“All of a sudden you wake up and it’s thirteen years later,” opens up Tool’s frontman, Maynard James Keenan
Tool just released their new album Fear Inoculum last week, the first one in 13 years, and it’s hard to overstate the importance of it in the band’s career. Not only is the band heading on a North American tour after a long long while, they’ve also uploaded all their official music videos to YouTube and put their songs up on streaming and digital services. A massive step for Tool!
The recording of Fear Inoculum was accompanied by Tool members’ actual fear that their new music won’t be accepted. After all, it took the band 13 years to release the follow-up to their previous record, 10,000 Days. Frontman Maynard James Keenan has just opened up about it on BBC Radio 1’s Rock Show with Kerrang!:
“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.
“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.”
Maynard had also doubted for a long time whether Tool’s music would ever appear on streaming and digital platforms. But an epic return with Fear Inoculum made the band brave enough to start a new, digital era in their discography.
“We’re on iTunes now. That’s pretty much the seventh seal of hell breaking opening, isn’t it?” smiles Keenan.
Tool’s singer admits the hardest part was letting go of the need to have control over every step of the way. “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,” he concludes.
Have you heard Tool’s new album Fear Inoculum yet? If not, give it a listen below! And be sure to check out the band’s upcoming tour dates below, as their tour marathon starts in exactly one month.
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Tool Fall 2019 Tour Dates:
10/13 — Sacramento, CA @ Aftershock Festival
10/15 — Denver, CO @ Pepsi Center
10/18 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Vivint Smart Home Arena
10/20 — Los Angeles, CA @ Staples Center
10/21 — Los Angeles, CA @ Staples Center
10/23 — Glendale, AZ @ Gila River Arena
10/25 — San Antonio, TX @ AT&T Center
10/27 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
10/29 — Tulsa, OK @ BOK Center
10/31 — Milwaukee, WI @ Fiserv Forum
11/02 — Indianapolis, IN @ Banker’s Life Fieldhouse
11/03 — Chicago, IL @ United Center
11/05 — Cincinnati, OH @ US Bank Arena
11/06 — Cleveland, OH @ Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse
11/08 — Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena
11/09 — Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
11/11 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
11/12 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
11/14 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden
11/16 — Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
11/18 — Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
11/19 — Brooklyn, NY @ Barclay’s Center
11/21 — Uncasville, CT @ Mohegan Sun Casino Arena
11/22 — Atlantic City, NJ @ Boardwalk Hall
11/24 — Raleigh, NC @ PNC Arena
11/25 — Washington, DC @ Capitol One Arena