Tool unloaded on Maynard James Keenan for accidentally screwing up their new song as they worked on Fear Inoculum, according to a new LA Weekly piece. A Tool member made a ‘sick’ revelation after quitting guitar.
Eventually Keenan would receive the completed music from his bandmates. “This has only been the last couple albums with Tool where I’ve had to actually wait for music,” Keenan says. “Because there’s a psychological — I don’t want to call it a control issue — but similar, where if I start to put something down, the band will go, ‘Holy shit! If you put something on it, it no longer can move, because he’s made a commitment, and he’s all about making the commitment and sticking to it.’ So then they move the target. They pick up the foundation and change where the walls go.”
Maynard James Keenan confirmed he was ‘finished’ with Tool in days. nikkopolis defended Undertow on Reddit in a new topic, “It’s easy to look at the level of musical sophistication and dismiss Undertow in comparison to later albums, but it is actually really meaty in its lyrics and structure almost from end to end. In a close listen to songs like 4 degrees, Bottom, and Flood, there is so much rich musical material.
I mean, it is worth bearing in mind how much more complex Undertow is to other metal and metal-adjacent music from the era. Clean, groovy polyrhythms and deep meaning. It would be the crown jewel in any other similar band’s album repertoire, but represents the beginning of Tool’s journey to become what they are.” Billy Corgan recently revealed if he hated the new Tool album.
You can read the full Tool piece at LA Weekly.
