A Tool for Probing the Psyche

For a band with the most utilitarian of names, Tool’s music and image could hardly be more mysterious or archly arcane.

The band members never appear in their darkly surreal music videos, and the lead singer is so chameleon-like on stage that even devoted fans pass him unaware in the street. Tool songs are usually grinding, radio-unfriendly epics with catchy titles like, oh, “Prison Sex.” With piercing guitars and a toxic tribal vibe, the songs mine the disturbing psychological landscapes also mapped by Nine Inch Nails and the darkest Pink Floyd songs, and toss in obscure references to the mystical.

Not your typical hit fodder.

There is one certainty in the enigmatic realm of Tool: The band has cast a spell over legions of heavy-music fans. And because that genre’s followers are so faithful, the new Tool album, “Lateralus,” is being seen as a potential blockbuster when it arrives in stores Tuesday.

“Heavy music is like a rock--it lasts and ages--while most pop is a balloon on the wind,” says Lonn Friend, editor in chief of KNAC.com, the Internet home of the classic Los Angeles heavy rock station. “Heavy music goes not just to the soul of the artist but to the soul of the fan. Those fans stay loyal.”

Tool’s fans are hungry. Five years have passed since the release of the band’s second album, “Aenima,” which has sold 2.4 million copies. The Tool faithful were able to get a fix last year with the platinum-selling debut release from A Perfect Circle, a band fronted by Tool singer Maynard James Keenan. Keenan, whose voice veers from a supple murmur to towering shrieks, has called Circle a separate and ongoing band for him, not a mere side project.

While that odd double duty adds another enigmatic wrinkle to the Tool story, Keenan’s bandmates say it doesn’t add internal intrigue. “We all have our things we do to keep busy,” says drummer Danny Carey. “Maynard’s just happened to get real big. That’s fine.”

On a recent afternoon, Carey and guitarist Adam Jones are taking a break in the band’s cluttered rehearsal digs, a nondescript building behind a strip of Hollywood Boulevard storefronts. Although the band’s music often seems haunted or threatening, these bandmates are casual and quiet-spoken. Carey looks like a hunky, aging surfer, and the long-haired Jones has the mien of a veteran graphic artist--fitting, considering that he is a sculptor and has worked in special effects in the film industry. Carey is a maven of occult studies, ancient religions and the like, while Jones is the key visual mastermind for the band’s distinctive (and disturbing) videos and album covers.

“Art is a very powerful thing and [acts] don’t take advantage of it,” Jones said. “I think they just go with the formula, what’s selling, how fast they can ride that thing. Look at any war propaganda--how much thought goes into it. It’s so intriguing. The colors they use, the shapes, everything. We think about that.”

Instead of playing guitars and lip-syncing for videos, Tool uses videos as miniature movies, such as “Sober,” the bizarre stop-action video in 1993 that helped define the band’s powerful, eerie vibe.

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The group was started by Jones and Keenan, an Ohio native who arrived in Los Angeles looking to break from his youth in a Baptist home and military academies. The pair hooked up with Kansas-native Carey, the drummer from Green Jello. The quartet is rounded out by Justin Chancellor, who replaced original bassist Paul D’Amour.

The band made a decision to keep the focus on the music, using anonymity and guises to diffuse celebrity. This month, for instance, the quartet is featured on the cover of Spin magazine, but a glowing rod obscures their eyes. Like Pink Floyd, a band cited by Jones, Tool prefers to remain wizards behind the curtain.

“That is probably what is most courageous about Tool,” said KNAC.com’s Friend. “Their egos were not so dominant that they had to have their faces and their costumes and their images splattered over their original videos. Most bands from the MTV generation are perceived, either cool or not cool, by how they looked in those clips, by their fashion.”

In heavy-music circles, Tool’s approach resonates with fans who seem more willing to build long-term relationships with artists than their counterparts in other genres, such as hip-hop or pure pop, where new faces are coveted.

Be it Metallica or AC/DC, Led Zeppelin or Korn, heavy music stars see their older albums continue to sell briskly. New fans gravitate in while older fans rarely stray.

“The fans are insanely loyal; it’s like a culture,” says Colin Helms, editor of the CMJ New Music Report. “It’s an age-old teenage angst thing. It’s a lifestyle, like punk, only so much bigger. . . . They have that classic metal conceit of playing into the dark, dangerous mythology aspect that has been part of metal culture since Day 1.”

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Retailers say that fan base should put Tool atop the U.S. album chart. “I would be surprised if this album does not debut No. 1,” said Chris Stidman, merchandise manager for the Best Buy chain, adding that 500,000 or more copies may be sold the first week.

The album finds Tool adding more nuances (see accompanying review). Keenan’s work with A Perfect Circle affected the band’s yearlong making of “Lateralus.”

“There were times, a lot of times actually, where Maynard was gone,” Carey said. “So instead of thinking about his part in all that or the vocals, we were able to keep pushing the arrangements and making the songs almost a whole just in the music.”

More than anything, Carey said, Tool has figured out its members’ own identities. “You know, we were more sensitive to each and more sensitive to the songs. We just want the songs to be the best they can be. . . . It’s about growing. The relationship’s growing and the music has to grow right along with it as just a natural outlet.”