While TOOL are gearing up for a series of Latin American tour dates – including their inaugural TOOL Live in the Sand destination festival – the alt-metal outfit’s celebrated bass wiz, Justin Chancellor, has revealed in a new interview that he and his bandmates intend to spend a few months in the studio together this year to develop song ideas.
Speaking with Summa Inferno (via The Prp), Chancellor noted that he and his bandmates have “already shared” a bunch of musical ideas with each other in recent times, and as soon as they get back from the tour down South, they’re “actually gonna dedicate the next three months after that” to working in the studio.
“There’s a lot of stages in the process. And much of it is just every day — we all have ideas and when they’re good, when we like them, we kind of save them or memorize them,” he said. “But then the really difficult process is when you actually get together and make decisions about how it’s going to end up. And 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.”
Considering they’ve yet to fully enter the incubation process with new music, there are currently no firm plans around what could become of TOOL’s “really good pile of stuff.” While we’re nearing six years on from the release of Fear Inoculum, it’s unclear if the next TOOL release will be a full-length album. It could be more bite-sized.
“So, we’ve talked about releasing a single, just one song— we could do that,” Chancellor suggested. “We could also release an EP. And I think because we have such a dedicated fan base, everyone’s gonna be up for it.”
Despite the details being up in the air, the promising thing about Chancellor’s reveal is that new music could be on the horizon, and that he believes “[TOOL] absolutely have to write new music to continue doing what we’re doing.”
He added: “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.”
As previously reported, TOOL are due to stage their inaugural TOOL Live in the Sand even in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic from March 7-9th. The all-inclusive destination festival likewise features performances from Primus, Mastodon and more.
From there, TOOL have a run of headlining dates booked around Latin America. You’ll find the remaining date info here.