An interview with Tool guitarist Adam Jones featured in Guitar World’s upcoming October issue has found it’s way online. In it, he discusses the serendipitous role the number seven played in their impending record, Fear Inoculum, which is scheduled for release on August 30th. Jones comments:
“I took a picture pointing to the number seven while we were recording, and a lot of the riffs Justin and I brought in were in seven. You don’t really go ‘I’m going to write a riff in seven!’
You just write a riff and you count it out and it turns out to be in seven. Without being too descriptive about the concept, the main thing is that the seven beat just kept coming up, and riffs in seven kept coming up. It was really weird!
When we finished recording, I went to the guys and said ‘I think we should called the record Volume 7’ because a lot of the songs are in seven and there are seven tracks on the record.
Then Maynard told me about a whole concept he had about the number seven. We were all like, ‘Oh My God! This is too weird!’ Then Alex Grey [Tool album artist] basically said the same thing and he has a concept that will reveal itself through video.
So there are a lot of rhythms and polyrhythms where we explore 7/4 or 7/3, and there’s a riff we count in 21 — which we count as three rounds of seven. I wrote a four-minute lead over something counted in 21, which is crazy!”
In other Tool news, yesterday (Aug. 2nd) saw the arrival of the group’s entire back catalog arriving on digital streaming services. Singer Maynard James Keenan said of the release:
“Our obsession with, and dream of, a world where BetaMax and Laser Disc rule has ended. Time for us to move on. But never fear. There’s a brand new thing we think you’re really gonna dig. It’s called Digital Downloads and Streaming. Get ready for the future, folks!”
Links to all streaming services for each of the individual records can be found below.
