Will Tool Ever Release Another Album?

The following article revisits one I published nearly five years ago on Examiner.com. The long wait continues...

As any fan or follower of modern rock music will argue, Tool are one of the most talented, creative, and fascinating projects to come along in the last 30 years. The record sales, ticket sales, and merchandise sales speak for themselves, and seeing the band perform live is something that must be witnessed firsthand to be truly understood and appreciated. With legions of fans proudly part of the band-sanctioned “Tool Army,” it’s no surprise there is a clamoring for the band to release new material, just as the fans of any rock band might, right? Well, not exactly. Most rock bands, regardless of their stature, cannot afford to go for 12 years or more between albums and hope to remain significant or influential. Tool seems oblivious to and apathetic about this concept. In fact, at some point, one wonders if they’ll ever even release another album at all.

Tool have never kept up the release pace of their contemporaries, with most 90s bands releasing a new LP every 1-2 years throughout that decade, while Tool went more for the 3-5-year span between new albums. Compared to some older classic rock acts who released a new LP every 8-15 months, this lengthy break between albums stands out even more. At their peak, some groups in the 60s and 70s released three new LPs within a 15-month span! To really begin to understand how or why Tool has gone so long without releasing new material, and seems to revel in that length, one needs to be acquainted with their dark brand of humor.

Tool’s relationship with its audience has always been hard to understand. While the messages of many of their songs seems to be made very explicitly, the lyrics of their songs are often misinterpreted. One moment, the band appears to insult the ignorant who rely on religion or politics as a crutch or drug, and the next moment, the lyrics warn the intellectual listener that “over thinking/over analyzing separates the body from the mind.” Song lyrics and print-based jokes that date back over 25 years point out that the band seems to be in this only for the money, and whether that’s satirical or not is not easy to discern. The line between contempt for the audience and post-modern parody is very unclear, but it certainly seems to entertain and amuse the band either way.

Any time an individual member of the band is interviewed, they are inevitably asked about the progress on a new LP, and when fans might expect to hear it. Each time, the response is mostly similar. The band has either just entered the studio or is nearing completion of the basic recording process with vocals and overdubs to be added shortly. The frustrating thing about this from a fan’s perspective is the band gives out this general, false information in each interview and has been doing so for nearly a decade at this point.

Some examples of this in recent months and years:

2014-Social media flare-up when guitarist Adam Jones’s sarcastic comment to a fan back stage that the record was “done. It’s coming out tomorrow,” was posted as a factual update on the long-delayed new LP. The band contacted Rolling Stone magazine within hours of the release of the story to explain what had actually been said and that they were, as always, in the early stages of production on new material, but that it was not yet ready for release.

2017/2018-Photos from the studio are posted and newsletter discussing recordings in progress is published on the band’s official website.  Additional information confirming that the recording process is underway, is nearing completion, has been completed, or is in the process of mixing, have been published via interviews with each band members published in a variety of music news sources.

2019-Singer, Maynard James Keenan, says the process is running a few months later than they wanted, but the album should be out this summer.

On one hand, it’s worth noting that the band simply has no need to go to the trouble of writing or releasing new material, anyway. Tool can perform wherever they want in the world, and they sell out every ticket, every time they play. At some point, a band becomes so large and has such a following that it is not necessary for them to have new material to promote just to have a reason to perform a short string of shows or a random festival when the desire is there. The band has several rock radio hits on which to draw, and fans know and love the deep cuts just as much as the average radio-listener knows the hit singles. Not releasing new material has no real effect on the band’s media support, as most of their songs are too long and/or too weird for inclusion on many radio stations. MTV hasn’t featured music videos or live music programming in years, and even internet or satellite radio stations who play alternative music would feature it anyway because of the band’s supportive fan base and living-legend status.

Much like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd before them, Tool’s anonymity and desire to maintain it allows for them to get away with things, artistically and otherwise, that most other successful artists and celebrities are not able to do. An air of mystery surrounds them, and they play on this, to both serious and comedic effects, constantly. All this leaves some wondering if they decided long ago that there would be no new material, but perhaps the joke is that they wanted to see how long they could stretch out the hopes that there would be, leaving everyone else hanging, but with nothing else on the way. Such a move, if this is remotely true, would be unprecedented in rock and roll history. Sure, the Sex Pistols successfully executed “the great rock ‘n’ roll swindle” by recording only one LP and riding it for all it was worth (which they still do), but for Tool to back up, every time, that new material is in progress, and then to never produce it after many years of saying it was on the way, would be the ultimate rock joke. It would be foolish to put it past them.

