Author: Nadine Gelineau

1994 was an amazing year for TOOL, getting a Platinum record in the U.S., and Gold in Canada (closing in on Platinum!). Touring as part of the Lollapalooza '93 show, and then their own headlining tour with support from The Flaming Lips caused their fan base to grow way beyond any expectations the band ever had. "All of these people have made us really big rock stars" cackles Maynard James Keenan, lead singer of the band.
"We knew if we could get in front of people they'd understand our music. If they could hear it, see it, feel it, and be a part of it with us, they'd see where we were coming from and what we are about. But a lot more people caught on than thought would, so I think we owe it to them to keep on playing". Part of where they are coming from is an obscure philosophy called "Lachrymology" (literally the study of crying), which advocates confronting one's pain and anger. Keenan's performances which are cathartic purges of his anger, combined with the disquieting videos for Sober and Prison Sex, have created quite the enigmatic entity for the band. "As far as how I look at things, certainly the frustrations will never go away, but I'll be dealing with them differently. The more I deal with them through singing the older songs, the less there is a need to continue writing angry songs. You can only scream your head off so long before you get kind of tired of screaming," he continues. "Anger is definitely a very cleansing emotion, but there comes a time when it stops being all that useful."

Tool are presently working on their next album, which we hope will be ready for release in June or July. Although Keenan wouldn't provide a description of the new stuff at this early stage, he did say it would be "different" from "undertow" or Tool's 1992 EP "Opiate."

"I think it will sound like music that was written after undertow" he offers vaguely. "It will be a natural progression because we're all growing as musicians in different ways. We have about 20 to 30 sketches--just riffs and emotional interludes. What we're trying to do now is get the little sketches down on tape. Then we can go back through and go 'Okay, I think this really interests me, I'm going to try to develop this further.' We're going to go with the ideas that seem like they'll be nice little projects to get involved in". As you may know, Tool do all of their own videos, a creative outlet that will be a little more difficult to realise, as they lost their studio to last year's major earthquake in L.A.