In an era where music production is often tempo’d to a click track, Tool remain steadfast in keeping their rhythm tracks as organic as possible.
Drummer Danny Carey revealed that the band has never recorded to a click, explaining why Tool opt for an old-school “live in the studio” approach to recording drums in a new interview with YouTuber Rick Beato (as transcribed by Metal Injection).
“We go to a big room to capture the drums… We’ll go to a place like Ocean Way or O’Henry — someplace that has a million dollars worth of microphones and a big beautiful room,” Carey said. “And then, our goal is just to capture the drum tracks, and we all play together. We’ll agree on a tempo, and we’ll start a click in our heads. And then, as soon as I count it off, we’re just playing.”
To be fair, the complexities of Tool’s music, with its prog-y changes in tempo and time signatures, would be nearly impossible to program to a click — and the results would be quite rigid and robotic.
“I’ve never tracked a Tool song to a click,” Carey admitted. “I think a lot of it is because a lot of Tool songs are such weird time signatures, and it would be hard to program a click or something, who knows… But I think it’s okay if things speed up or slow down a little bit. It breathes a little. Most of the stuff I grew up listening to, like all that old prog stuff, you hear it. It’s funny how sensitive you become to tempo changes after being inundated with click perfection over all these last years.”
While Carey concedes that the click tempos “kind of takes the magic out of it,” he understands the current generation’s desire for digital precision and hopes Tool’s music can still exist in that sphere.
“…I hope that other people don’t just hear it as wrong,” said Carey of the slight human imperfections that come with tracking organically. “I think you can kind of feel like that, probably the young kids, as they’re so conditioned to everything being perfect, it might be hard for them to listen to classical music or stuff that breathes. It’s another world that’s for sure.”
Carey and Tool will be taking their well-oiled live performance across the UK and Europe for the remaining dates of their 2024 tour in May (get tickets here).
Meanwhile, Carey will also be playing drums alongside Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, and Steve Vai as the supergroup BEAT, paying tribute to the music of King Crimson on an extensive fall tour (tickets available here).
Watch Rick Beato’s interview with Carey below.