pacificlectic : concert reviews & eclectic music news

As reported in Antiquiet (the recap quoted below) & Loudwire (the longer interview)…

A couple of weeks ago, Maynard James Keenan released Conditions of My Parole, the sophomore effort from his “solo” project Puscifer. In a recent interview with Loudwire, he touched on the subject of new albums from the other acts he fronts – Tool and A Perfect Circle, as the former hasn’t released any new material since 2006, and the latter since 2003.

When asked about Tool, and the band’s modus operandi of having guitarist Adam Jones and drummer Danny Carey of writing the music before Maynard gives his input, he stated: “I’m allowing them their space to do what they do, so we’re still in that mode. Even if they told me how close they are to being done, I couldn’t tell you because if I say 60 percent people will start counting down. When it’s done everyone will know. But I haven’t done anything yet. They write forever and then we go in and knock it all out. We’re writing. We’re writing vocals.”

He added that “nothing’s solid” yet, and compared Tool’s writing process to Puscifer’s: “With Puscifer, there’s ideas and then we’ll record stuff. Then we’ll go back and change stuff and fix stuff and record new stuff before we finally put it all together. But with Tool, we practice jams, but there’s no actual recording going on until it’s time to record.”

On whether or not any touring will happen when Tool’s fifth album finally drops, Maynard said that fans shouldn’t get their hopes up for an extensive amount of dates: “Physically, I can’t do it, so that’s not gonna happen. We will tour, but it won’t be the old school dog and pony show of eight months of beating yourself to death.” Regarding the necessity that artists have of making money from touring, he said: “How much do you need, really? If we can make a living going out for a few weeks a year and keep people satisfied by making sure we play the locations we need to hit […] Who gives a s–t how much money you have if your back hurts so much you can’t stand up. Money’s not the goal. Having fun making the art, that’s the goal.”

As for the possibility of a new A Perfect Circle album, he was decidedly less enthusiastic, mentioning that he and guitarist Billy Howerdel don’t have much ready at the moment: “We’ve been kicking around some stuff. Nothing’s ready. Until it’s really solid it doesn’t make any sense to present it, and right now he’s busy with Ashes Divide and I’m doing Puscifer.”

Puscifer will be featured on a special Halloween appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman. After that, the band kicks off their North American tour, of which I’ll be at the Seattle gig (look for a review shortly thereafter):

• 11/7 Seattle, WA Paramount Theatre
• 11/9 Salt Lake City, UT Capitol Theatre
• 11/10 Denver, CO Paramount Theatre
• 11/12 St. Louis, MO Peabody Opera House
• 11/14 Minneapolis, MN State Theatre
• 11/15 Chicago, IL Cadillac Palace Theatre
• 11/17 Cleveland, OH Lakewood Civic Auditorium
• 11/18 Toronto, ON Sony Centre for the Performing Arts
• 11/19 Detroit, MI Royal Oak Music Theatre
• 11/22 Boston, MA Orpheum Theatre
• 11/23 Philadelphia, PA Tower Theatre
• 11/25 Brooklyn, NY Brooklyn Academy of Music
• 11/26 Washington, DC Lisner Auditorium
• 11/27 Charlotte, NC Ovens Auditorium
• 11/29 Knoxville, TN Tennessee Theatre
• 11/30 Atlanta, GA Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center
• 12/2 Tulsa, OK Brady Theatre
• 12/6 Los Angeles, CA Orpheum Theatre
• 12/9 Phoenix, AZ Ikeda Theater
• 12/10 Las Vegas, NV The Pearl

~Dan – np: Puscifer – Conditions of My Parole