With the announcement of Tool’s forthcoming US tour, it raises the question: Might an album announcement soon follow? In a new interview with Rolling Stone, guitarist Adam Jones revealed that while the band remains hard at work on a new record, they’re still a ways away from finishing it. The impending tour is being used as a “little break” from writing, Jones explained.

Nevertheless, Jones described the sessions as “wonderful,” adding, “Things are really flowing and going really well, and I’m just blown away at the stuff that’s coming together. I’m excited and can’t wait for it to be done. It’s something I’ve been missing for a long time [laughs], that beautiful collaboration that we have because we’re all so different and have different tastes. But again, when you are all meeting in the middle and that thing you do that meets in the middle is just beautiful, it’s very rewarding. So yes, I’m very happy.”



Jones said the band has 20 potential song ideas, which they’ve shared with frontman Maynard James Keenan via FTP and Dropbox. Jones added that Keenan has even written some lyrics, “but until the song’s done and he knows how the end is, he’s still figuring out the flow.”

During a Halloween show in Tempe, Arizona last month, Tool debuted an instrumental called “Descending”. Jones confirmed that it was a shortened version of an “amazing” new song that clocks in between 13 and 14 minutes.

There’s still no timetable for the album’s release, but Jones said the band will go back to work following the completion of the tour and hopes to release it sometime in 2016 so “we can tour more.”