Danny Carey Still Hopes Tool Can “Knock Out” an EP During Quarantine
Tool drummer Danny Carey continues to hold out hope that fans won’t have to wait another thirteen years in-between Tool releases… even if the band’s next offering is an EP and not a full-length.
During a recent interview with Skinny Puppy’s cEvin Key, Carey reiterated a desire he first expressed in April, saying it’s his wish for the band to “knock out” an EP during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic:
“Tool hasn’t been jamming. We’ve been just kind on hiatus. Nothing’s really been happening. But I think it’s time. We kept hoping that we were gonna get back out, so we were just kind of, ‘Hey, enjoy this while it lasts,’ but now it’s looking like it could go to the rest of the year, so we need to get the lead out and start functioning — maybe knock out another EP, at least, or something like that.
“We’ve never really done that since our first release [1992’s Opiate] — done an EP — so I thought it would be kind of nice to do something like that. We don’t have a record deal anymore — we’re free agents — so we can kind of release whatever we wanna release now, which is a good feeling.”
Elsewhere in the same interview, the drummer delved into the band’s songwriting process, explaining why it takes so long for them to produce new material:
“It’s a slow process for us to compose our tunes, ’cause we really don’t have a songwriter, like a Neil Young or something like that. We just get in there and jam, and these jams can take off in all these different directions, and that’s when we’re all kind of pushing weirdness on each other. We always keep the tape rolling the whole time, so then we just find the cool bits and go, ‘This would fit good with this.’ We all take the tapes home and listen to ’em and then show up the next day and then have little meetings to talk about how it’s gonna develop or what direction it can go. Sometimes different time signatures can feed into other ones. It’s weird. It’s always hard to kind of figure out how things fit together, but they do. It’s almost like a commitment — if we’re all feeling it, then we can make it fit together. It’s definitely a band vibe that makes the songs come together in the end — all of us feeding into this pot. It’s a good process, but I wouldn’t recommend it to the faint of heart [laughs], ’cause it’s time consuming. It takes us a long time to write. And it sounds like us in the end, so I’m happy about that.”
Finally, Carey revealed that the band was forced to abandon “the biggest American tour we’ve ever done” as a result of the pandemic:
“We got in some pretty good touring, luckily, right after the new year, and come March, we were just taking off on about a 10-show run, and then we were gonna have a little break and then start the biggest American tour we’ve ever done. So that was a heartbreaker when all that hit the fan. So we’re just kind of in suspension now.
“We have dates held in November and December, but it’s highly unlikely that’s gonna pan out. We’re kind of at the mercy of the NBA and the NHL at this point. If they start having games, then we’ll get to tour, because it’s pretty much the same venues we do our gigs in. We’re waiting and hoping. If not, we’ve got some stuff held over in Germany and all over Europe in January and February, so I’m hoping that will come through, if nothing else.”
You can check out the entire interview below.
[via The PRP]
