Even Deeper # 4-Tapeworm
Aug 13 '02
The Bottom Line Tapeworm is one of the most anticipated side projects to come out from NIN and Tool's Maynard James Keenan.
Even Deeper # 4: Tapeworm
NIN News
With the recent acclaim of the live album and DVD for “And All That Could Have Been”, Nine Inch Nails had regained their stature as one of rock’s most adventurous and darkest bands after the poor response to their 1999 album “The Fragile”. With NIN taking a low profile in the mainstream music market, the band has not stopped any activity. This past June, drummer Jerome Dillon confirmed the news about the new musical direction is going to. Dillon described the new NIN sound as “brutal, stripped-down” which might mean that the accompanying bonus disc “Still” from the deluxe version of the NIN live album could be a preview of what might come from NIN.
Recent NIN news have also confirmed that longtime keyboardist/programmer Charlie Clouser has officially left the NIN fold to form a new project with Snake River Conspiracy guitarist Jason Slater while live guitarist Robin Finck is still working with Guns N’ Roses. NIN multi-instrumentalist Danny Lohner made a recent appearance in the debut video for the nu-metal band Trust Company while NIN mastermind Trent Reznor has been busy with several projects. Aside from writing songs for NIN, Reznor had been working on music for the classic PC game “Doom 3” where he and John Carmack had made an appearance at a video game expo in Los Angeles where they recently took a picture with actor Robin Williams. A recent news article from the Los Angeles time have announced of a rumored collaboration between Reznor and former Rage Against The Machine singer Zach De La Roca for De La Roca’s upcoming solo album. So far, nothing has been confirmed whether the news is true. The main concern for NIN as of now has been the long-awaited side project with Tool singer Maynard James Keenan and 12 Rounds Atticus Ross that is finally on its way for an upcoming release in late 2002 or early 2003 which has been known as Tapeworm.
What is Tapeworm?
Since the end of “The Downward Spiral” tour in early 1996, Reznor had finished building his new studio known as Nothing Studios in the middle of New Orleans. Tracks that Reznor had made in Nothing Studios in early 1996 were left unfinished and not used in NIN albums yet they were too good to be thrown away. Reznor decided to let his live band to work around the tracks. With Reznor as the director of the project, the real force behind these tracks were Danny Lohner and Charlie Clouser who remade those tracks into something that wasn’t NIN. Reznor decided to create these tracks as part of a new project he called Tapeworm. While Reznor worked on Marilyn Manson’s 1996 breakthrough album “Antichrist Superstar”, Lohner, Clouser, NIN guitarist Robin Finck, and longtime NIN drummer and programmer Chris Vrenna worked on Tapeworm. Finck ended up leaving due to a length of inactivity that forced him to join the Cirque De Soilel troupe and later on, Guns N’ Roses with singer Axl Rose. The rest of the camp helped Reznor on the “Antichrist Superstar” project while working on Tapeworm before Chris Vrenna decided to leave the fold to form a solo career which was heartbreaking for Reznor since Vrenna was one of the original people who helped him put NIN together.
Vrenna’s departure, the fallout between Reznor and Manson after the “Antichrist Superstar” sessions, and the death of his grandmother put Reznor into a serious depression and forced him to take a sabbatical while Lohner and Clouser continued to assemble tracks for Tapeworm as well as working for Rob Zombie and doing remixes for other artists. As Reznor returned from his depression, he went to work on the next NIN album “The Fragile” with Lohner, Clouser, and producer Alan Moulder and working on bits for the Tapeworm side-project. Involved during the sessions for “The Fragile” were a slew of vocalists making contributions for Tapeworm: Pantera singer Phil Anselmo, former Helmet singer/guitarist Page Hamilton, Curve vocalist Toni Halliday, and Tool singer Maynard James Keenan. Reznor’s contributions for Tapeworm were contributing vocal melodies as well as playing guitars, bass, and keyboards to the track.
