I can play just about every Tool song on guitar myself, but RB and GH are still fun dude. I'm not 16 either. More like 16x2.

oceanminded050

Hahaha, I know. I have Guitar Hero myself, I suck though.

junior

The Duran Duran US Tour does end next week, but there are a bunch of European dates in June and July that haven't been posted to Pollstar yet. There's supposed to be more Duran Duran dates in August, September, and maybe October.

junior

The lighting equipment is supplied by Delicate Productions, in the US.
In the UK/Europe it has been Neg Earth Lights.
In Australia it has been Bytecraft.
New Zealand has been Spotlight Systems.

Delicate also supplies the video worldwide.
Lasers are from Production Design International.

SetecX

I have a general tour question. Does anyone know any of the songs that were played in the pre-show before Tool came on during this last tour? Specifically, any of the songs that were played right after Iron Maiden. From the 3 times I saw them on the last tour it was the same songs in about the same order each time and I thought they sounded cool but had no idea who they were by. Most were instrumental. It looked like they were playing off a macbook or something hooked up to the soundboard. I emailed everyone at toolband.com and never get any response about it. Anyone have any ideas?

junior

How could any of them matter after Iron Maiden? ;)
Anyway, I can't remember the specifics, but that mix was made by Justin and I think it actually played from an iPod. There was another mix that was made by Danny.
Justin was going to tell me the songs on his. I know there was a Cure song on there.

blp

Wow there is some cool stuff out there. Thanks for the info!! There is a lot of stuff I think Tool could utilize nicely out there that I haven't seen them use. I guess you can only use so much at one time though!

jwb

Are you doing the Euro dates as well?

SetecX

lol The Number of the Beast with the strobes and volume cranked at that part was pretty epic. Man, if you could find out what those songs were you would be my hero. There was a ton of cool music and I have been itching to know what it was. There definitely was a cure song.

That is pretty cool those guys set those mixes up. I always wondered if the band chose that stuff or if it was just random production guys that threw it together.

junior

As far as I know.

KDubbs

Junior, i know you played a date with Duran Duran in Denver recently. How do you feel about the venues here in Denver, especailly in relation to TOOL? I'm not exactly sure where Duran Duran played, maybe the Filmore? I also d-loaded the TOOL show in SF recently and noticed that your name got dropped on the Lateralus track. Good work, and Junior.... You're the man.

musicmansf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycYnqwQlCMA


I don't know if this has been here before, but HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

junior

Duran Duran played the Wells Fargo Theatre.
I think I've done most of the venues in Denver, and I know there are a lot of them.
I guess like most cities some are good and some are bad.
I could elaborate some more if I thought about it, but I'm doing a Duran Duran show in the Bahamas today with a strange pile of equipment that I somehow have to make look like our show in the next few hours.

deturm

Should send that clip to everyone that says Maynard sounds like shit now.... Remind them that it could be worse. A lot worse.

sinfall

I agree! I know Wes is friends/aquaintances with Adam I believe, but I'd be embarrassed to cover a friends song so horribly!

junior

And, believe it or not, that was one of their better performances of it...
Looks to be from the 1999 summer "Limptropolis" tour, right when "Nookie" was at its peak (if you will).
I used to hate it when they did "Opiate", and they knew it.
DJ Lethal agreed with me.

jwb

Good luck with that... And at least you're in the Bahamas doing it. Could be worse.

musicmansf

Agreed. My friend is a big AIC fan and he loves Tool as much as I do, but said the other day Maynard's more of a studio voice compared to Stayley. I know we've only recently become akin to Tool in Tool-years and only heard him on the 10,000 Days tour, but fucking hell, show me ONE person who has a better live voice in rock. ONE. Stayley was a fucking trainwreck in slow motion. Durst was always a trainwreck. A tool put out by MTV to ruin the minds of kids in their most vunerable shaping state: The teenage years. I know because the bizkit was on the channel in those very fragile years of mine. Thank god I didn't go down that path! Hell, I could be watching Tila Tequila in trance right now!

