Metal Anarchy

During an interview with The Australian, Tool’s Justin Chancellor discussed the band’s new music plans. The group were hoping to release new material quicker than usual, but as Chancellor put it “art doesn’t really have a schedule” and “you can’t force it.”

Chancellor said the following:

“We’re working on new music. I don’t know when we’re going to finish it. We’ve been working on stuff on and off for a couple of years, you know? And we we’re always working on new music. I was in the studio with Danny [Carey, Tool drummer] last week, banging out some ideas. But we don’t… I always say this, art doesn’t really have a schedule, you know what I mean? Like, you can’t force it. And if you do, it tends not to work out so great. So, I think, especially in our band, it’s somehow it’s just the way it works with our band. It’s a different kind of alchemy.

And I think we’ve all learned, you know, Maynard‘s [James Keenan, Tool vocalist] got his side projects, Danny [Carey, Tool drummer] does a bunch of different stuff, Adam [Jones, Tool guitarist] does different sh*t, and I’ve got my my stuff. And we’ve learned to sort of pare out the time when people need that space with busying ourselves with other things, which actually influence what we do when we come back together as well. So it kind of gives us a little headroom that speaks to the new stuff that we do when we come back together.”

He continued:

“…Everyone’s always taking a piss like, it takes so long for us to make music, but I’m proud of everything we’ve done. And I don’t like 13 years. They always talk about 13 years. It seems like a week to me. When we were working on that stuff every day, we were grinding away at it. And it doesn’t really matter in the end. If you do anything that’s decent, even if it’s one thing, it’s worth it.”

He also added the following when asked if requests for new music could be considered a compliment:

“I think it’s more interesting to take a long time to find something unique than just to keep repeating yourself. No offense to anyone that, you know, I guess we… let’s just call it pop music, right? They just keep churning out the hits. I mean, people love that stuff, so, there’s a place for it. And there’s a reason that there’s people that are good at that, but that’s not us. We’re into trying to create something unique that hasn’t been heard before as musicians, as a band. …Sometimes it gets harder and harder. Sometimes it just comes to you, you know, like some some days you’re like, ‘Whoa, what’s this?’ And you play it to your friends and they’re like, ‘Whoa’, that’s you know, it’s amazing. It just comes out of the blue.

But you can’t really… it’s not a formula, you know what I mean? There is no formula. And if anything, the formula is just to carry on living life and exploring and letting it come in from your life experiences. I think with us, that’s the way it works a lot more. but I get what you’re saying. It is a compliment that people are excited for new music. But we just don’t want it to be on a schedule. We want it just to be good. We want to be proud of it, and we want to all agree that this is what we want to share. So like I was saying, the side projects are a really good way of us alleviating that that time, and kind of keeping the fitness up, but like not pushing the whole issue.”

[via The PRP]