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And that was just on Undertow
They wrote stinkfist, eulogy, H. Pushit and aenima before he left
*started writing. The demos of four of them exist (no Paul demo of H seems to exist) and there are subtle differences between them and the finalized recorded version.
Do you have links to these? I don’t think I’ve heard them before
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wb9c6vSthzs&pp=ygURUGF1bCBkYW1vdXIgZGVtb3M%3D
They’re on YouTube
As someone who plays music though you can hear pretty clearly he had those bass lines and the style of aenima figured out already before he left. He left a huge blueprint for Justin.
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Yes as someone who listens to music I agree with you.
And the opiate ep but also parts of ænema
He ain’t wrong
Their creative process is not for the weak, or even the reasonably sane. I think they've all (minus Maynard) said there's been moments throughout the years where they were ready to beat each other up over the progress of a particular song. But it's what works for them. They go into the void and come back with the treasure, so you can critique it but you can't say it's pointless. I don't blame Paul for wanting to bail - if you watch/read the press they did during his time with the band you can see why and how he never quite jelled in a personal way. And I think if he knew what was to come he would still leave.
Maynard has alluded to this as well, saying they all have strong opinions
People complain that Maynard doesn’t actively partake in the writing process as much as he did back then, but I honestly can’t blame him lol.
How much can the vocalist truly do when everyone else keeps getting stuck bickering for hours over small details about how the instrumentals should fit together, stuff he can’t really have much of an opinion about even if he wanted. It may be technically better to have Maynard on hand to guide the overall melody a bit more, but I’d rather he saved his sanity than get burnt out on TOOL all together. At least not any more than usual.
I remember reading an interview at some point during FI production where he sounded genuinely quite pissed off about how much energy and effort he’d put in to writing songs only to have the band scrap the music, and how he’d basically just stopped writing tool songs until they were sure they were going to leave the music alone.
I'm not sure if it was FI or something else but I remember this. He is given the songs with a "pour your heart into these, then they're done" message...then they say "never mind, do it again"....I can see how he would be deflated, pissed, and basically say "Never do this again bc it's not fair and it's a mind fuck for me." Sounds pretty reasonable and I bet the guys felt pretty bad about it too bc they know his process but they felt that they had to rework the songs. So they had to choose between being honest with him and sacrificing their vision to appease him, which wasn't going to work. It's rough for everyone but they all believe in the result.
I think his best take was saying FI was done 8 years before they released it, and it was great then.
Right; he was dumbfounded that the others decided to scrap it and start all over again.
This one hurt, a lot. IIRC the interviewer was like “blah blah the album is so good” and Maynard was like “it was good 8 years ago.” There were always rumors of scrapped album around these parts but this made it official to me
Which podcast (presumably a podcast, these days...) did Maynard say this on? Would love to glean more insights from him before I see them next week in Austin!
Would very much appreciate a link if you're able to quickly find it in your search history! Either way, thanks for sharing that. Had no clue that FI was "done" that long ago. Really wonder what differences emerged in each of the songs from then 'til the official 2019 release.
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https://www.altpress.com/tool-maynard-james-keenen-fear-inoculum-13-years/
I would say pre 2019/August Joe Rogan but everytime MJK merely mentioned Tool music, Joe would obnoxiously interrupt with something like "BTW ever seen a rattle snake destroy a possum? Jamie pull that up for me please. Dude you shoulda seen this thing it was amazing."
I see others have saved me the trouble and found a link. As for this, I suspect we'll never know, outside of some of the concert bootlegs where they played different versions of songs that would (or wouldn't?) end up on FI. But I don't think they'll ever offically release stuff they determined wasn't good enough to release the first time around.
Maynard also flat out said it's the rest of the band who is insanely slow. Maynard got fed up with it and started two additional bands (A Perfect Circle and Puscifer) to keep up with his creative output.
Maynard didn't start a perfect circle. They were actually initially looking for a female vocalist.
Billy wrote all the music, Maynard wrote all the lyrics and did all the vocals.
