Tapeworm (lost unreleased album from Trent Reznor & Maynard James Keenan band; 1996-2004)

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Tapeworm Band.jpg

The band in the studio

Status: Lost

Tapeworm was a supergroup made of Nine Inch Nails members Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Danny Lohner, Josh Freese, Jerome Dillon, Charlie Clouser, Tool and A Perfect Circle frontman Maynard James Keenan, Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo and various outside musicians like Toni Halliday, Page Hamilton and Tommy Victor. The group was originally a side project of Reznor, Lohner and Clouser that formed during the tour to promote The Downward Spiral in 1996. By December 1999, songs were being recorded for an album and were ready to be mixed by September 2003. The group would eventually disband in May 2004 with Keenan's obligations to A Perfect Circle and Tool and Reznor's waning enthusiasm for the album being cited as the cause and to date, no songs from the album have been released.

Recording

During the tour to promote Nine Inch Nails's second album The Downward Spiral, touring members Danny Lohner and Charlie Clouser were writing material that Trent Reznor rejected as Nine Inch Nail songs[1]. As a result of most of the material not being fit for Nine Inch Nails, the side-project Tapeworm was born and Reznor maintained sole artistic control of material for the group. Over the next few years, the side-project would eventually become a full-fledged supergroup with Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan, Helmet guitarist Page Hamilton and Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo joining the band. In an interview with Kerrang in December 1999, Lohner revealed that three tracks were completed and described the material as "heavy NIN-meets-Pantera", "mellow Pink Floyd The Wall-type songs", and "psychedelic, groove-oriented verses and anthemic choruses"[2]. Also during the recordings, Danzig guitarist Tommy Victor was brought in for contributions, though many delays to the recordings cause Victor to leave the band and quit music for a short time. In February 2001, it was revealed by MTV News that veteran producer and mixer Alan Moulder (who worked with Nine Inch Nails on The Downward Spiral and The Fragile) had tracked "more than an album's worth" of demos and describe the tracks as "very unlike The Fragile" and was not like anytime Nine Inch Nails did up until that point[3]. However Clouser left the band a year later and frequently Nine Inch Nails collaborator Atticus Ross was now involved with Tapeworm and he Reznor, Keenan and Lohner were booking studio time to record the album. Also around the same time, a now-defunct website named tapeworm.net was launched and various photos from the recording sessions were posted on the website. Among the photos was of Devo drummer Josh Freese behind a drum kit[4]. While being interviewed by Kerrang! in September 2003, Lohner revealed that the album was ready to mix (while the Nine Inch Nail's hotline says the album was complete in September 2002[5]) but legal issues between Reznor's and Keenan's record labels were preventing it[6]. Additional recordings took place in Reznor's Nothing Studios in New Orleans[7] and Southern Tracks Studios in Atlanta, Georgia[8]. Word on the album's progress ended going quiet for the next nine months, until Reznor revealed in a May 2004 letter to a fan that Tapeworm was done. Citing Keenan's obligations with A Perfect Circle and his waning enthusiasm as the cause of the band's downfall[9].

Availability

Only two songs from the unreleased album were identified "Vacant" and "Potions". Vacant was performed live by A Perfect Circle in 2001 (which angered Reznor) and was recorded and released as "Passive" on A Perfect Circle's album Emotive that was released six months after Tapeworm broke up. Potions was recorded and released on the Puscifer's (Keenan's side-project) "C" Is for (Please Insert Sophomoric Genitalia Reference Here) in 2009 with the song being credited to Trent Reznor. However the original recordings of Vacant and Potions from the Tapeworm sessions have never been released. In a July 2013 interview with Rolling Stone, Anselmo revealed the names of two other songs that were recorded during the sessions, "Ignorant" and "Be Kind To Them"[10]. No other songs have been identified or released and any material from the album is unlikely to surface as Reznor said in a interview with Kevin Rose in 2009 that he thought the material was not as good as could have been given his and Keenan's respective backgrounds.

Gallery

Videos

Vacant (Live 2001)

Passive

Potions (Deliverance Mix)

Photos

References