Tool Settles 8-Year Lawsuit! Does This Mean a New Album is Imminent?

For those keeping score, Tool’s 10,000 Days album was released on April 26, 2006. That was 3,247 days (8 years, 10 months and 19 days) ago. We haven’t heard any new music from them since because (a) they work very, very slowly; and (b) there’s the matter of that stupid lawsuit.

Let’s review. In 2007, a friend of the band–obviously an ex-friend now–claimed he’d created some artwork for the band and wanted credit (and cash) for it. Tool had an insurance policy against these sorts of claims, but then the company that issued the policy turned around and sued Tool. That meant the band had to counter-sue the insurer.

Adam Jones offered this analogy to Yahoo! Music:

“It got really ugly and shameful,” Jones says. “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.”

It got stupidly complicated very quickly: lawyers, paralegals, depositions, briefs, motions, postponements and lots and lots of money. And if that wasn’t enough, one member of the band–Jones isn’t saying who–had some kind of scarily serious medical issue that slowed everything down.

The good news is that the trial is over with everything being settled in Tool’s favour. One new song is done with ten others in various states of completion. As to when it’ll be out, there’s no deadline, but Jones thinks maybe fans will see something by the end of the year. Let’s hope.

(Via Blabbermouth)