And a wine thing too. He’s said that sometimes you gotta let it be done.
man, imagine being a fly on the wall and Adam Jones telling Danny that something he did was just garbage.
Yeah, this is probably why Maynard wants nothing to do with it until they have actual songs ready for him to throw vocals over.
Danny has said Maynard is an intuitive writer who goes with his first impulse, so he doesn't have the same kind of mindset as the others, is not interested in multiple revisions.
And yet his lyrics are just as genius. Interesting
Bc he’s had to rewrite songs in the past so now he makes sure the other 3 band members have completed their parts. They’re all such perfectionists.
The way I imagine their songwriting progress is like:
They write a song.
Someone in the band ends up not liking it.
They rewrite that song that the one band member has issues with.
Repeat step 2 and 3 until everyone is happy with the song.
I guess that Paul was happy with the progress of the 72826 demo, Opiate, and Undertow because they worked on these projects within 3 years. But then Aenima took 3 years to be released and Paul had enough of waiting around.
I was fortunate enough to go to one of their clinics, and they said that either Adam or Justin comes up with a riff. They'll jam on it, then really dissect it. Play it forwards, play it backwards, move the downbeat around. Try adding or subtracting beats to change the time signatures around. Then they do the same thing with another riff and see how they go together. Rearrange them, cut them apart, and mix up the sections. And if at any point they're not happy with it, they scrap it and start over.
It seems like they love to ask "what if we tried X" and really explore every possibility they can think of until they're satisfied that they have the best possible combination.
I can appreciate the work they put into it, but you've really gotta love that process. Otherwise, it would be a nightmare. Sounds like to Paul it was the later.
Okay, but that's like how half the rockbands of the world do it. It's how all my bands did it, and we never released anything as good as Tool's worst. Despite spending months and years on single songs. So it must be something else that gives it its quality!
It's the musical and creative intelligence of the people involved. ;)
It's really more like:
-1- Adam or Justin writes a riff and decides it's a Tool thing and plays it for the other two.
-2- If the others like it, then they immediately dissect it to determine if it's REALLY good.
-3- Everyone writes things to go around it, since the three of them play in counterpoint rather than unison.
-4- They argue about everything for several months while playing the song over and over in every single way possible.
-5- Eventually they figure out how to make it work and decide they like it.
It's usually just Adam and Justin for a long time before Danny comes into the mix. He's not really that involved until the song is more or less done at this stage in the game.
Where did you hear this? Also “at this stage.” At what stage?
The process to write Ænima seemed to be different than the other projects in that they were expecting Paul to contribute an equal amount and they didn't believe he was or was willing to. And that's besides the repetition factor. But schedule-wise it was really only about a year because they toured for the better part of two years in support of Undertow. Justin joined in '95.
I wouldn't call that last album "a treasure"
The man ain't wrong tbh
“I always believe that my parts are more important than the guitar player’s.”
Yikes. I get why he felt stifled writing with Tool, but no doubt I’d hate playing with him, too. What a ridiculous thing for a musician to say.
My favorite part about this is that now, the bass feels just as important as the guitar in Tool. There are songs where one might shine more than the other, but they always work in harmony (no pun intended). Aside from Paul’s comment, I like how Tool handles their bass parts because they do it so much better than other artists. Often times the bass is left as a sort of background instrument, but in Tool, it feels like it holds the spotlight as much as the other instruments do (I might even venture to say that I enjoy the bass parts in a lot of their songs just a bit more than the guitar parts). Anyway, that’s it. Thanks for coming to my TOOL Talk.
Because of the way they play, no one instrument is truly privileged (except for solos, I guess).
Thanks, my thought was similar like “but…part of Tool’s sound is having the bass more upfront than the vast majority of bands…” Kinda weird…maybe he was just going over his general taste and the article made it seem like it was one of the reasons he left Tool.
To be fair, Undertow’s mix didn’t include the bass as much as their later albums
Interesting…I always thought of Undertow as a fairly bass-heavy album. You’re probably right though.
