Danny Carey: Tool Don’t Have a Record Label Anymore
Tool drummer Danny Carey recently revealed that the band is now without a record label, which one could take to mean that Fear Inoculum was Tool's final album on a major label contract. He also said he still hopes the group will release an EP this year, in place of planned tours that have come to a halt.
The proposed EP effort would supplant the majority of the band's 2020 concerts after the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic curbed most live shows, including Tool's spring North American tour.
Speaking to Skinny Puppy's Cevin Key on the musician's "Sunday Live Chat" Aug. 9, Carey admitted that Tool are currently taking a bit of a break. But it's one he hopes won't last for long — the percussionist seemed eager to get back into the recording studio with his bandmates.
"Tool hasn't been jamming," Carey explains, as pointed out by ThePRP. "We've been just kind [of] on hiatus. Nothing's really been happening. But I think it's time. We kept hoping that we were going to get back out, so we were just kind of, 'Hey, enjoy this while it lasts.' But now it's looking like it could go to the rest of the year, so we need to get the lead out and start functioning. Maybe knock out another EP, at least, or something like that."
He continues, "We've never really done that since our first release — done an EP — so I thought it would be kind of nice to do something like that. We don't have a record deal anymore — we're free agents — so we can kind of release whatever we want to release now, which is a good feeling."
Elsewhere in the chat, Carey underscored that Tool were about to "start the biggest American tour we've ever done. So that was a heartbreaker when all that hit the fan. So we're just kind of in suspension now. We have dates held in November and December, but it's highly unlikely … to pan out."
It's not the first time that Carey has set his sights on a new EP from Tool this year. The drummer also floated the idea in April, near the pandemic's start, when he was a guest on a music school webinar.
"I'm hoping, during this downtime, as soon as we're able, maybe we'll get together — Justin [Chancellor, bass] and I, and Adam [Jones, guitar] — maybe start hashing out some new Tool stuff in the meantime, maybe write another EP since we're down and we can't do anything else," Carey said at the time.
Tool's last EP was 1992's Opiate, issued ahead of their debut studio album Undertow. It wasn't available on major streaming services until the group finally acquiesced to the digital domain in 2019.
Tool's Danny Carey Talks to Skinny Puppy's Cevin Key - Aug. 9, 2020
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