Thats my unorganized rant for the day lol

musicmansf

Junior...did you do Limp Bizkit too? I might have missed that list of bands you've done...lol

junior

I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be proud of this, but I worked for Limp Bizkit longer than anyone else on their road crew ( a little over 6 years).
Their drum tech (Yeti) is a fairly close 2nd, but after that there's about a 1 year gap for the bronze.
Yep.
Anyway, it's probably not evident by that clip or any of their "body of work", but Fred's a big Tool fan, and that's why he hired me.

sinfall

you would think he would put more effort into the covers then

LateraL9eight7

No, you should. There was that 2 or almost 3 year period where somehow that band managed to be the biggest band in the world, and the fact that you were behind that production is still fucking cool whether the music is total shit or not.

musicmansf

Brainwashing and MTV can make ANYONE big. I thought their light show looked too sophisticated for a band sustained by raping us blind, good work as always Junior lol, so how was dealing with Fred backstage if I may ask? I don't know if he's the mind behind it all while laughing the whole way (I've heard he's a good businessman, hell, he gave Staind a career), or MTV and the Record Companies are, either way, his voice wants to make ME break stuff...

junior

I think he thought he did.
He always contended that he thought they were not very good (musically) live. It was more about the energy than the musicianship, by far.
That's the main reason there's not a lot of (official) live Bizkit material out there.
The 1999 Family Values live DVD never got released in large part because they would have had to do a lot of over-dubbing in the studio to make it sound ok. Fred was fine with them performing kinda crappy in the live environment because the energy was there, but he didn't want a permanent record of it for people to judge.

I see there is supposed to be a live DVD from the 2001 "Rock im Park" festival released in July.
I'll be curious to see that one, and whether or not they went back to re-record a lot of the audio.
I'm also going to be curious to see it because that is the show where Linkin Park saw me doing lights for Limp Bizkit and decided they wanted me to work for them. In addition to that, Limp Bizkits manager told me they hated the lights at that show. He was basing it off a video tape he had watched on the tour bus the next day. The video engineer at the festival had been riding the white balance through the whole show, so everything looked like blue and orange.

junior

Fred was a lot more reasonable than most would think, but he also had some very unreasonable moments.
He was 100% responsible for their path. Definitely the architect of that whole thing.
He never listened to advice from record company people or his own management, be that good or bad.

LateraL9eight7

So Rock Im Park 2001, did you pull double duty with Tool and Limp Bizkit on that Euro Festival circuit that summer? I think you've mentioned missing some of the 2001 Tool tour.

I almost was gonna say Limp Bizkit's rise and fall happend perfectly between Aenima and Lateralus, but that wouldnt be entirely accurate.

junior

I had a friend filling in for me on Tool during that period. Those were actually some of the last shows Limp Bizkit ever did with Wes in the band.
I returned to Tool for Fuji Fest and the tour with King Crimson, then did the rest of the Lateralus tour.

junior

It almost worked out.
I started with Limp Bizkit in late 1997/early 1998, went back to Tool for Ozzfest 1998 and the August tour, then back with Limp Bizkit until Summer 2001. Back to Tool again, and then more limpbizkit (technicality: they changed their name to the one lowercase word while Wes was gone) in 2003.

KDubbs

Do you think TOOL would ever play Red Rocks again? I would give anything to have been there in 2001 or whenever they played there... did you light that show? I can see how that place could cause a few problems....

junior

I did Tool at Red Rocks in 1998 and 2001. Both of those went well, but we also had a production that was playing that size of a stage. In 2001 it was the first show of the theatre tour with King Crimson, so the production was appropriate. Trying to fit a show like the 2006-7 arena tour into there would have been difficult. We did manage to get almost all of it into the Pearl, which is a comparable sized stage, but there are a lot of unique factors to consider at Red Rocks.
The biggest one is that the semi trucks from the tour can't get up the hill to the stage, so you have to unload everything down by the visitor center and then load it into smaller trucks to take it up to the stage. It's a really long process, so the less you send up the hill the better, in most cases.
Another big factor is wind and rain. Backdrops and scenic elements are pretty much out of the question, and video screens can be compromised, too. This is why most people just light up the rocks instead.
If Tool were to play there again, it would have to be during one of the smaller scale outings, like the "warm-up" tour.
I do think everyone involved actually likes Red Rocks, but the circumstances have to be right.

dvarnell

Just make sure they stay away from Coors Amphitheater, Fiddler's Green. That place is the worst venue on earth. I will not go back to that place no matter what. I was very disappointed when I saw tool was going there, but I went anyway. As expected, a very bad show. It had nothing to do with the lighting or the band, it was all about the venue. They have strict noise ordinances and cut the sound when it gets to loud. Along with that, if you are not in the first 10 rows you might as well be outside. I would give up all the lighting, movies and other stage props in a second to see them at Red Rocks one more time. I was at both the 98 and 2001 show and they were probably 2 of the best I have ever seen.

musicmansf

Tool should just play in Space and then we can say they are God and Pat Robertson's head will explode.

All in all, a good day.

EGG-MAN

Newest Tool Rumor:

Danny Carey in the near future is looking to paint something. My buddy who works at a Sherman Williams (I believe) in LA just rang up Danny Carey who used his black AMEX card to buy some paint. When asked what color paint was purchased no reply was given.

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