For Tool bassist Justin Chancellor, the question about when the band will release new material follows him into almost every interview. In a recent conversation with The Australian’s Andrew McMillen, he admitted that the repetition gets to him, even if he tries not to show it.
“A little bit. A little bit. But it’s fine. It’s fine. I mean, the fact is, I’ll tell you we’re working on new music. I don’t know when we’re gonna finish it. We’ve been working on stuff, on and off, for a couple of years. We’re always working on new music,” he acknowledged (via Blabbermouth)
For Tool‘s fans who measure time in gaps between releases, that might sound maddeningly vague. But for a band whose songs tend to sprawl, mutate, and knot themselves into odd time signatures, it makes sense. Tool isn’t a band built to crank out a record every two years on the label’s schedule, that much we know for sure.
Chancellor also offered a small glimpse of what’s actually happening behind the curtain: “I was in the studio with Danny [Carey, Tool drummer] last week, banging out some ideas. But I always say this: art doesn’t really have a schedule. You can’t force it. And if you do, it tends not to work out so great. So I think, especially in our band, somehow it’s just the way it works with our band. It’s a different kind of alchemy. And I think we’ve all learned — Maynard‘s [James Keenan, Tool singer] got his side projects.”
He went on: “Danny does a bunch of different stuff, Adam [Jones, Tool guitarist] does different shit, and I’ve got my stuff. And we’ve learned to sort of [set aside] a time when people need that space by busying ourselves with other things, which, actually, influence what we do when we come back together as well. So it kind of gives us a little headroom that speaks to the new stuff that we do when we come back together.”
Whether you worship the band or roll your eyes at the mythology, everyone knows the punchline: the long wait between 10,000 Days and Fear Inoculum. Fans meme it, journalists bring it up, and Chancellor knows exactly how often that number gets thrown in his face.
“So, yeah, it is a bit of a weird question, because everyone’s always taking the piss, like, it takes so long for us to make music,” he added. “But I’m proud of everything we’ve done. 13 years — they always talk about [how it took] 13 years [to release a follow-up to 2006’s 10,000 Days] — it seems like a week to me. When we were working on that stuff every day, we were grinding away at it. And it doesn’t really matter in the end. If you do anything that’s decent, even if it’s one thing, it’s worth it.”
McMillen pointed out that constant pestering about new songs is, in its own way, a compliment — people care enough to bug them. Chancellor agreed, but he’s very clear that Tool refuses to operate like a hook factory.
“Yeah, I agree with that. I think it’s more interesting to take a long time to find something unique than just to keep repeating yourself. And no offense to anyone that — I guess let’s just call it pop music; they just keep churning out the hits. I mean, people love that stuff. So there’s a place for it, and there are people who are good at that, but that’s not us. We’re into just trying to create something unique that hasn’t been heard before, as musicians, as a band. And sometimes it gets harder and harder. Sometimes it just comes to you — some days you’re, like, ‘Whoa, what’s this?’ And you play it to your friends, and they’re, like, ‘Whoa, it’s amazing.’ It just comes out of the blue. But it’s not a formula. There is no formula. And if anything, the formula is just to carry on living life and exploring, and letting it come in from your life experiences. I think with us, that’s the way it works a lot more,” Chancellor explained.
Chancellor was careful to acknowledge that the demand itself is flattering, even if the band refuses to treat it like a deadline.
“But I get what you’re saying. It is a compliment that people are excited about new music. But we just don’t want it to be on a schedule. We want it just to be good. We wanna be proud of it, and we wanna all agree that this is what we wanna share. So, like I was saying, the side projects are a really good way for us to alleviate that time, and kind of keep the fitness up, but not push the whole issue.”
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