Tool's Maynard James Keenan discusses the worry of not living up to their expectations
Last week, the world went Tool mad. They released their new album Fear Inoculum after 13 years, they announced a North American tour, they uploaded official music videos to YouTube and they were mashed up with Taylor Swift.
But that's not all! They also featured on BBC Radio 1's Rock Show with Kerrang! contributor Daniel P. Carter, speaking about the new album and where Tool are at in 2019.
On the topic of why it took them 13 years to release the follow-up to 10,000 Days, frontman Maynard James Keenan said:
“You want it to be right and we’ve had some success in the past, and the fear of this thing coming out and not being accepted – the fear that it’s not as good as it can be – that can be detrimentally crippling.
"Probably if I had to ‘psychology 101’ [it], I would have to say ‘Well yeah, that’s why it would take 13 years to write something, because you’re paranoid that it’s not gonna be the best that it can be.' Then you second-guess every single step that you make, when it was probably good enough – I shouldn’t say good enough – it was fantastic eight years ago.
"But then the crippling second-guessing of yourself sets in, and that psychology and that spiral you get in, it can be extremely daunting. And you can actually not even feel it happening.
"All of a sudden you wake up and it’s thirteen years later. The hard part is accepting the fact that maybe you’re not nearly as important as you think you are and you should probably just get on with it.”
READ THIS: The internet reacts to Tool's new album, Fear Inoculum
Maynard goes on to discuss Tool's sudden (and indeed welcomed) decision to embrace streaming and digital downloads for their music.
“We’re on iTunes now. That’s pretty much the seventh seal of hell breaking opening, isn’t it?” he says.
“I think the hard part with bands like ours that want to control every element of everything; they forget that all you needed to control was the writing and recording. Once that thing’s done, let other people do what they do with it.
"iTunes is just another record store. Amazon Music is just another record store. Everything you did is done, you did it."
Tool's new album Fear Inoculum is out now. They head out on tour this October.
Tool North American tour 2019
October
13 Sacramento, CA Aftershock Festival
15 Denver, CO Pepsi Center
18 Salt Lake City, UT Vivint Smart Home Arena
20 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center
21 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center
23 Glendale, AZ Gila River Arena
25 San Antonio, TX AT&T Center
27 Houston, TX Toyota Center
29 Tulsa, OK BOK Center
31 Milwaukee, WI Fiserv Forum
November
02 Indianapolis, IN Banker’s Life Fieldhouse
03 Chicago, IL United Center
05 Cincinnati, OH US Bank Arena
06 Cleveland, OH Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse
08 Pittsburgh, PA PPG Paints Arena
09 Detroit, MI Little Caesars Arena
11 Toronto, ON Scotiabank Arena
12 Toronto, ON Scotiabank Arena
14 Boston, MA Garden
16 Newark, >span class="caps">NJ Prudential Center
18 Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center
19 Brooklyn, NY Barclay’s Center
21 Uncasville, CT Mohegan Sun Casino Arena
22 Atlantic City, NJ Boardwalk Hall
24 Raleigh, NC PNC Arena
25 Washington, DC Capitol One Arena
READ THIS: Kerrang! writers give their first reactions to Fear Inoculum
