Nine Inch Nails, Tool and Journey Deliver April Fool’s Day Pranks
Nine Inch Nails and Tool both fooled their fans for April Fool’s Day, announcing the release of new material that turned out to be humorous in nature, while Journey's Neal Schon claimed he was reuniting with Steve Perry.
Trent Reznor's joke referred back to one he’d played in 2009. Back then he announced a NIN album called Strobe Light that didn’t exist. This year he and colleague Atticus Ross linked to a Bandcamp page that actually featured tracks corresponding to the titles announced a decade ago, though they turned out to be mashups of previously existing NIN pieces. (It is not known who created the mashups.)
The tracks claimed to be “Intro Skit,” “Everybody’s Doing It (featuring Bono, Chris Martin and Jay-Z),” “Black T-Shirt,” “Pussygrinder (featuring Sheryl Crow),” “Coffin on the Dancefloor,” “This Rhythm Is Infected,” “Slide to the Dark Side,” “Even Closer (featuring Justin Timberlake and Maynard Keenan),” “On the List (She’s Not),” “Clap Trap Crack Slap,” “Laid Paid and Played (featuring Al Jourgensen, and Fergie from the Black Eyes Peas,” “Feel Like Being Dead Again,” “Still Hurts (featuring Alicia Keys)” and “Outro Skit.”
In 2009, NIN claimed that those who purchased Strobe Light would be charged $18.98 plus a "$10 digital delivery convenience fee." The tracks would be delivered as Windows Media files, "playable on quite a few players" with "your name embedded all over them just in case you lose them."
The band vowed that the buyer's email address would be "kept confidential and will not be used for spam, unless we can make some money selling it."
Tool, who are rumored to be close to completing their long-awaited sixth album, tweeted a link to “Sounds of Night Crickets,” which could easily be a real title for one of their new songs. It turned out to be a seven-year-old, 27-minute recording of real crickets at night.
Meanwhile, Schon tweeted a picture of himself and Perry onstage before the singer left the band in 1998, saying, "It happened! We had that coffee and are heading into the studio this coming week!"