Tool – Ænima

As a teenager I quickly progressed from Britpop to metal: from Oasis to Nirvana to Metallica and Tool, and then on to black and death metal until I started listening to Nick Drake. I bought two copies of this, because I wore one of them out. I absolutely pored over everything: Adam Jones’ guitar sound, the lyrics and what they meant. I saw them recently in Amsterdam and it was fucking awesome. It was the first time I’d seen them live and I listened to them play ‘Stinkfist’, and I think I did actually shed a tear – and I don’t cry at music generally.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve realised that this sound was built on the back of Rush and that kind of thing, but at the time I had no idea. I came back to this album once I passed 30 and thought, ‘I don’t give a fuck if I’m cool anymore’, and actually I realised there’s a lot to still take from it. There’s a refrain on the title track: “Fuck retro anything, fuck your tattoos, fuck all you junkies and fuck your short memory.” That’s still really good! And the guitar sound: there’s a solo on [the Wild Beasts song] ‘Celestial Creatures’ where I’m using the exact same sound – it’s the ‘Stinkfist’ guitar sound. I don’t listen to it much these days, but there was a period when it was all I listened to. It asked questions and it was openly intellectual, and it was a lot of brain food for a kid who was anxious to learn about the world. And it saved me from Korn.