Remembering Steve Albini’s Hilarious Takedown of Tool

After his unfortunate passing yesterday, fans are reminiscing about some of Steve Albini’s funniest tirades against other bands, including prog metal titans Tool.

We’re going to miss Steve Albini a ton. Not only is he responsible for engineering a mini-canon of the last three decade’s most important rock albums, but he was also one of the funniest curmudgeons ever.

Nobody could escape the wrath of Albini. Most famously, Albini raged against fellow Chicago natives The Smashing Pumpkins in an open letter, comparing them to REO Speedwagon and calling them “stylistically appropriate for the current college party scene, but ultimately insignificant.”

READ MORE: Steve Albini, Nirvana and Pixies Producer, Dead at 61

What Did Steve Albini Say About Tool? 

Albini’s wrath wasn’t only focused on fellow locals. In a 2012 Reddit Ask Me Anything, Albini was asked by a fan what he thought of Tool, as well as singer Maynard James Keenan. He responded with one of the greatest takedowns of the band ever written.

He opened his message by admitting, “I’m not that familiar with Tool and don’t know Maynard James Keenan.” He is familiar enough to say “Off the top of my head, the only things I know about Tool are that one stop-motion video, which is so bad it made me laugh out loud, and that their drummer was a soft-rock session guy who was also in Green Jello.”

It’s hard to tell which video Albini was referring to, as both “Prison Sex” and “Sober” prominently feature stop-motion animation (and are beloved, to boot). He then expanded to Maynard’s business ventures, saying, “Their singer has a winery, which is pretty funny all by itself.”

He then took aim at the band’s music itself, writing, “What music of theirs I’ve heard has been categorically awful, though I can imagine music that sounds pretty much like that that I would like. When they emerged, they seemed like a band fabricated from constituent parts by the music industry to exploit an audience built by the underground/abstract metal scene.”

What Steve Albini Thought You Should Listen to Instead of Tool

Ouch.

However, if you want to know similar music to Tool that Albini considered worthy, he ended his writing with some recommendations.

“I’d much rather listen to Helmet, the Jesus Lizard, Craw, Don Caballero, Stinking Lizaveta, Neurosis, Dazzling Killmen, Ruins or Zeni Geva, just to name a bunch of bands I’ve worked with that Tool fans might like, that are a lot better than Tool.”

It’s hard to argue that any of those bands aren’t great. Whether or not you’re a Tool die-hard or a fellow hater, Albini’s take is genuinely hilarious, and speaks to his refusal to back down from his opinions.

Check out the rant for yourself.