Tool (band)

"We always try to think of something that's never been done before, you know, as far as album packaging, and I've been a fan of stereoscopic photography my whole life and belong to the Southern California Stereoscopic Club."

"And we thought if we could get this to work with our budget, you know, and put this out, it'd be really unique and reflecting, you know, a lot of the artwork that I appreciate from the '70s."

"In an interview with Rolling Stone last July, Jones reiterated how the lawsuit was affecting the band. "It's costing millions and millions and millions of dollars to defend us. And the fans are all going, 'We want a new Tool album. What the fuck?'" Jones said. "But the point is, we're fighting the good fight. We're going to trial and we want to crush them. But every time we've gotten close to going to trial, it gets postponed and we've wasted money and time and it has just drained our creative energy. We bought an insurance policy for peace of mind, but instead we would have been better off if we never had it and just dealt with the original lawsuit.""

"Tool is a fascinating anomaly."

"The video presentation…offered a stunning visual complement to the band's furious sonic assault."

"In the popular musical climate of today, which seems to favor the blandness of processed rap metal or the redundancy of uninspired readymade pop outfits, it is refreshing that a band such as Tool exists to add some much-needed freshness to the contemporary musical landscape."

"Wrath and pain, desire and self-loathing, ferocity and meditation all find a complicated balance in Tool."

"Avoiding self-glorification, the band played in near-darkness under video screens on Monday. Maynard James Keenan, Tool's lead singer, stood on a platform behind Adam Jones on guitar and Justin Chancellor on bass, with his face in shadows, while Danny Carey on drums toiled meticulously by his side."

"Its songs hammer and seethe, melding the lowdown guitars of grunge, the odd meters of progressive rock and the whiplash stops and starts of thrash. Mr. Keenan's sustained, almost androgynous voice hovers within the music, desolate but impervious to the tumult around him."

"Tool's songs encompassed sullen calm, rapid-fire onslaughts, spacious chords and nimble-fingered counterpoint. Standing room sometimes became a mosh pit. But midway through its two-hour set, Tool chose stasis with a patiently tolling guitar vamp like a mantra. Its fastest music also had a ritual quality, pounding and repeating like drummers in a trance ceremony. Songs that rev up and end abruptly on Tool's albums only accelerated further, riffing harder and harder as if, through furious motion, they could somehow break through Tool's perpetual tension to reach a long-denied release."

"The music of Tool is the dark slime of a warm, black night. Tool is an escape, a subtle revolution of sound and perception. The musical landscape this band crafts…is the fulfilment of life, surreally black and purely haunting."

""This song goes out to," vocalist and songwriter Maynard James Keenan began slowly. And then he paused. And he paused still. And he finally finished, "Joey and Dee Dee." The band jumped into an extremely heavy cover of the Ramones' "Commando," baffling some fans and driving others into an approving fit of screams."

"What can I say about 10,000 Days, really? It sounds exactly and precisely like a Tool album. They might as well have not have released it at all, because anyone who's ever heard Tool could simply imagine what a new Tool album would sound like, and this is exactly what they'd imagine."

"First up, "Vicarious": a Dateline Special Report on violence in the news media featuring guest commentator Maynard James Keenan. Excellent! I've been hoping to hear Maynard weigh in on the hottest issue of 1990."

"Particularly impressed was I with "Lipan Conjuring," which was so thoughtful an addition to the album that I feel as if it were included just for me. You see, I went to the record store with only fifteen dollars in my pocket, and I had a devil of a time deciding between 10,000 Days and Native Moods: A Pathway to Peace. On one hand, I love rockin' out to some ten-minute chugging shuffles, but there's another part of my soul that craves the inner harmony that can only be brought on from some high-quality chanting. It was with a heavy heart that I left the store carrying only one of these two things— or so I thought! Imagine my immense pleasure when my hard rock album was interrupted— no, that's too harsh a word— when my hard rock album was magnificently bolstered by exactly the sort of stupid fucking crap I might hear on some grocery store counter impulse buy CD of New Age chanting bullshit! Bravo! I can have my cake and eat it too, and while I eat my cake I can listen to some total crap!"

"Tool are one of the few bands who have made themselves famous by disregarding all expectations of them."

"A strangely chatty Maynard James Keenan broke his self-imposed exile and spoke casually to the crowd, inciting them to a cheer of "Yes!" and sometimes sharing his thoughts, most of which were unashamedly eccentric to say the least."

"With their feet firmly planted on their spot on the stage and their faces obscured by their long hair, the players simply let their instruments communicate, and made no attempt to try it any other way. Adam Jones in particular was a foreboding figure – his sheer stillness contrasted drastically by the strained and pained sounds he forced from his guitar."

"[T]he band were as impeccably precise on their instruments as they are on record, with every dynamic, subtlety and thread of power displayed flawlessly."

"As esoteric and arcane as their music tends to be, there's no doubt that this unique group of musicians weave their magic to everlasting effect."

"The album art was a unique design created by artist Alex Grey. The art is different layers of patterns with the different layers of the human body. In Alex Grey's book "Transfigurations" he says the "saw blade" made of eyes "represents the primordial spirit of emptiness and awareness. The next layer was a vajra emitting energy, the subtle essence of soul around which the physical body coagulates. The next several layers detail the physical systems of viscera, skeletal, muscular, nervous, and cardiovascular systems.""

"I stick my hand into the shadow"

"But the eyes seem so familiar"

"Prying open my third eye"

"Think for yourself. Question authority."

"Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorising fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities—the political, the religious, the educational authorities—who've attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing, forming in our minds their view of reality. To think for yourself, you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable, open-mindedness; chaotic, confused, vulnerability to inform yourself."

"So, we need you to find a comfortable space that's not only comfortable, but vulnerable. I want you to shut your eyes and go there, and we'll meet you on the other side."

"What are you but my reflection? Who am I to judge or strike you down?"

"But you're pushing And I'm shoving you And you're pushing me And I'm shoving you"

"And I'm slipping back into the gap again I feel alive when you touch me I feel alive when you hold me…down Slipping back into Slipping back into you"

"Painless hours of wasted motion"

"It's some kind of psychedelic experience"

"Our body is light, we are immortal Our body is light, we are immortal Our body is love, we are eternal Our body is love, we are eternal"

"Omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, without judgment"

"Locked in a place where no one goes"

"If you are calling from a secret spy phone, please press 5."

"There's a shyness found in reason Apprehensive influence swallow away"

"Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity Calculate what we will or will not tolerate Desperate to control all and everything Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen"

"Clutch it like a cornerstone Otherwise it all comes down"

"Hang on or be humbled again"

"Defining, confining, sinking deeper Controlling, defining, and we're sinking deeper"

"Choose to let this go"

"But I'm still right here Giving blood, keeping faith And I'm still right here"

"Sweating, and breathing And staring, and thinking Sinking deeper And it's almost like I'm swimming"

"I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them fall away"

"Disintegrating as it goes, testing our communication The light that fueled our fire then has burned a hole between us so We cannot seem to reach an end, crippling our communicationI know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them tumble down No fault, none to blame—it doesn't mean I don't desire To point the finger, blame the other, watch the temple topple over To bring the pieces back together, rediscover communicationThe poetry that comes from the squaring off between And the circling is worth it, finding beauty in the dissonanceThere was a time that the pieces fit, but I watched them fall away"

"Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion"

"So familiar and overwhelmingly warm This one, this form I hold nowEmbracing you, this reality here"

"We barely remember what came before this precious moment Choosing to be here right now"

"This body makes me feel eternal All this pain is an illusion"