TOOL Guitarist And Visual Guru ADAM JONES Talks 'Opiate' Reissue

TOOL will release a handcrafted, bonus-laden, limited-edition package of its original debut EP, "Opiate", on March 26 to mark the 21st anniversary of the six-song release.

The anniversary edition is limited to 5,000 copies and features art direction by Adam Jones, illustrations by legendary artist Adi Granov and design packaging by Mackie Osborne, who has collaborated with TOOL on many albums, including "10,000 Days", "Lateralus" and "Salival" as well as posters and merchandise.

The 5,000 copies will be broken down as 5 x 1,000 runs with each set featuring a variation of the exterior graphics and included bonus items which include a new stereoscopic image for fans to use with their glasses from the "10,000 Days" packaging.

The packages will only be available via TOOL's web site on March 26 and there will be no pre-orders. A limit of three packages from each of the 5 x 1,000 versions will be in place.

Speaking to Revolver magazine, TOOL guitarist Adam Jones stated about the five different versions of the "Opiate" artwork: "I'd call them variations. That defines it a little better. There's hand-pressed printing, there's old machine printing. [Designer] Mackie Osborne is kind of celebrating the intimacy and originality of this thing. If we had the budget, we'd take everything as far as possible.

"I've always lived my life in terms of what I want out of something, and what I want is to go to the store and buy something and go, 'Goddamn, I got more than my money's worth.' I want something where you can tell a lot of time went into it. That's what I love about painting. I appreciate stuff that people do in one day, but I appreciate seeing the layers of paint and the brushstrokes more — seeing that this person really ripped their guts out trying to capture something.

"There will be five variations in color, and a thousand copies of each. So five thousand copies total. And I know they're putting extra stuff in it, like some stickers, and I did a 3-D separation of some of the artwork so you can view it through the stereoscopic goggles from the '10,000 Days' album. I think there's a golden ticket, too, that's supposed to be in one of every thousand. I'm not sure what you get if you get the golden ticket — maybe tickets to one of our shows or something — I don't think we've decided yet. We're still putting it together. It's actually being printed right now."

Asked what exactly is happening with the artwork, Adam said: "When we did the original art for 'Opiate', I had a lot of people helping me and a lot of outside influence. I was doing makeup effects and sculpting in Hollywood. So for the art, we picked the song 'Opiate' and tried to design artwork around it. For the reissue, it was really nice to readdress that, especially my priest, because I wanted to get something a little more mystical and three-dimensional going on. Obviously, sculpting is three-dimensional, but I'm talking about ideas and thinking. So I asked Adi Granov to come and work with us. He's this amazing comic book illustrator, and he's designed a lot of the 'Iron Man' suits for the 'Iron Man' movies. He hit me up on Facebook a while ago, and we became friends. So when it came time to do this 'Opiate' packaging, I totally thought of him. I sent him some sketches and ideas, he sent some sketches back, and he just nailed it, man. So we turned it all over to Mackie — she's worked on a lot of our stuff, and she's [MELVINS singer-guitarist] Buzz Osborne's wife — and she's found this thick paper to print everything on that's gonna make this thing really special and collectible."

Read the entire interview from Revolver magazine.