who am i to judge and strike you down?

-|-ooL

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A Michael Dwyer interview with Maynard James Keenan and Justin Chancellor in 2001.
Maynard James Keenan - I think that tool, in general, has kinda carved out a nice little niche for itself and that having come up of that generation of bands - alternative rock or heavy rock bands like Soundgarden, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, Tool. That whole wave of music kinda set up a new standard in terms of independence and not necessarily listening to what radio, or the record company or the executives or mtv, for that matter, had to say, about what you're supposed to do with music. I think alot of that really kinda broke down the boundaries, you don't have to have, you know, verse-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus-goodbye. ended up really..kinda explored some areas, you don't necessarily have to have a record every 10 months, you know you can actually explore a little bit. So i think because we're that kinda person, we really like to explore different aspects of what.. they say "you're suposed to do it this way" and we say "well why? lets do it a different way". We're not in our videos and what not, so i think one of the things that came out of kinda getting fed up with all that lawsuit stuff you know all that stuff? we just wanted to go make some music one of the good things that came out of apc was that i could..i was allowed to, by my fans, i was allowed to go out and do something outside of the band that everybody relates to having been just you know "you're only allowed to be in this thing", "you're not allowed to do do anything else, we see you as being this", "you are Smashing Pumpkins, that's all you're allowed to be", "you're Pink Floyd, that's all you're allowed to be". I think in that we've..us as individuals, one of the individuals in tool that when out and showed you also you don't necessarilly always have to be tool either, we can explore beyond that. It's actually a whole seperate audience in ofitself , with a huge crossover, but has a life of it's own, its a while seperate thing. So thats another thing in a way Tool has brought you and actually has brought other bands, another solution, that you can actually go outside of your little circle that got you there and explore and take a risk.

Michael Dwyer - Justin, how did you feel when apc went ballistic? Did you kinda feel like uhoh, like was there a glimmer of doubt in your mind that tool would get back and do it again?
Justin Chancellor - Not really. I mean like a couple of moments of insecurity i think were only natural. But we were all in close contact and communication about everything. We'd definately done a substantial amount of work already on the new tool stuff. Personally, I totally could understand Maynard wanting to persue another thing creatively in the meant time when things were kinda getting pretty oppresive in the business world. and I don't think I ever worried that it was going to be over I was just eager to get on with it. So we had to let him to his thing and patiently craft away at what we were doing, it was pretty useful for us, the three of us explored alot of areas that we might not have had the time to go to. And then by the time the apc tour was over we were all gong ho to get back into it, he was all refreshed and we were all happy to have him back.

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MJK - even at my age now, I'm still a little hostile about a few things. But its good to i think its still, its still therapudic, there's plenty to be hostile about expecially living in LA. But the trick is not to get scheme your head off bout it, rather than doing something about it. There's always that arguemnet in the entertainment industry, about films how some films are very hostile. The chicken and the egg theory, did hostile films spur kids to go out and do crazy things? My opion, which is just my opion, is that no, because its being expressed on the screen. Some crazy, insane, serial killer movie. wWe all have that in us, we all have some kinda crazy thing in us that we've denied. there's a shadow aspect, everybody has thought about some pretty dark stuff in your days i'm sure. So the problem is when people opress it in some way. Suddenly we see some crazy movie like American Psycho, or read the book American Psycho. If you read it or see it on the screen you can go "oh, i've wondered what that would be like and now there's a movie i can see, i can feel it, and now i don't have to go try it." It's been expressed. I think a thousand years of, sorry two thousand years of western religion opressing our emotions, and trying to control our emotions and deny our intuative, irrational side has resulted in gladiator mentality. You know tnt(??), WWF and whole slue of slashing movies for the last twenty years. Had to come out somewhere, it was being opressed and repressed. I think it's good to be angry, i think angry is good. It allows ppl to express that, especially in this day and age when people in high schools have completely lost faith in organised sports. None of the kids get out there on the field and rough it up anymore. They're off playing video games and working on the internet, they don't get out there and stretch their arms and really work some of that horonmal stuff out.

MD - do you feel your sense of humour is overlooked?
MJK - oh yeah, unbelievably. People just think we're just this dour, serious, dark band and they just missed it. Swing and a miss. Three strikes. Unbelievable. Because there's just so much in our music that's just very tongue and cheek. But once again it comes from that Monty Pythonesque, Bill Hicks, (????), early Steve Martin movie point of view which most pople i guess just don't get it.
JC - People just kinda hear the music and pretty much decide there can't be anything funny about that. It's like a lot of reactions to the videos, ohs it's so dark. It's kinda a very surface view of it. There's alot of real beauty in there too.

MD - Stinkfist was voted number 2 on the Triple J Hottest 100, which is a huge radio listeners poll in Australia. It struck me as, I dunno if amusing is the word, that this song had high rotation airplay and it's a song whose central metaphor is anal penetration. Do you get a certain satisfaction out of being subversive for it's own sake in that way?
MJK - Ah, yeah...There's more to that. I probably shouldn't say because you guys will pull the song of the air...One of the stations here, I think it was MTV or K-Rock or somebody, they blurred out finger deep, knuckle deep and elbow deep. They kinda blurred that part of the song out but they left in shoulder deep because it was inconceivable.
MD - Haha.
MJK - They changed the name of the song from Stinkfist to Track Number 1, blurred out all that stuff, but what they didn't realize is that in the breakdown in Portugese I say "suck my dick"...it's in there.

MD - Hence my question, being subversive for it's own sake is good enough for you?
MJK - Ahuh. Yeah. We haven't done anything like that on this record though, which is probably just a timing issue. But the last one was pretty fun, just inserting a few things, so to speak, here and there.

MD - It is a reoccuring motif though I must say in Tool records, anal pentration. What is it that attracts you to the image?
MJK- Ah, I think there's that...a...it's almost like the whole motif of the entire music Tool music in general is that if you just relax and give in and listen I think you'll really enjoy yourself.......

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