The Downward Spiral at 25

Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails, which is really just him and whoever he is working with at any given time, was well-known in the underground rock and industrial music world long before the spring of '94, but the release of the project's second full-length LP 25 years ago introduced a massive number of generations X and Y to passionate but heavy rock music that thoughtfully challenged religious institutions, society, and dealing with various forms of mental and emotional anguish. Sure, the music is dark, loud, and mostly comes across sounding depressing, but what is the point and purpose of using those tones and moods in any artistic creation? Attempting to represent or reflect the saddest, rawest, and most personal of all hurt feelings and injustices in the world would probably result in some pretty dark and depressing stories, paintings, or poems as well.

What sets Nine Inch Nails, and this LP, specifically, apart from something more along the lines of death metal, black metal, or even heavier goth-industrial acts like Skinny Puppy or Reznor's friends, Ministry, is the desire to present this type of gothic-industrial rock music as though it is prog-rock instead, which ends up coming across as something different than both of those sub-genres. What if Bauhaus had tried to make a Genesis album? Guest appearances from King Crimson's Adrian Belew, super-producer, Flood, and even a bit of programming assistance from Motley Crue's Tommy Lee show both the range of Reznor's influences and the large musical reach to attract fans of various styles of rock music, and everyone from Marilyn Manson to the emo to screamo bands owes quite a bit to what Reznor accomplished on this album.

"Mr. Self-Destruct" sets the tone for the album, which is a loose concept record about the descent of a character into suicidal madness triggered by a variety of emotional burdens and heavy thoughts, which itself is a nod to at least two of Pink Floyd's classic LPs. The aggressive assault of the song cuts into a collage of guitar flurry which then dynamically changes to one of the album's quietest and creepiest songs, "Piggy." Along with the lead single, the seriously-rocking mosh pit anthem, "March of the Pigs," it is worth noting that much of this album was recorded in Trent's residence of that era, which happened to be the former home of Charles Manson Family murder victim, Sharon Tate. Reznor has since discussed how he chose to move out of the house shortly after a personal conversation with Tate's sister, but this was after the recording had finished, which lends another layer of genuine fear-factor to the album. This was all in a time where rumor traveled by word-of-mouth and verification was difficult prior to wide-scale internet access, though that was just around the corner.

"Heresy" is at least up-front about its lyrical subject matter, mostly paraphrasing some of Nietzsche's quotes and thoughts that are certain to rile up suburban parents a lot more than philosophy students. The biggest hit from the album, and arguably of the entire Nine Inch Nails catalog, is "Closer," a pulsing, electronic, sexual confession that is bent and twisted by guitar loops and noise samples that cross-fade from one speaker to the other and then out of the mix completely throughout the song. This track was undoubtedly popularized also by its savage, nightmare-inducing music video, a collaboration between Reznor and director Mark Pellington, which was a gnarly view, even in its edited-for-broadcast MTV version. (If you've not seen the director's cut, take a moment and hop over to youtube. I'll wait for you.)

Crazy, right? For this sort of music to have any sort of pop success in the mid-‘90s, or any era, is hard to believe, and yet, it led to the even greater pop success of Reznor’s protégé, Marilyn Manson, who would take the concept of shock rock to amazing new extremes only two years after The Downward Spiral, among other copy-cat acts and one hit wonders that dabbled in industrial and electronic elements in the mid and late ‘90s.

The album's second half focuses more on the rising action and climax of the story line through the hypnotic "The Becoming" and progressing with "The Eraser," "Reptile," and concludes with another of Reznor's most recognizable songs, the mournful ballad, "Hurt," later introduced to entirely different audiences by Johnny Cash's unforgettable 2003 cover version. After a successful world-tour that lasted nearly two years and included an infamous, mud-caked appearance at the Woodstock '94 festival, Nine Inch Nails had essentially become a house-hold name compared to the project's previous years when they were only known in indie or alternative music circles. Like any culturally-influential artist or figure, Reznor's style has been imitated and parodied many times over since The Downward Spiral's release and success, but it all really started, at least on a grand scale, with this album. While there have been many other great NIN songs and albums in the succeeding years, including their most recent releases, (the NIN EP trilogy), most would agree this collection of songs is their best work.

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OTHER ALBUMS Celebrating 25 Years:
Failure-Magnified
Green Jelly-333
Kyuss-Welcome to Sky Valley
L7-Hungry for Stink
Pantera-Far Beyond Driven