We've got good news and bad news, Tool fans. First, the good news: According to bassist Justin Chancellor, the prog-metal stalwarts' new album is 90% done! Now. for the bad news: Tool's definition of "done" is very different from everyone else's.
In a recent interview on "The Joe Rogan Experience," Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan revealed that the band's long-awaited 10,000 Days follow-up is still a long ways out, a delay he attributed to the band's meticulous songwriting approach. "Nothing is tracked yet, nothing is completely finished," he said. "There's a couple songs that I think are finished now; I can start working on those, but nothing is actually recorded."
Keenan continued, "My desire to move forward: 'Go go go, get things done!' I'm always butting heads with the guys in the band to get those things done, and it's just not their process. It took me a while to go, 'This is not personal, this is just the way that they have to do it. And I have to respect it, and I have to take my time and let them take their time.'"
The frontman went on to explain that, while he and his bandmates have indeed been hard at work on new material, their constantly fluctuating creative process has prevented them from nailing down the songs themselves. "If this thing is done done done, and I can start writing words and music on it, great. But I've had instances where I've started to write stuff, and by the time I actually got it around and back, and actually listening and whatever, the song had gone in a completely different direction," he said. "So everything that was written melody-wise or lyric-wise was completely irrelevant now, and I have to start over." In other words, don't rush them.
Keenan continued, "I mean, I can sit there in that room, and be with them in that room, but their process is so tedious and so Rain Man, that I just can't, I just start fucking folding in on myself. I'll be right back, I've got to go take five years to plant a vineyard, because you'll still be right where you were when I left. But it's a great thing, what they're doing is wonderful. I completely back what they're doing. There's no other way for them to do it. For me, I can move much more quickly if you will let me help you. I've written a few songs. In fact, I was involved in many of them, the ones that we've done, so we can do that. But I think this is what they need to do. I'm OK with it. You got to get a little friction in there, so I have to come in and puff my chest out a bit and be aggressive: 'Let's move it, guys.' That worked for a minute, and we definitely made traction, but if I were to do that every day, it would just become a part of the friction, more friction instead of getting anything done."
So there you have it. Like they said on Twitter earlier this year, the band has no plans to drop an album in 2017. The same goes for A Perfect Circle, who also have a long-awaited full length on horizon, not to mention a North American tour planned for the fall.
