Tool guitarist Adam Jones recently told Guitar World about why Judas Priest’s Richie Faulkner is an ‘animal’ on guitar. Maynard James Keenan was caught using a phone at a concert in a rare photo.
“Patrick Emmons from Abominable Electronics sent me a care package and Joe [Barresi] and I put all of his stuff through its paces [on Fear Inoculum]. We also got these pedals by a company called Ogre from Korea that are shaped like robot faces, which I saw Richie Faulkner from Judas Priest using. We bought their whole line and that delay [Kronomaster] is really, really cool! Also Richie Faulkner is awesome; I could watch him play all day. He really deserves that gig – and he’s an animal.”
_StinkFist wrote on Reddit yesterday about the evolution of Tool, “Preface: I’m 41, grew up in the ’90’s. Undertow is raw, growling, visceral and very ’90’s. This may be my favorite album of theirs, though I find whatever album I listen to is my current favorite. It’s just so metal and angry, and I think the lyrics and sound are enjoyable, though crafted to make you feel a little uncomfortable.
Aenima is where they begin to get a little more prog, though it’s still fairly raw and they incorporate the megaphone vocals. To me this is the most groundbreaking, unique album in the catalog. Songs like Stinkfist, 46&2, and Aenema are still played almost every show, usually an encore. This is also where they started to embrace the Pink Floyd-esque psychedelic sound.
Lateralus is where they embraced the new prog sound, and captured a new generation of Tool fans. The songs became a little bit more uplifting, though still “shaming” attitudes that aren’t progressive (I don’t mean this in a political sense) and the overall message seems to be that we’re “all one”. It’s probably the first album with any songs that weren’t considered “heavy”. Tool’s producer unloaded on new album haters.
10,000 Days is a little bit softer, melodic, with almost ballads. Personally this is my least fav, but it’s still a fantastic album. They doubled down on the prog sound and had more soft songs with sound effects while maintaining the “Tool” sound and went completely off the rails with Rosetta Stoned which only true Tool fans “get”. What an amazing song and to me it almost saved the album (I know some here disagree but hey, it’s subjective). A Tool rumored second new album release was revealed recently.
Now Fear Inoculum, which I still can’t figure out. No vintage Maynard screams, and all songs are long as shit, but for the moment I can’t stop listening to it. Even songs that I didn’t like at first have grown on me, and the end of Pneuma for my money is as good as they’ve ever put out. And if you haven’t yet, listen to this album with headphones and float into space as the sounds move from left to right. Though this is so far from Undertow that it could be a different band, they managed to draw in a new generation while still maintaining that vintage Tool sound that kept the original ’90’s folks like me around. Like many of you, I love this album but can’t rank it among the catalog yet. I need to give it a year or two.
You can read the full Adam Jones interview at Guitar World.
