With the major announcement that Tool would be touring with Primus in January, naturally fans have been dying to know if this new tour will see Tool bring out new music from the long-awaited new album.

Fortunately, the band’s guitarist Adam Jones sat down with Rolling Stone for an extensive interview about all things Tool, answering a number of questions that have been on the minds of the band’s longtime fans. 

On touring with Primus:

I got on the plane to go home, and I’m sitting next to some guy and he goes hi, and I go hi, and he goes, “Adam, it’s Larry [LaLonde] from Primus.” And I’m like, “Oh, my God. I didn’t even recognize you.” The last time I saw him, he had his hair dyed and it was shorter. We started talking and I said, “We’ve got to play together; we’ve got to tour together.” And he’s like, “Absolutely.” I got back and our manager had already talked to their manager about possibly touring together. The stars were aligned.

On their new song, “Descending”:

Yeah, it’s a working title. We have a song that’s probably about 13 or 14 minutes long, so what we’ve done with it is … I don’t want to call it a “best of,” but it’s a shortened, different approach to it. It is a new song. It’s like a vague movie trailer to the real movie [laughs]. Sometimes we do jamming between songs or some kind of segues, and it’s usually involved in some kind of new material. But that one’s just a little taste of things to come.

On the new album:

I’ll tell you, it’s wonderful. Things are really flowing and going really well, and I’m just blown away at the stuff that’s coming together. I’m excited and can’t wait for it to be done. It’s something I’ve been missing for a long time [laughs], that beautiful collaboration that we have because we’re all so different and have different tastes. But again, when you are all meeting in the middle and that thing you do that meets in the middle is just beautiful, it’s very rewarding. So yes, I’m very happy.

On Maynard James Keenan’s involvement with Tool:

Yeah. We have an FTP and a Dropbox and we’re in communication. He’s got other stuff he does, so we keep him in the loop, and he has written lyrics, but he’s still working on that and he’ll commit. The best thing for all of us is when the song is done. I don’t write leads until the song is done. You want to get a vibe. And Maynard can work on lyrics, but until the song’s done and he knows how the end is, he’s still figuring out the flow.

The thing with Tool is you have four critical thinkers who like different stuff, so our process is not an easy one but it’s a very rewarding one. So yes, he is exposed to new music. It’s always been this way and it probably will always be this way and it’s just how people work.

And more on Keenan’s recent comments that he was “conned” into the Halloween show:

Here’s the thing: We get interviewed by journalists all the time, and I’ve known Maynard a long time, and he can be not the most patient guy and he can be very sarcastic, especially when you have some dipshit journalist asking you stupid questions or trying to trick you into answering something. Or maybe they’ve written an article about you that wasn’t favorable and now they’re interviewing you again. I’d rather you talk to him about it, but we all know that the stuff he does outside of Tool he wants it to be just as important as Tool, and the Tool fans are the main people who support that. And the Tool fans are the ones who made the other opportunities happen for him. So I don’t know why the fuck he would say something like that. But I do know he would be joking or he would say something really sarcastic if he wasn’t liking the interviewer or if it’s a joke taken out of context.

So if you’re a fan, I would ignore it and concentrate on the product that’s being put out and not really get into the silly, soap-opera situations that come up, like some bad Shakespearean play. I don’t know. But everyone likes controversy, right? Everyone wants to hear on TMZ that someone farted.

On future plans:

I’d love to tour more. It’s my favorite part about playing. But we do need to get back to the writing and get that record done, get some lyrics on it and make it really good. And then we can tour more [laughs].

Read the full interview here.