Tool

"We are in France at the moment," announces Tool guitarist Adam Jones, "but I'd much rather be in Australia...It's cold, it's raining, it's depressing and nobody speaks English," he laughs. Nevertheless, the band is having fun, I am told, and things are generally going well...

Considering that Tool have just been nominated for two Grammys for their latest release, '10,000 Days', it's tempting to say that 'well' is something of an understatement on Jones' part - additionally to this prestigious nomination, the California quartet have spent the better part of 2006 on an extremely successful tour of the US, Canada and Europe and are currently getting ready to also pay Australia and New Zealand a visit for the first time in five years.

That's right, five years. "A lot of journalists go, 'well, your album was five years in the making'...and it wasn't," protests Jones. "You gotta think - we put out a record ['Lateralus', 2001], we toured it for two and a half years, then we took a year off, started writing for the new record, then we put that out. It's the same every time."

However, while '10,000 Days' sold 564,000 copies in its opening week in America alone, and in the process earned itself the top spot on the Billboard Charts, the critics have not exactly been blown away by Tool this time around. Jones explains, "Who knows what they're comparing it to...You shouldn't rely on what one person says, even if the review is a positive one. You meet these guys and you're like, 'What? You wrote that article? You're an expert on music? Give me a break'," he pauses, then laughs, "But it's just a job and it's a nice one!"

At the end of the day, however, as long as the band is content that's all that really matters, according to Jones, "We learned very early on that it's a perspective thing - you have to follow your own perspective and if you're happy it's reflective in you and will be reflective in your fans too. If you like it, someone else is gonna like it. If you're writing for someone else it's not going to be from your heart, it'll be from your head and that's not good. This is four people who are control freaks meeting in the middle and trying stuff, arguing, compromising with a maximum amount of respect. There's nothing like walking out of a studio going, 'Oh my god, I'm so happy with that', listening to it and being very proud of it."

Another thing Jones should be very proud of is the praise '10,000 Days' has received for its incredible, mind-bending artwork, thanks to the dark genius of the guitarist himself as well as a small, hand-picked team of helpers.

"Everybody fought us on it!" laughs Jones, "'You can't put that out! It's too expensive! You can't put that out!' And we got it out. It was nurtured from me and I directed it and orchestrated it, but as far as doing it all, I didn't do it all, I hired the right people who worked very hard with me. So I'm very happy it's up for a Grammy because it really was a lot of hard work. I'm so excited about that."

Apart from looking after Tool's album artwork throughout the band's career, Jones has also played a large part in the disturbing, though strangely beautiful, song videos for which the band are notorious for, yet have only once appeared in themselves.

"From day one we decided we were gonna let the music be the first push, visuals the second push and our egos the third," Jones explains, "so we kind of stand in the shadows. Because, you know, we're not really interesting people - we're kinda geeky and we're not cute pretty boys that can jump around stage really cool. A lot of the records I had, I never knew what King Crimson looked like, or Pink Floyd, or especially Yes. It was about their art, you'd get the vinyl and sit on your bed and stare at it and really get off on it. I always admired that because they really pushed art so much, that's an example we're following.

"To sum it up, you have to have the ying and the yang. We take our art very, very seriously but we don't take ourselves seriously at all. Like, at all," Jones chuckles.


Tool play at the Big Day Out on Fri 2 February
'10,000 Days' is out now through SonyBMG