TOOL guitarist Adam Jones talked about the band

TOOL guitarist Adam Jones just talked about the band banning phones at concerts, and turning down stadiums, for upcoming tours. TOOL‘s Fear Inoculum European 2022 tour started in the UK and will continue until this summer.
Adam Thomas Jones is an award-winning musician and a four-time Grammy Awards. He is known as TOOL‘s guitarist. Adam Jones is rated as the 75th greatest guitarist ever according to Rolling Stone Magazine and placed ninth in Guitar World’s Top 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists. He has been involved in the creation of special effects and set designs as well as set design in the Hollywood film industry. Adam Jones is also the director for the majority of Instrument’s music videos.
In a fresh interview with Metal Hammer (Louder Sound), Adam Jones guitarist of the long-running TOOL band. They also described the workings of the band’s method for traveling and more:
“Well, you always want to do something you haven’t done in a long time. You always want to break the routine and make it more interesting for yourself, and there is a lot of negotiating that goes into it, but it ultimately comes down to Maynard. If I’m sick and have a 100-degree fever, I’m nauseous, I have the flu, I can still play, but for Maynard [James Keenan], he wouldn’t be able to sing. So, we give him the last word to make sure he can do the show if he’s not feeling well. But the set this time is pretty incredible, we’re doing some old school stuff and we’re really happy about it, some old and some new. It should be good.”
He added about why Tool never just plays the old songs:
“Yeah, I mean, it’s something that is Tool. Whatever we’re doing, we require it to go up a certain path, you know? So, it’s great: we have such a strong connection that clicks, and we really feed off of each other, so when we play something that we haven’t all played together for a long time there is this avenue of the unexpected and it more often than not turns out to be something very rewarding.”
Jones added for their fanbase:
“I mean, no… sometimes I look at the tour dates and I think, ‘Man, when was the last time we played here?’, but we just do what we do and we tear our guts out on stage. The approach is always the same on our end. The expectation, I maybe feel that pressure on the first show of the first leg, but it soon goes.
If I had my way I’d tour every six months of every year, it’s just an amazing connection that we get with our fans and it’s very rewarding. Every night is like climbing to the top of a mountain and then climbing back down again.”
Question: No photo policy is obviously very important to you guys; do you find it harder to implement that as the years pass and recording shows become more and more the norm?
“Yeah, I mean, for us, we’ve actually seen it changing and more and more big acts are asking their fans respectfully to enjoy the show, rather than looking at their camera the whole time. I think one of the problems is you get a lot of lights because people don’t know how to use their cameras correctly, which makes it very blinding onstage. It’s just…it’s that connection. You lose something without that connection, and you just want people to be in their own world rather than getting the whole show on their phone and then never looking at it again. It’s a big distraction. Have you ever been to a concert and you can’t see the show because the person in front of you is holding their phone up in front of the stage? It’s just kind of obnoxious. Just keep your phone in your pocket, enjoy the show we will see you after and you can get back on it. People need a break. I feel like become an appendage, like part of our anatomy, you know?”
Question: There’s a lot of material from the new album on the setlist, how important has it been to get the new stuff in front of people?
“Well, yeah, you wanna play the new tunes. You’ve been playing the old stuff for years and you finally get a chance to show people these new songs and that you’ve reached this next stage. But there is a tasteful balance to the set; we change things up every night, and we don’t play the exact thing every night. About 70% is the same every night, but if we’re doing two nights in a row somewhere then we’ll change it up quite a bit. Some people like to come twice, you know!”
Question: What does the rest of the year hold for you?
“I’m not sure. We have some plans, Maynard [James Keenan] has some things that he needs to do. We have some one-offs, we’ve got to that point where the schedules are coming up and we’re looking to commit to things. Basically, we all want to tour.”
You can watch The Witness by Adam Jones below!
TOOL 2022 European Tour Dates:
- 04/29 Frankfurt, GER – Festhalle
- 05/02 Manchester, UK – AO Arena Manchester
- 05/04 Birmingham, UK – Resorts World Arena
- 05/06 Dublin, IRE – 3Arena
- 05/09 London, UK – The O2 Arena
- 05/10 London, UK – The O2 Arena
- 05/12 Paris, FRA – AccorHotels Arena
- 05/13 Antwerp, BEL – Sportpaleis
- 05/15 Berlin, GER – Mercedes-Benz Arena
- 05/17 Cologne, GER – Lanxess Arena
- 05/19 Amsterdam, NET – Ziggo Dome
- 05/21 Krakow, POL – Tauron Arena
- 05/23 Prague, CZE – O2 Arena
- 05/24 Budapest, HUN – SportAréna