Shred School Review

Bastardometer from Toolarmy sent me his review of the recent Shred School session with Adam Jones (minus pigtails). Here’s what he had to say:

Adam was the last guy to give his presentation. After Herman Li (from Dragonforce) finished, Adam was up. They had a curtain that was behind the stage. I thought it was like any other stage were it was used for aesthetics, but they drew the curtain back and Adams rig was behind. He had one Diezel head with two Mesa cabs and his pedal board.

He comes onstage and tells everyone to come up and sit down in front. I was about six feet away. He said that he just played Bonnaroo in front of 80,000 people and he was more nervous now. He then set up his lap top and started up The Pot (a backing track with guitar removed) and played the whole song from start to finish.

He said that he normally doesn’t have Maynard in his monitors. Maynard is not the glue. Maynard swims on top of what the other three are doing, doing his own thing. He told us that he didn’t have any one thing planned, that he was just rolling with the punches, and that we should feel free to ask questions when we want. I asked about Danny and he went into a pretty detailed version of his injury. He told us that he had a lot of stuff to share. Art work, sculptures and props from video shoots as well as some new material that they had been starting to jam on. (He also made it clear that this may or may not make it onto a new record). He also mentioned that that day Tools lawsuit was over. Ending result was amiable. Both parties just walked away. (I’m assuming that this was the thing with Cam de Leon)

He started talking about how he and the guys work, were its everyone bringing in material and sometimes you have to let go of something you love for the greater good of the song. He started talking about how to play around with time. For example , he looped a part in 5 (intro riff to Vicarious) and let it loop through his Line 6 DL4 (for those who don’t know this is a delay pedal – Hellboy) and would play along with it in 7. He showed how it would would go out and come back into sync. Very cool, showed a few examples of this.

He then went into the whole sacred geometry bit we’ve all heard/read. Which led him into the Fibonacci Sequence, which led him into Lateralus. Justin came up with the intro heavy riff thats in 9,8,7. He started showing us 4ths and notes that are a half step from each other and played at the same time, which, led him into Stinkfist. So he started playing that part as well as bit after (Stinkfist 2:55-4:00)

He told us to not listen to anybody that trys to dissuade us from what we want to do.
“If you want to run a laundromat and surf all day. Open a laundromat on the beach.”
“Do what you want to do. Have it come from the heart.”

He then started talking about Wings and how that was his favorite piece he’s ever written and how he was anxious about how Maynard was going to handle it. Said that you have to trust your band mates and that he’s glad he did because Maynard nailed it. Then he went int Ænima and played bits and pieces of that.

Questions about the videos came up and he said that they (both Vicarious and The Pot) should be out soon. When asked about the Live DVD his reply was “Sore subject”…whatever that means.

Then he had Camella (who looked stunning, by the way) start bringing in the props and sculptures and said that when he was finished that we could all take pics and check shit out. It was around this time that the Moderator said that Adam had ten more minutes. Adams retort was “I’m staying as long as I want”. We all clapped. So he showed us the Head from Schism, the one where the ear pops out. He showed us the little guy from Parabola (there were two of them) as well as the Executive from Parabola (it was bout 5’5″ tall) He also showed a bronze of the sculpture he did for the Peach album Giving Birth To A Stone. About 12″ tall. He also said that Alex Grey liked them and wanted to sell them in his store, which Adam was pleased about.

The jackass moderator came back and told Adam again that others needed to bail and that they wanted to give them the chance to do the signing sessions.  Adam complied and started to put his gear away when I (and others) opened my mouth and asked him to play the new riff.  He did and it had a similar intro thing as Vicarious did that went into a heavy part that was in 7.it was very cool and sounded (to me) like something that could have been on Ænima. It was very cool. That was pretty much it, to the best of my recollection – Adam would have kept on going if the guy hadnt have stopped him, which REALLY irritated me. Adam started getting into his groove. Camella was snapping pix pretty much the whole time so (hopefully) some photos will be placed up at TA.

Bastardometer also emailed me some photos.  These were all taken from his phone, so they’re not great quality.  He mentions he may have some more for us, and if this is the case then I’ll post them when I get them.