Tool‘s eight-year lawsuit has come to a close in the bands favor. While details were not disclosed, the court ruled in favor of band earlier this month. You may recall that the first sign of trouble came when this suit was originally filed against the band in 2005 by visual artist Cam De Leon. De Leon had designed numerous artwork elements for the band at the time and felt he was unfairly paid for them and that the bands usage exceeded his licenses. In a new interview with Yahoo, Tool guitarist Adam Jones summed up the long-running legal proceedings:

“When you try to be ethical and sleep well at night and try to do the right thing, and people around you are not doing the right thing and trying to take advantage of you, it really affects your creativity and your sleep and your relationships with people and everything you do. We would have had an album out a long time ago, we would have been taking more tours. But we’ve been discouraged and distracted by this major lawsuit, which is the worst thing that’s ever happened to us. It reminds me of one of those ads you see on TV where a guy goes, ‘Have you been in a car wreck? Call us!’” - Advertisement -

Those legal proceedings wrapped up at the beginning of this month with a court ruling in the bands favor. The reason they took such a toll on the band however, was that their own insurance company also filed its own suit against the band, due to Tool being unhappy with the way they handled the claims filed by De Leon and their alleged refusal to deal with them. Jones said:

“It got really ugly and shameful. This is a real simplification of the matter — but imagine paying auto insurance, getting into a wreck, and expecting the insurance company to cover you. And they come back to you and say, ‘Well, you drive an SUV and we don’t consider that an auto so we’re not going to cover you.’ And then they turn around and sue you because you want them to cover you. It’s crazy.”

Jones also revealed that one of the bands members (other than himself) had been suffering from undisclosed health issues, and that this also played a factor in the near-decade delay for the release of the groups new album:

“I’d rather let the person who dealt with the illness talk about it out of respect. But one thing was a really scary do-or-die, serious illness and that was really scary. When you’re trying to write music and you have that eating away at you – this person you’re married to and you love and hate at the same time has something they’re dealing with that’s out of their control – it’s distracting.”

In regards to the groups new album itself however, Jones mentioned that one song is complete for it with ten more in the works.

“Our greatest strength is jamming and coming up with stuff. We’re doing that really well now and I’m excited about everything we’re working on. Some of it’s really heavy, some of it’s complex and some is more atmospheric, but it’s definitely Tool. I think having this lawsuit out of the way should really speed of the progress of getting the album done.”

If all goes well, Jones hopes the group will have the album out by the year’s end, however they don’t have an exact schedule hammered out. For more on the bands writing process, Jones‘ thoughts on Tool memes and more, head to Yahoo.