Why Danny Carey Never Plays to a Click Track With Tool

A lot of bands use click tracks to stay in step, but you’ll never find Tool‘s Danny Carey using one with his band. During a recent interview with producer/YouTube host Rick Beato, Carey shared why using a click track has never been part of the group’s process.

The Tool Drum Process

To start with, Carey sheds a little light with Beato discussing a bit about their process.

“We go to a big room to capture the drums,” says Carey (as transcribed by Metal Injection). “We’ll go to a place like Ocean Way or O’Henry — someplace that has a million dollars worth of microphones and a big beautiful room. And then, our goal is just to capture the drum tracks, and we all play together.”

He adds, “We’ll agree on a tempo, and we’ll start a click in our heads. And then, as soon as I count it off, we’re just playing.”

“We’ll do however many takes it takes for me to be happy with my thing, and then we will do edits. It’s funny that we usually play the song from beginning to end, and inherently, it’ll be a couple of BPM off, from this excitement or however you’re feeling that day. A lot of time, it wouldn’t match very well, [but] you try to get one take all the way through.”

Why Danny Carey Doesn’t Play to a Click Track

It actually makes quite a bit of sense when you consider Tool’s style of music.

“I’ve never tracked a Tool song to a click… I think a lot of it is because a lot of Tool songs are such weird time signatures, and it would be hard to program a click or something, who knows,” admits the drummer. “But I think it’s okay if things speed up or slow down a little bit. It breathes a little.”

READ MORE: Danny Carey Names the Three Hardest Tool Songs to Play

He adds, “Most of the stuff I grew up listening to, like all that old prog stuff, you hear it. It’s funny how sensitive you become to tempo changes after being inundated with click perfection over all these last years.”

Danny Carey’s Thoughts on Playing to a Click

There’s a certain human element in playing without the click, one that Carey appreciates.

“It kind of takes the magic out of it, I think. But I hope that other people don’t just hear it as wrong,” says the drummer, knowing that his way of playing may be more in the minority these days.

“I think you can kind of feel like that, probably the young kids, as they’re so conditioned to everything being perfect, it might be hard for them to listen to classical music or stuff that breathes. It’s another world that’s for sure.”

Tool’s Danny Carey Speaks With Rick Beato