Tool guitarist Adam Jones has opened up to Rollingstone.com about the band’s latest progress with their long-awaited new album, their 2016 plans and what they have lined up for their U.S. tour with Primus & 3teeth. Speaking of the new album, Jones said of their progress:
“I’ll tell you, it’s wonderful. Things are really flowing and going really well, and I’m just blown away at the stuff that’s coming together. I’m excited and can’t wait for it to be done. It’s something I’ve been missing for a long time [laughs], that beautiful collaboration that we have because we’re all so different and have different tastes. But again, when you are all meeting in the middle and that thing you do that meets in the middle is just beautiful, it’s very rewarding. So yes, I’m very happy.”
“We probably have 20 potential song ideas now. Of course, 20 won’t be on the record. We’re just jamming. But I’ll tell you, there’s nothing better than having too many good songs then not enough. It’s great. You pick your faves.”
When asked if frontman Maynard James Keenan has been involved with the process, he replied:
“Yeah. We have an FTP and a Dropbox and we’re in communication. He’s got other stuff he does, so we keep him in the loop, and he has written lyrics, but he’s still working on that and he’ll commit. The best thing for all of us is when the song is done. I don’t write leads until the song is done. You want to get a vibe. And Maynard can work on lyrics, but until the song’s done and he knows how the end is, he’s still figuring out the flow.
The thing with Tool is you have four critical thinkers who like different stuff, so our process is not an easy one but it’s a very rewarding one. So yes, he is exposed to new music. It’s always been this way and it probably will always be this way and it’s just how people work.”
Jones also commented on the new song “Descending“—which they performed a portion of during their Halloween set:
“Yeah, it’s a working title. We have a song that’s probably about 13 or 14 minutes long, so what we’ve done with it is … I don’t want to call it a “best of,” but it’s a shortened, different approach to it. It is a new song. It’s like a vague movie trailer to the real movie [laughs]. Sometimes we do jamming between songs or some kind of segues, and it’s usually involved in some kind of new material. But that one’s just a little taste of things to come.”
“…The song’s amazing. It’s one of those things, too, where we’re playing this “movie trailer” version of it and we just want to go into the main part of it. The main part’s the best part, I think, but we just don’t want to give that away yet. We’re just doing a little taste test all the way through and put it together. I’m glad the response has been really good. But again, we don’t want to go too far with it because we’d rather just hear the end piece, and we don’t want people to hear the end piece until it’s done and everyone’s happy with it.”
Jones also addressed frontman Maynard James Keenan‘s prickly reputation with the press & fans, which included:
“Here’s the thing: We get interviewed by journalists all the time, and I’ve known Maynard a long time, and he can be not the most patient guy and he can be very sarcastic, especially when you have some dipshit journalist asking you stupid questions or trying to trick you into answering something. Or maybe they’ve written an article about you that wasn’t favorable and now they’re interviewing you again.
I’d rather you talk to him about it, but we all know that the stuff he does outside of Tool he wants it to be just as important as Tool, and the Tool fans are the main people who support that. And the Tool fans are the ones who made the other opportunities happen for him. So I don’t know why the fuck he would say something like that. But I do know he would be joking or he would say something really sarcastic if he wasn’t liking the interviewer or if it’s a joke taken out of context.
So if you’re a fan, I would ignore it and concentrate on the product that’s being put out and not really get into the silly, soap-opera situations that come up, like some bad Shakespearean play. I don’t know. But everyone likes controversy, right? Everyone wants to hear on TMZ that someone farted.”
There’s more to be found on the band’s plans for their light show, what they expect to do next year and how their upcoming tour with Primus came together over at Rollingstone.com.
