As any die-hard TOOL fan can relate, the band's choice to leave everyone waiting years between album releases can be a chore. But rest assured, a follow-up to 2019's Fear Inoculum is definitely in the works.
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Patience is certainly a virtue for TOOL fans, who have waited years since the release of 2019's Fear Inoculum, the band's fifth official studio album (not counting Opiate and Salival). Of course, that's not exactly a terribly long wait in the grand scheme of things, but the gears are definitely in motion for their sixth album, according to bassist Justin Chancellor.
"We have a bright future ahead of us," he tells Mexico's SummaInferno in a recent interview.
After the band’s upcoming Latin American tour which kicks off in March, Chancellor says TOOL plans to “dedicate the next three months” to organizing ideas in studio for the next official offering, adding, “We’ve all shared our individual ideas with each other, and we have a really good pile of stuff.”
“The really difficult process is when you actually get together and make decisions about how it’s going to end up,” he explains of the group’s multi-stage album process. “That becomes a little more mathematical, a little more like in the classroom -- there’s a blackboard and there’s numbers and you have to make decisions. So that’s the stage we haven’t completely pulled off yet, but we’re committed to do that when we get back.”
“You have to make those decisions, and you have to kind of wrestle with each other a bit to get to that next stage,” he explains. “And then you have to record it, which is a whole other thing as well… It’s like a pregnancy, almost. When you go to the studio, you have to make this final decision of how it’s gonna sound and how you’re gonna play it, and it’s gonna live like that forever.”
“It’s a real delicate thing to be able to pull off,” he says of TOOL’s lengthy creative process. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable that we take a long time at all. I think that’s only natural, and that’s why I’m proud of it, because it was worked on really hard.”
Once it’s all buttoned up, fans may be adding a few new items to their ever-growing rarities collections as well. “The climate of releasing music has completely changed,” Justin says. “We’ve talked about releasing a single… We could also release an EP. I think because we have such a dedicated fan base, everyone’s gonna be up for it… So, we might not necessarily have to really wrestle out a whole album… Or you could release a single and then another single, another single, and then after a year of releasing singles, you could put them all together on a record and make that an album.”
Anything goes at this point, he concedes. “We’re just kind of making it up. But I can tell you that we absolutely have to write new music to continue doing what we’re doing. We wouldn’t be happy just to just sit on our laurels and play the same stuff over and over again. We really want to create new music to be able to continue doing what we love. So it’s coming. Trust me.”
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