While Maynard James Keenan has been incredibly active lately with his “other band,” A Perfect Circle, things are still fairly quiet with Tool, who are still working away at their upcoming fifth album (which, as we recently noted, is expected to be released next year).
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Keenan opened up about why the LP (their first since 2006’s 10,000 Days) is taking so long to get sorted out.
“I don’t write the music. They write the music,” Keenan says of his bandmates (guitarist Adam Jones, bassist Justin Chancellor, drummer Danny Carey). “I wait for them to bring music to me. They tend to go back over and over stuff. It’s a long process. For a person like me, it can be a very tedious process.”
Keenan also notes that the band’s perfectionism is partly to blame for the delay, but he acknowledges that’s simply a part of the Tool process.
“In some ways, they are bigger perfectionists,” he says. “But you can only help support their talent so long. They don’t have to go through it 700 times. They can trust that first thought. But that’s their process, so you gotta let them do it.” He also notes that he “couldn’t tell you” whether or not that process is actually happening.
Keenan remains unclear about exactly what the album will sound like — or what its lyrical inspirations will be. But he’s eager to “push the boundaries” and take his band’s music some place new.
“You want to figure out how can you challenge yourself to discover something new, discover something different about yourself,” he says. “What are your limitations? What avenues can you push and expand? That is life. I don’t have any interest in coasting yet.”
Back in July, Carey noted that he, Jones, and Chancellor were “working on (their) compositions together.”
“Stylistically, we’re trying to push things in different ways,” he told Loudwire, “but it always comes out sounding like Tool no matter what we’re trying to do. We’re working everyday on it and it’s going really well, so I’m hoping we’ll get into the studio by the end of the year.”
We’ll keep you posted on what news comes next. In the meantime, dream sweet dreams of the band’s psychedelic prog-metal.
And, just in case you missed it the first time we posted it, check out these amazing music students covering “Forty Six & 2.”
