Chords for Maynard James Keenan on how the Fibonacci Sequence inspired the lyrics/rhythm for LATERALUS

When you write something, like say if you have an idea, if you're just sitting around, you're like, I have a thought.
Do you just sit down and do you go, okay, this is a Tool song, this is a Perfect Circle song, this is a Pussiver song?
Does it just like_
No, because what I'm writing to is the music that I'm hearing from those people.
So that's all you write to?
I write to the music, because that way it's a unique island situation.
Those things are gonna_
Whenever I've tried to write, I've had some poetry sitting over here that I want to write, and I've tried to force it onto a song for any of those projects.
It doesn't work.
It doesn't seem to fit.
So you need to hear the song_
I need to hear the finished thing, _ almost finished thing.
And then put lyrics to it.
Yeah.
Get the melodies in place, [Ab] get the rhythms as if I'm an instrument.
Is that how you guys did that [Bbm] Fibonacci song?
Yeah.
_ Wow.
Yeah.
That was a really unique undertaking.
What was the process behind that?
Did you [Ab] say, hey, it would be a nifty idea to do something to a mathematical sequence?
Nope.
No, that was a complete accident.
I think it was Adam or Justin who had the riff, and at some point they were actually counting _ the riff, and it ended up being in 7, 8, 9.
I think it was a _ _ measure of 7, a measure of 8, a measure of 9.
I'm not sure how you would actually write that out in _ _ _ _ notation, but I _ think 789 is a Fibonacci number. _ _ _
Just that, you know, [E] the actual 789, I think.
I have to look it again.
It might be 987.
People don't know what the fuck we're talking about.
The Fibonacci sequence is a very unique mathematical sequence that appears in nature.
It's in fractals.
It's in sunflowers.
If you look at the pattern of sunflower seeds, if you look at nautilus shells, and what it is, it's an expanding fractal sort of a mathematical equation.
I don't know if I'm saying it correctly, but it's like the first step is 0, and then there's 1, and then there's 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2 plus, yeah, and it just keeps going on.
But that's the Fibonacci number, like the whole number, like actual number sequence.
There's the phi ratio, 1 _ .618, anything multiplied by the 1.618.
That, or not multiplied, the relationship, _ the difference in the length from this finger to this finger as opposed to this finger to that finger, those knuckles in your digits, those are all in that relationship of 1.618, the phi relationship.
So that the fractals, as it's growing, that progression is _ that ratio.
And then the number breakdown is, as you said, it's 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13.
Yeah, so like 1 plus 1 is 2, 2 plus 1 is 3, 3 plus 2 is 5, 5 plus 3 is 8, and it's like everything you count, you add what came before it.
You've got a spiral picture of a Giza plateau showing you that.
Well, also facial structure, which is really fascinating.
There's something about human facial structure that uses the Fibonacci [Bb] sequence, and I read somewhere about why people recognize plastic surgery while it disturbs them.
Boom.
Yeah, it's like, what's going on with the sequence?
Like the sequence is off.
So my friend_
Yeah, here it is.
Yeah, my friend_
The Fibonacci relationships of the human head, and it's all_
I had a friend who said, you know how when you know a _ _ family has had a child who has Down syndrome, right?
It crosses racial divides.
You can tell this family has had that child has Down syndrome.
There's a look that goes along with it.
He said it's the same look, you know, not the same look, but like it's the same recognition of people who have had _ facial plastic surgery.
You recognize you're not fooling anybody.
You've done a thing that's recognizable universally as wrong.
Something's wrong with your face.
Something isn't off.
Yeah, it's off.
Yeah.
But I thought it was funny that he was actually connecting it to Down, no disrespect to people with Down syndrome, but_
Yeah, I know what you're saying.
Yeah.
Yeah, but it is like when you see someone with a disease, like, oh, there's clearly an error here in the code.
[F] Yes.
Yeah.
And the facial reconstruction, like the plastic surgery, because I'm just, oh shit, I'm getting older.
This will fool them.
Well, the nose thing too is weird.
Like when someone has a uniquely small nose and their face, you know, they might have a long like Ari Shaffir type face, but then they have this like shrunken down nose.
You're like, hey.
Yeah.
Like this seems fucked.
Right.
This doesn't, there's a ratio that's supposed to exist and it doesn't exist. Yeah.
Why are your lips_
But, you know, in a _ way, a song like Lotterella's with the Fibonacci thing, that's, I feel like I kind of pulled a very _ pedestrian, sophomoric move by including those numbers in there because in general, music is the phi ratio.
Everything, everything that all nature, all these things we're talking about, it's already here by, by pointing it out, like staring at it and pointing at it with those numbers present and the, and the way that the numbers and the lyrics are.
I feel like that, you know, it's good to let people know about it, but I almost feel like it was kind of a, it was kind of a dick joke in a way.
It's, it's,