I think the Grammys are nothing more than some gigantic promotional machine for the music industry. They cater to a low intellect and they feed the masses. They don’t honor the arts or the artist for what he created. It’s the music business celebrating itself.
But then it hasn’t really been a focus of our government to make us an educated people.
All I can do is say I smell a rat. I don’t know where it is or what kind of rat it is, but as an artist, I can express how. But I couldn’t responsibly stand up and tell people which way to go, because then I’m just as guilty as the people who are telling everybody else what to do and where to go.
Actors have these delicate appendages called Egos.
And if you don’t live, you have nothing to write about.
The record company’s worst fear is that you’ll fall in love or get rich.
I would hope they would be our fellow artists, rather than trying to emulate or idolize clowns like us.
I’m a pessimist. But I’m a pessimist with a sense of responsibility.
Prescott National Forest is right on the edge of my home in Arizona.
Yeah, because I think it’s more important just to inspire people to wake up one day and pick up a book and start feeling it out for themselves.
A lot of people into Tool, for some reason, are not interested in humor.
Desert, in generally, is a very good place to find yourself. Or lose yourself.
I believe that when you go into a gallery or a museum, the most powerful pieces are the ones that don’t have the words in the corner that distract you from the larger piece.
Adam does most of the work when it comes to videos and he basically does the same as I do with the lyrics. The videos are his visual interpretations of our music.
The process that we go through in recording with Tool is very organic, but at the same time it is very thought out. There is a very left-brain process of dissecting what we’re doing and drawing from source material; it’s very research oriented and esoteric.
I think the biggest problem working with me would be that I’m an only child, and so I have an internal dialogue that goes on that I just assume you can hear.
I feel like with music there’s so much ego rooted in expressing your thoughts and your experiences with it.
I always knew that I wanted to be an artist.
Because as an only child, you have your own little world.
I’m a lot easier to work with now than I have been in the past, for sure.