Updates on Tool‘s forthcoming fifth studio album have been disjointed and confusing at best, though a new piece of information suggests the band could be much further along in the writing process than we previously thought.
One common theme seemed to be that Maynard James Keenan was yet to join the band in the studio or contribute lyrics to any songs, but in a recently released podcast the vocalist has confirmed he has thrown his weight into the project.
News came via an episode of comedian Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast, which had the two discussing all sorts of topics which meant the new album was eventually going to be brought up. When pressed for a progress report, Keenan explained:
“I’m gonna stop by the rehearsal space today…in theory, having beaten them up going, ‘Please give me music, please give me music, please give me music, please give me music.’ In theory, they have a CD for me today. They’re like, ‘Look, listen to some jams so we can get this thing going.’”
He then went on to elaborate on why he is unable to write lyrics unless the song has already begun to take shape, adding, “I can’t write words ’til I hear the sounds, and I haven’t heard the sounds… I’ve gotta listen to the sounds and go from the sounds.”
Here’s where things get interesting. The podcast was released on Sunday, 18th August. In the interview, Keenan can be heard stating that he will be 49 “next month”, and as Keenan’s birthday is in April we can deduce that the recording happened in March.
This could mean that Keenan has been working on the album since March and the band have been giving us the runaround with updates since then. Or it could mean that Maynard didn’t like what he heard and simply told the band to get back to the drawing board.
The band’s drummer Danny Carey commented on the lack of lyrics to the album as recently as July, though maybe their mysterious frontman had yet to inform his bandmates of his work.
Let’s just hope that the projected 2014 release date holds true – it’s been far too long between drinks, wouldn’t you say?
(Via Loudwire)