I cannot imagine Justin or Adam saying this. I’m glad we got the great album from Paul that we did, but I’m also so glad he left so Justin could take over.
Tool wouldn’t be what it is now without justin
swap justin with paul and you are correct. justin made tool even better, but paul paved the way for justin to work off of his influence
Idk why you would attempt to phrase that as a correction when it’s tremendously obvious that both are true and pretending otherwise is pretty boneheaded
You are both correct. Paul and Justin contributed a lot to overall sound, feel and groove of the band.
Correct, maybe it would be far better with Paul. Who knows.
A guess getting dumped and then watching your exes become bigger than Jesus can lead to bitterness, to say the least.
There's nothing wrong with this in the context of his own projects. He's free to levy as much or as little importance on his playing as he wants as long as others in the group are aware of this dynamic.
The part where he says he doesn’t need to play a riff 500 times to know it’s good is hilarious and true.
Tool is a weird band and we are weird fans. My wife can’t stand my passion for them. It’s the one thing I do she just can’t understand.
The thing about playing a riff 500 times is that it's not just the same riff, it's that riff explored in every possible way it can be. But that would drive most people absolutely insane for sure.
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 riffs once, but I fear the man who has practiced one riff 10,000 times." -Bruce Lee
LMAO love this revision!
change riff to days in the last part
Every Tool riff is a banger, to me at least. It’s beyond being merely good. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to make your own stuff that has good riffs. But to me, Tool riffs are at the top of the heap. I’ve listened to some of his stuff, and that’s exactly what it is. It’s good. He’s a good, maybe even great musician. But tool are just on another level from him. I still haven’t gotten tired of listening to them 🤷🏻♂️
“My wife can’t stand…” Yikes dude, I don’t see how you guys do it. I’m just a neckbeard so of course I’d react this way…but there’s not having common interests and then there’s a partner strongly disliking the other’s strong interest.
So it’s either for the kid(s) and/or other aspects of the relationship are just exceptionally good…?
Bro, seriously? Taste is music is not a dealbreaker lol. You don’t have to love Taylor Swift just because your partner does. My wife doesn’t get my adoration for Tool, but we ate some acid and I took her to her first Tool show last week and she gets it now. Doubt she’ll be listening to them in her car or anything, but she was definitely mind-blown at seeing them live and she encourages me to see them every chance I get. We’ve been together for almost 10 years, and I listen to metal and she listens to pop. Taste in music is very low on the list of things that make it work.
Hey your girl wasn’t strongly opposed to it though…she had to have been a bit open to come around the way she did…….
Guitar World: “When Paul D'Amour walked away from Tool in 1995, during the recording of Ænima, he had one mission: to avoid letting his role in that band define him forever”
Guitar World headline: “Original Tool bassist Paul D’Amour…”
Leads with a question about how Tool Has shaped him.
He also wanted to play guitar.
+ synths
They kicked him out. Make no mistake. We are so much better off having had Justin join.
Im pretty sure he chose to leave because he wanted to play guitar. Adam even talks about how much respect he has for him to be able to walk away from something like that. But I agree, it’s all about Justin. I don’t think Tool would be where they are without him.
He should have been more patient
The great bands all rehearse endlessly. Also I'm pretty sure he left because he really wanted to play guitar and was whiny about it.
"Their creative process is excruciating and tedious"
So what, look at the results.
5 albums and 2 EPs in 34 years? Typo LOL makes 24 years comments make sense
They stopped for a long time because they got sued. They have spoken at length to it.
Yeah no time for creativity or something......
…and that’s enough to make them into legends
I mean it's a fan sub, so yes. This would be the consensus
5 masterpiece albums
And 2 masterpiece EPs.
And I will not be elaborating, Opiate deniers.
4
4 good albums for me too. I really don't pay FI much attention these days
You made me remember a quote from an italian forum about Tool, maybe circa 2013, which said: "they did one masterpiece and 3 Catherine Deneuve"
You’re going to struggle to defend that question mark.
Well, with such a cutting rebuttal you may be right?