In a new interview with Prog, James Lascelles of Wheel said he doesn’t think they sound like Tool.
Despite their efforts to work on different styles of music, Wheel still gets compared to Tool. The singer said the following about how it feels:
“There’s a comment on the YouTube video for ‘Empire,’ like, ‘Another Tool copycat band.’ I’m just thinking, ‘If this sounds like Tool to you, I’m not sure you’ve been listening to Tool.’”
He continued:
“Some of our stuff, definitely: we’ve borrowed polyrhythms, weird meters, and elaborate structures – but ‘Empire’ doesn’t sound like that at all. At this point, we could release a hang-drum 20-minute odyssey with seagull noises and somebody would still say, ‘It sounds just like Tool!’”
Wheel Recently Dropped A New Album
Wheel’s third and latest album, ‘Charismatic Leaders’ arrived on May 3. Speaking of the record in the same interview, the musician recalled some challenges they faced during the process:
“Our bassist, Aki Virta, left during the recording process. He has a very young family and had been missing them whenever we went out on tour, so the timing just wasn’t great. We also had technical problems; we didn’t have lyrics finished… all these minor and not-so-minor f*ck-ups during the process. But I’m really proud of how we’ve handled it, because it’s turned out super-well.”
The band is proud of their new album. Recorded with engineers and co-producers Daniel Bergstrand and Fredrik Thordendal of Meshuggah, it shows Wheel has a stronger and more energetic tone, unlike the calmer tone of ‘Resident Human.’
The band will celebrate their new album with their first shows in Australia, supporting Caligula’s Horse, and their first North American headline shows. Later in the year, they will return to Europe for more headline dates.