TOOL Aims To Record New Music In The "Second Half Of The Year"

After taking 13 years between 10,000 Days and Fear Inoculum, TOOL is looking to tighten up that gap and aims to record new music in the “second half of the year.” In a pair of new interviews with Heavy Consequence and Revolver, members of the band confirmed that new music is in the works and they want to release it sooner rather than later.

“I’d say by June we’re going to be back home after Europe, and the second half of the year we’re going to get in and give it another go to try and put some of it together,” bassist Justin Chancellor told Heavy Consequence. “We’re not going to be taking so much time over it if we’re going to do an album. We’re going to figure out how to do it a little bit quicker.”

According to a new profile from Revolver, TOOL has already started jamming on new material in the Hollywood rehearsal space they’ve used for the past 34 years. In that same feature, Chancellor also revealed the band’s internal intellectual property dictates that, once somebody writes something and shares it with the band, it is ultimately the property of TOOL—an important distinction given the individual members’ plethora of side projects.

“Our filter system is pretty intense. If it gets by the four of us in the band, then we figure it’s going to work,” drummer Danny Carey told Revolver. “It’s a really painstaking process that we go through to finish [an album], and get it where we are all completely convicted. It pays off in the long run because we never really get tired of performing our songs. It gives rise to a vehicle that we can all believe in.”

While the band members are certainly in agreement that there is new music and they do plan to release it at a quicker pace than 2019’s Fear Inoculum, there are still lots of other decisions to be made. In the interest of shortening the time between releases, members have discussed the idea of issuing a 30-minute EP rather than waiting to release a full 86-minute LP like Fear Inoculum—something Carey has been floating since 2020.

“It’ll be different this time. Everyone’s life is different, and everyone’s expectations are different,” Chancellor said. “Time is precious now, so you try and look for ways to be more efficient with the process. We’ve had a lot of discussion about that and how we can bring a new record to fruition in a slightly different way.”

Added Carey “Who knows? It could flip-flop and we could just go back to doing an Undertow [type of] record” of shorter songs, “That’s kind of appealing to me. I always like change, whatever direction it goes.”

The band’s range of options is widened by the fact that TOOL is not currently signed to a label and hasn’t been since Fear Inoculum.

“We’re free agents now,” as Carey put it. “We are free to do whatever we want.”

For now, TOOL has a full slate of tour dates on its schedule set to begin tonight, January 10th in Baltimore. The band plays coast-to-coast through mid-February before going abroad in May and June. For tickets and a full list of tour dates visit TOOL’s website.