Tapeworm at times was put on hold as Reznor worked on “The Fragile” with Clouser and Lohner while Maynard James Keenan formed another side project with former NIN tech guitarist Billy Howerdel called A Perfect Circle in 1999. As Reznor finished “The Fragile” in the summer of that year, he finally talked to Alternative Press about the Tapeworm project and revealed after three years of working, the band had only finished one whole track while demos featuring vocals and fragmented instrumentals weren’t complete as Reznor was ready to assemble NIN with Clouser, Lohner, Robin Finck who decided to return for the tour, and new NIN drummer Jerome Dillon. As NIN released “The Fragile” in September of 1999 with rave reviews, the band was in the throes of teen-pop and rap-metal. A double album full of dense songs and instrumental tracks was not the right album needed in the world of TRL and “The Fragile” only sold around 800,000 double albums in its release. Despite the disappointing sales, NIN pressed on as the band toured the world and in the spring of 2000, did a successful U.S. tour with Maynard James Keenan’s side band A Perfect Circle opening for them. The meetings with NIN and Keenan re-opened interest in Tapeworm again as Keenan had ideas for the project.
As the NIN tour ended in the summer of 2000, the band took a break while A Perfect Circle was gaining momentum with their debut album in the fall of that year. As NIN released a remix album “Things Falling Apart” in late 2000, Danny Lohner joined A Perfect Circle for a few days where Keenan decided to play one of the new songs Tapeworm had done called “Vacant”. Live bootlegs for the song surfaced on the Internet and mom-and-pop records stores. Reznor was upset over Keenan performing the song and felt it wasn’t ready for completion along with other fragmented songs for Tapeworm. In 2001, Keenan returned to Tool as Reznor gave another interview with Alternative Press as he talked about Tapeworm. Reznor described the music as being diverse and adventurous but admitted the fact that he’s had trouble focusing on it when he had other projects he wanted to do. He also wanted to try and find an identity for Tapeworm once it comes out to the public.
As Reznor focused on the live album and DVD for “And All That Could Have Been”, the rest of the NIN camp including Jerome Dillon worked on Tapeworm. In mid-2001, Charlie Clouser decided to leave NIN and the Tapeworm project to work on his own group with Jason Slater of Snake River Conspiracy. Clouser’s departure was a blow to NIN and Tapeworm but like every other personnel who had left before, Reznor decided it was time to move on. Dillon and Lohner worked on tracks for Tapeworm while Reznor helped mix some music with his Nothing protégés 12 Rounds where he found a new musical collaborator in Atticus Ross. Ross took over the role that Charlie Clouser had left behind and waited for Trent’s participation once he finished the DVD and live album. After the release of the “And All That Could Have Been” live album and DVD in January of 2002, Reznor decided it was time to focus on Tapeworm again.
Trent Reznor with Danny Lohner, Atticus Ross, and Maynard James Keenan began working with Tapeworm. With contribution from Jerome Dillon and Keenan’s A Perfect Circle drummer Josh Freese on board, Tapeworm’s musical direction started to shift in a different direction as vocal tracks from Toni Halliday, Phil Anselmo, and Page Hamilton had either been shelved for good or are going to be used in different projects. With recordings now in New Orleans at Nothing Studios and the Southern Tracks Studios in Atlanta, Tapeworm is now in the works again and is ready to come out for fans that want to hear it in the coming months. As far as the sound of Tapeworm goes, none of the participants in the project have confirmed on what it will sound like nor any sense of musical direction it will go to. The band does have an official site now but the only thing the site shows are pictures of the group working as well as a blurred track listings with 11 tracks shown but not their song titles but with beats per minute which might mean it’s something with electronic beats or something. There’s a lot of mystery concerning Tapeworm but once it’s released, let’s hope that the years of working on the project had been worth its time.
Official Tapeworm Website: www.tapeworm.net/
And for those who are into humor pages, here’s a couple from NIN satire writer from the NIN Hotline, Meathead:
www.theninhotline.net/meatpers/fakeworm.html
And for those who are creative:
www.theninhotline.net/meatpers/tapeworm2.html
(with special guest, Sponge Bob!)
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