Tool guitarist Adam Jones was the focal point of a recent fan Q&A with Guitarworld.com. While there wasn’t much to report in the way of information on the bands long-awaited new album; Jones did speak at length of the groups creative process and confirmed some other tidbits.
When asked why there hadn’t been any music videos in support of the Tool‘s 2006 release “10,000 Days“, Jones replied:
“There are, we just haven’t finished them yet. We ran into a really big snag because the first video is all CGI and we had some vicious production problems. The company we started with kinda screwed us, but luckily my friend’s company is bailing us out. Since he’s helping us, they can only work on it when their schedule is clear. But it’s gonna be great. When I go home, practically all my time is spent on it.
I thought the CGI process would be a lot easier than physically filming something, which is what we’ve always done in the past. But it’s actually a lot harder to get action down and get it moving and looking right. Plus, you can say, “The character has 15 eye lashes. Can he have 16?” You can get super picky. So at some point you have to shoot for 100 percent and try to get 70. We’re also doing pre-production on the second video, which will be all stop-motion.”
In regards to doing a Tool DVD/movie:
“Yeah, we’ve talked about it. We had shot a bunch of live concert footage and were going to put out a DVD, but it turned out to not sit very well with our band. We were like, What can we do that’s more epic than just a live DVD? I think we’re just going to keep shooting stuff, and when we’re ready, we’ll put something out. Of course, we’d like to do something really epic, like the movie version of The Wall, but movie deals are really tough.
Here’s a hilarious example: [director] John Carpenter was putting out Escape from L.A. and they wanted an original Tool song. We said, “Well, you’re not getting an original, but maybe we’ll give you an older one.” But then we realized John Carpenter is a musician. So we were like, “Wait, let’s do a song with John Carpenter!” [laughs] The last thing we heard was the studio wanted half the rights to the song, our record company wanted the other half and John Carpenter’s people wanted the other half. [laughs] So we were like, “Ah, fuck it!” and gave them an older tune. Basically, there’s a lot of red tape in trying to get a movie made. But if we can—or if there’s anyone out there that wants to facilitate a Tool movie—I’m totally open to it.”
On the status of his side project with Robert Fripp (King Crimson):
“Fripp and I did three days of recording, but we put that on hold until we both have time to finish it up. It’s all recorded, we’re just gonna start playing with drums and arrangements. We’ve got some really cool and weird stuff, and I’m hoping to put it out as soon as possible. But he’s a giant, a total legend. He’s one of my biggest heroes, and I want to make sure that I’m being respectful.”
