After 8 years, the new Tool album may (almost) be here. Tool guitarist Adam Jones gave fans an update about the new album by sharing a picture on Instagram, confirming that Tool have been busy in the studio. Various reports over the past few months had indicated the same.
Jones uploaded a picture on his Instagram account that shows the whole band in a recording studio, with Maynard James Keenan in particular looking happy. The picture was captioned #smokeonthehorizon. Jones had shared another picture earlier of the band’s recording process that shows the rough structure of a new song, including time signatures of various segments. However the new update is interesting as it is the first time Keenan has been involved in the process of making the new album.
Maynard has earlier denied claims that he was the one holding the album. After being asked about the new album at a Q&A session, Maynard said, “Do I seem like a lazy person? Then stop blaming me.” Maynard has previously stated that Tool’s album writing process is a fairly complicated one, as each member writes their own parts and then sends them to the next band member, with Maynard being the last to contribute. Thus, the news that the whole band had entered the studio is hopeful news for fans of the band, with all signs pointing towards a late 2015 or early 2016 release.
Earlier, Jones and drummer Danny Carey revealed the reasons for the delay. In addition to family obligations that made it harder for them to spend more time on the new album, they revealed that the band had been involved in a million-dollar lawsuit for years, which had taken up a lot of their time and energy. Jones said “Basically, a long time ago, the band paid my best friend to do some artwork for shirts, albums and advertising – we’ve hired many, many artists over the years. And then he decided to sue us for one fifth of the money we’ve ever made. It was just ridiculous! But here’s the point: we had insurance in case we ever got sued or got in these situations. And now these insurance companies have all tried backing out. To me, that does not feel right.”
“Seven years later… here we are. We have a lot of stuff going on. There’s stress. There’s four different guys with personal things going on and it can be a struggle to write music together. But this time it has been really draining and put a lot of pressure on us. We got insurance for peace of mind. And they totally turned it around on us. I just feel like we’ve been completely abandoned and it’s been totally unnecessary”.
The current gap between release marks the longest time Tool have taken to put out a new album. It took them five years to follow up Lateralus in 2001 with 10,000 Days in 2006. In the meantime, the band members have been busy with side projects. Maynard released an album with his side project, Puscifer, while drummer Danny Carey released an album titled Volto and played select live shows with Primus.