Tool: Danny Carey, Maynard Reveal Favorite Songs Audio Ink Radio

Tool: Danny Carey, Maynard Reveal Favorite Songs

2024-03-28

Progressive metal band Tool – Author Cat Badra, Photo via Tim Cadiente

Tool have a lot of great songs. The progressive metal band has just five albums out, but all of them are choc full of epic, lengthy jams that could easily top any best-of list. I recently wrote a list of the 10 best Tool songs of all time, and it was nearly impossible to whittle the list down to just 10. Any of their songs could have made the cut. So, what are band members’ favorite Tool songs?

Tool’s First and Biggest Hit

Most fans were introduced to Tool via their megahit “Sober.” The song was the first single unleashed from their debut studio album, “Undertow,” in 1993. “Sober” really put Tool on the map and remains their most-played radio single to date, along with “Schism,” which is off 2001’s “Lateralus.” That said, it’s not a big surprise that neither Tool drummer Danny Carey or vocalist Maynard James Keenan picked those songs as their favorite Tool jams.

Maynard James Keenan

Previously, we reported on the Tool song that Keenan wants new listeners to have as the very first Tool song they hear. In the interview with BBC Radio 1 Rock Show host Daniel P. Carter, Keenen said that new fans should begin their Tool journey with “The Pot” from the band’s 2006 album, “10,000 Days.”

In the interview, he said, “To me, that’s one of the examples of some of our earlier energy blending perfectly with our more mature energy and kind of nods to our influences over the year.” He added, “I feel like we really kind of struggle to make sure that all four of us shine as best we can on everything we do, to exhaustion. But I feel like this one is one of the one’s that felt, not effortless, but fresh and conscious consciously effortless, if that makes sense? It just captures that vibe that I think.”

Danny Carey

In a new interview with Rick Beato, Carey named what he believes are the two best sounding Tool songs of all time. Beato asked for just one, but that was too difficult, so Carey went with two. He picked the first two songs off the band’s seminal 1996 album, “Ænima”: “Stinkfist” and “Eulogy.”

“We just remastered the ‘Ænima’ album… ‘Stinkfist’ and ‘Eulogy’ both sound incredible on that, man,” he said in the interview. “The way things are synced together and all that, those are two of my favorites that have stuck out, that’s for sure.”

Carey added that hearing the remastered version of the songs probably influenced his decision to go with those picks. Hearing the tracks remastered gave them new life. “It was like, ‘Oh my god, I forgot how good that sounded,'” he said. “I hadn’t heard it in an analog form in ages.”

I agree with Carey’s picks and pretty much anything off “Ænima” as being must-listen Tool songs. The band’s latest album dropped in 2019, “Fear Inoculum.” Audio Ink Radio named the album the No. 2 best rock and metal record of the 2010 decade, saying it’s “everything Tool fans have come to love from the band, from complex song structures to epic instrumentals to Keenan’s menacing vocals.”

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Cat Badra

Meet the expert - Cat Badra is a music writer for Audio Ink Radio and a range of other music, sports and lifestyle publications. She's a graduate of Michigan State University with a master's degree in theater and speech. Contact her at cat@audioinkradio.com.

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