It’s no secret that Tool fans are getting impatient waiting for new material. While there seem to be little glimpses of hope in the process, a Q and A session at Guitar World with guitarist Adam Jones offers no further solace but does address the lack of infamous videos from the band and how that may change. When reader Carl Brookes asked why there were no videos to support 10,000 Days, Jones responded:
There are, we just haven’t finished them yet. We ran into a really big snag because the first video is all CGI [computer-generated imaging] and we had some vicious production problems. The company we started with kinda screwed us, but luckily my friend’s company is bailing us out. Since he’s helping us, they can only work on it when their schedule is clear. But it’s gonna be great. When I go home, practically all my time is spent on it.
I thought the CGI process would be a lot easier than physically filming something, which is what we’ve always done in the past. But it’s actually a lot harder to get action down and get it moving and looking right. Plus, you can say, “The character has 15 eye lashes. Can he have 16?” You can get super picky. So at some point you have to shoot for 100 percent and try to get 70. We’re also doing pre-production on the second video, which will be all stop-motion.
Jones’ response to reader Thomas Bjorn asking why it takes so long for the band to put out an album, (which you knew someone would ask) elicited this response:
We do a record, we tour on it for a couple years, and then we take time off. Usually about a year later, one of us calls the others and says, “Hey, we should get together and start writing.” So we get together and start writing and rehearsing. It usually works out that it’s four or five years between records. I’m sure the record company would like us to put out a record a year, but… [laughs] We follow our own schedule.
In the time between records, I always have lots of stuff going on. I shoot photography, make little sculptures, play video games…[laughs] I’ll sit in front of the TV with my guitar, watch two movies back to back and play guitar the whole time. I definitely don’t have any strict practice schedule. I just make sure I have “me” time each day to do something creative.
Moral of the story is that waiting for genius to manifest takes time and yes, patience. When it comes to Tool, no one is going to offer anything before its ready and that is not always necessarily a bad thing when it comes to music. Good things come to those who wait. Hopefully. And one of those things might be a movie someday. When asked by Jerm the Worm (probably not his real name) if he would ever take his video making skills to another level and make a movie, Jones replied:
Yeah, we’ve talked about it. We had shot a bunch of live concert footage and were going to put out a DVD, but it turned out to not sit very well with our band. We were like, What can we do that’s more epic than just a live DVD? I think we’re just going to keep shooting stuff, and when we’re ready, we’ll put something out. Of course, we’d like to do something really epic, like the movie version of The Wall, but movie deals are really tough.
Here’s a hilarious example: [director] John Carpenter was putting out Escape from L.A. and they wanted an original Tool song. We said, “Well, you’re not getting an original, but maybe we’ll give you an older one.” But then we realized John Carpenter is a musician. So we were like, “Wait, let’s do a song with John Carpenter!” [laughs] The last thing we heard was the studio wanted half the rights to the song, our record company wanted the other half and John Carpenter’s people wanted the other half. [laughs] So we were like, “Ah, fuck it!” and gave them an older tune. Basically, there’s a lot of red tape in trying to get a movie made. But if we can—or if there’s anyone out there that wants to facilitate a Tool movie—I’m totally open to it.
