All the best bands go through minor trials and tribulations. Some can be so major that they will cause the entire group to go on hiatus or break up altogether. While other times, it will be a minor hiccup or hurdle. During a recent interview with Revolver Magazine, Tool bandmate Adam Jones, whose group was recently booed in Britain discussed a confrontation he had with lead singer Maynard James Keenan during the recording of the group’s epic 2001 album, Lateralus. Credit to the outlet for the below.
“The beautiful thing was that — like popping a big zit — once it came out, it healed,” he says. “Now it’s better than it’s ever been. What we learned, especially between Maynard and me, is that everyone has their way of working. That’s what came out of that — to have that respect for each other about our process. Maynard’s like, ‘I can’t handle you writing and then changing stuff when I’m trying to write lyrics. So, let me know when you’re done and then I’ll do what I do.’ And it’s great. It works. Sometimes it’s just frustrating because you think he’s gonna sing here and not here, but he does the opposite. And that’s the beauty of it. Because of that, it’s a blessing in disguise where it fine-tunes the music to hold up on its own. When we write, we have no idea where he’s gonna sing, so the song almost works as its own instrumental.”
During the same interview, Jones also discussed how each member of Tool operates very differently from one another. “There are four different guys, four different cooks,” he says. “We’re not throwing punches at each other. But we all have our opinions. We’re brothers, and sometimes it’s really hard to communicate. We have an open dialogue, at least I do, and sometimes it’s hard to say things like, ‘I’m frustrated with you’ or ‘I’m having a problem with this’ or ‘I hate your f***ing guts.'” He laughs. “That little thing you hate about your brother, you really hate the 12th time it happens. I think a lot of things bubbled up. I don’t know. I almost want to cry about it. It was such a thing that needed to happen, and it happened and made everything else better.”
