My local streetpress TOOL interview:
http://www.timeoff.com.au/index1.php...=1940&sel=1940

Getting hammered

TOOL by Christie Eliezer

“Don’t go for the meaning, go for the feeling!” Tool singer James Maynard Keenan hollers sternly.

It’s a piece of advice that is repeated as Tool unveil their epic new album 10,000 Days to the world. Full of its signature guitar blitzes, and electronic drum beats peppered with space debris, the production is dynamic and stunning at times.

10,000 Days is a suite that exists at a netherworld tangent from reality. The moods range from drum battles like ‘Right In Two’, to rainy day quieter moments (‘Intension’), to epics ‘Rosetta Stoned’ and the five minute finale ‘Viginti Tres’ which sounds like you’re walking under the sea, to the first single ‘Vicarious’ in which Keenan hisses, “Vicariously I / Live while the whole world dies / Much better you than I”.

Tool are an underground band whose albums enter the charts at No.1. They make music that is best heard in the solitary headphone zone, but roars to life in the interactive atmosphere of a concert. They have an intense dislike for the music industry and the media. That doesn’t stop Keenan from spreading the odd rumour about himself - like the one he had cancer - just to see where it lands!

Now they have done the impossible. They have exceeded what they achieved with their last album Lateralus in 2001.

“That wasn’t the intention when we started out to make this record,” bassist Justin Chancellor insists. “Simply, it was about developing our skills. That included developing our skills at listening to each other, and making sure our interplay was more cohesive. End of the day, it’s doing what you do better. You face that challenge of making something different and beautiful, surprising ourselves and enjoying it more, and making the process more worthwhile in our lives.

“None of these songs were road-tested. We got together in a room and jammed. Sometimes you found that moment of magic. Other times you freaked out because you were stepping on the edge.”

Three years ago, Tool finished off a world tour, and decided they would not see each other for awhile. Not the most prolific band - four albums in 16 years - they needed to get into the right mindset before starting work on 10,000 Days.

Keenan went off with A Perfect Circle, bought a vineyard and made wine. Chancellor set up a small record store that stocked mostly vinyl, and recharged his love for music through buying 60s and punk records for the store.

Drummer Danny Carey studied the Indian drum, the tabla, and its exquisite patterns.

“If you’re going to listen to this record, you have to do it uninterrupted in one sitting,” Keenan suggests. “It is a journey.”

Despite Tool’s refusal to explain what 10,000 Days means, it’s easy to figure out. It’s not about the rule of a tyrant, or a lucky number, or the changing of an astrological power. It refers to the 27 years that Keenan’s mother Judith Marie spent partially paralysed by a stroke, before she died. The theme of the album is the fight to live.

It starts off with considering human mortality (in ‘Vicarious’) to facing life, doom, pain and frustration. It ends with the indictment that human beings have chosen not to use their talents to better their lives but surrendered to the pettiness of rivalry and violence. “Father blessed them all with reason / And this is what they choose,” Keenan tut-tuts. His singing range has never been bettered.

Tool’s challenge now is to reproduce the epic live.

The ultimate Tool show, Keenan says, is “A situation where we can set up a holographic performance and simulcast to different cities, to the point where even the audience is holographic for us. We can pick an audience and physically walk up to them, one ghost to another ghost, and other people could see this in their holograph of the universe.”

Chancellor holds a similar viewpoint.

“When we previewed the album to the media and to retail in Amsterdam, we got people to put on wireless headphones,” the bassist says. “You’re isolated in one’s space. You could walk around, get a drink, go to the toilet, and no one interrupted your sonic information load. You can’t do that use wireless headphones at a concert. But we’ve got the mic, we’re louder, and we can control the environment to a certain extent,” he laughs.

“But everything else is an individual choice. Experiencing the album live is much different to listening to it. First time around you’re fed with ideas and information. By the time we go out on the road, people would have processed that already. The concert becomes an interactive thing. To play live with headphones, that kind of isolation, I don’t think it would work.”

Speaking of the concert experience, does Tool’s rider have anything like that of Fiery Furnaces, who ask to have a dog backstage that they can take for a walk before the show?

“How pretentious!” Keenan cringes. “We have retarded things we ask for but they don’t seem crazy. I’m sure there’s a dog in there somewhere. Smoking affects my throat, so we try and stop people from smoking at the venues. When we play Italy, I feel sick because the culture there is to smoke heavily in clubs. That’s our dog on the night.”

Some years ago, Tool took out their idols King Crimson on tour. What’s another act they’d do that for?

“It’s just a case of pearls before swine. Attention spans are so limited that Tool
fans are yelling ‘Hurry up’ so they can hear Tool. The people who got King Crimson already knew about them. I’m tired of leading people to water and expecting them to drink,” Keenan says.

We talk about sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote out his diary five years ahead, and lived his life as he’d written it. Could Tool exist like that?

Keenan digs the concept.

“There’s something to be said to understand what it takes to be focused enough to see into the future That forethought and afterthought is cool. I’m involved in a vineyard, so I’m in that space of planning ahead. The way we make our records, people might not be aware of what planning has gone into it until maybe in 10, 15 years. These are not pop songs, you don’t get it easily. Not with the blandness of the music you hear on radio. But as time goes by, you understand things all the time.”

10,000 Days out now on Sony BMG.

picked up a copy myself yesterday - very good read

very nice article

great article thank you for sharing

I love that line.
Should have been in the album.

go aussie, go!

Great read thanks

Good read.

Good read, ty for sharing.

Thank you.

thanks artemis

good read.

That might be the best tool interview I've ever read. Everyone on this board should read this. STICKY!

Maynard hates smoke, stop smoking weed you fucking hippies.