Name: Angel Marcloid aka Fire-Toolz

Nationality: American
Occupation: Producer, composer, multi-instrumentalist
Current release: The new Fire-Toolz full-length I am upset because I see something that is not there is scheduled for release on April 7th 2023 via Hausu Mountain.
Recommendations: Book: The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle. It’s absolutely ground breaking in one sense. In another, its nothing new because most of its wisdom can be found all over different forms of psychology and spirituality. But it’s synthesized in a way that is digestible. It is life changing, and there is a reason it’s impacted so many people.
Music: Try the album Frames by Oceansize. It’s an incredible record that could be loosely classified as progressive rock, but it probably doesn’t sound the way you’d think. It’s influenced quite a bit by post-rock, metal, hardcore, post-hardcore, maybe a little nu-metal.

If you enjoyed this interview with Fire-Toolz and would like to stay up to date with her music, visit her official website. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

I came out of the womb hitting kitchenware with wooden spoons, and violently plucking strings on an acoustic guitar twice the size of my body laying flat on my lap.

I guess you could say I was playing prepared guitar before it was cool.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

I see all of these things as well anytime I hear music. Even music I don’t enjoy.

Of course music invokes emotions and memories for nearly everyone, but for me it is so intense that it is almost intoxicating. It can be relatively dissociative for me. I snap back into a certain time in my life and occasionally have difficulty *feeling* that those days are gone. When I listen to extreme music like harsh noise, deathcore, death metal, grindcore, sometimes I become so moved and impacted that I begin to cry. This can happen with other kinds of music as well. Sometimes something is so good that I laugh hysterically, and/or cry at the same time. My own music is not excluded from this.

The last 3 shows I’ve played I’ve had a lot of difficulty not crying. I can be seen making the ugliest faces trying to hold it back when I’m onstage. I should probably just let it out.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

My development as an artist evolves entirely around healing trauma and personal growth. I think it directly affects my music.

I don’t think that the more I heal the better my music gets, but my music documents my growth. So in that sense the evolution of my music is in accordance with the evolution of my worldly experience.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

In a way my identifying words don’t really impact my music. I am not trying to make a statement about who I am, but rather what I experience, learn, and believe is important. What I listen to is based entirely on how I feel about it, no matter the genre.

And my creativity seems to be a natural waterfall that never stops flowing. I don’t do anything to stimulate it. It’s just always there, always giving, always accessible.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

Opening the flood gates and letting whatever wants to come out, out. I am very detail oriented, and what I create has to resonate with me on a deep level or it feels dishonest.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

I don’t think about these things with my own music. I don’t care if something I do sounds like something else, and I don’t try to be different.

I do think what I offer is unique, but that’s just an accident. I’ve been in bands before where our sound was very similar to another’s, but it felt good and I still felt like I was expressing myself.

I don’t care about tradition, or what era my music represents. I find all of these types of things limiting and superficial.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

I started off playing drums and was very passionate about rhythm and dynamics. I’ve always cared about texture and palette, so my drum sets have always been kind of big. My drumming was inspired a lot by Mike Portnoy and Neil Peart. With guitar, I’ve been more concerned about processing than the guitars themselves. For a decades I was obsessed with guitar pedals. Now with the music I make, it’s all about DAWs and plug-ins. I absolutely love experimentation, and often using things the “wrong” way.

I need a diverse array of tools and sounds. I admire minimalism, and it’s fun sometimes, but I like tweaks and options. I feel more comfortable with them. Limiting the possibilities a great deal for the sake of not being too much induces anxiety.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

I wake up at 6:30am with my wife and feed four cats who all have their own needs, behaviors, and ailments. I make coffee, and if I don’t have therapy or something, I get to work.

I do various things around the house because I’m a homeowner and my wife works full time as well. If it’s a weekend, I usually go out to breakfast, and if there is free time I like to hike, or sit outside, or sit on the couch and watch YouTube. I spend time with my cats throughout the day too.

After dinner sometimes I go back to work, and other times I just chill.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

I don’t have a very interesting answer because on all of my Fire-Toolz albums it has just been experimentation, exploration, and letting my ideas flow out. Then tweaking the shit out of what I’ve made for months until there is a deadline.

I utilize guitars, basses, my electronic drum set, and maybe other objects that aren’t meant to be instruments. But I spend most time in a DAW building things without thinking too much about what I’m doing.

I am very meticulous about the mixing, but the composition and processing is all intuitive.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

I love creating music with others, but I don’t have that opportunity often. I also really enjoy making it alone and doing whatever I want. When I collaborate, obviously the results reflect all the people involved.

There is something really fulfilling about working with ideas I wouldn’t have thought of myself, or frankly don’t even like. I love the challenge and I’m usually happy with what I make in those cases.

However, making music alone is like a personal, spiritual and psychological ritual, and that is very important to have in my life.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

I don’t really think about this or care too much. I do like to make people feel good, get them thinking, move them spiritually or emotionally … but I have no trajectory as far as contributing to society or making any profound statements about society.

I do very much care about community, gender, ecological, political, economical, etc. issues, but my creative output is no kind of activism. The way my work relates to the world is in the sense that I grapple with my own inner world in relation to the outside world, and document that in my music, often in cryptic ways.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

Making music sometimes helps me figure them out but it's usually after the fact, after everything is written, and I am able to take a step back and experience what I've made from a more objective perspective.

Making music does act as a therapeutic ritual though. It goes along with all the therapy and soul-searching I do. It documents it.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?  

I am more interested in the connection between spirituality and science. I don’t quite know why, but I don’t have a huge interest in music from that angle. Music is such an extremely emotional, psychological, spiritual, and creative process for me, that spending time researching things *about* it just doesn’t interest me.

However one of my favorite YouTube channels is Adam Neely’s, and he does a lot of commentary on these types of things. I enjoy learning about it from others but I don't make it a point to research it on my own.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Hmmm. I don’t think they are that different, no. But I do make my coffee one of two or three ways every time because that consistency is important to me feeling secure. With music, it’s an anything-goes-as-long-as-it-resonates type of thing.

I do find little difference in an ultimate sense between getting dressed, making music, making food, going for a walk, or snuggling with my cats. Mundane tasks can inspire creativity, and ritual helps me maintain a sense of balance and safety which I also channel into my music quite a bit.

It feels good to finish a song just as it feels good to get all the dish washing done. It is comforting to have clean dishes just as it is to be making an absolute banger.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

It’s spiritual! We can't measure much about that until we pass on, but we can still do some empirical research. The physics of this are fascinating, important, and based in reality, but the essence of music, just like the essence of love, peace, joy, excitement, grief, etc., is beyond words and rooted in realms beyond our comprehension.

How do I know this? I don’t. But I experience it. Am I interpreting my experience this way because I want to? I don’t know. Maybe. But it feels right.