Alex Honnold, the American rock climber who became a household name as the subject of the 2018 documentary Free Solo, spent his Sunday climbing the Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan without any ropes or equipment. The 1,667-foot ascent — the highest free solo climb of an urban structure in history — was livestreamed on Netflix yesterday, with hosts WNBA analyst Elle Duncan, pro wrestler Seth Rollins, and Honnold's friend/climbing expert Emily Harrington keeping viewers entertained. Meanwhile, Honnold spent the climb listening to "mostly Tool."
In a post-climb interview with Variety, Honnold was asked what music he was listening to. He said:
It was mostly Tool. It’s just like a random playlist that I made, that I shared with production. I made it months ago while I was driving. I’ve been training to it a bunch. Basically rock music that I’ve liked my whole life. Part of the appeal of music is that actually it helps me with pacing. Each bamboo box [eight-story section of the building] had been taking me about five to six and a half minutes. I just know how long the songs are. So it gives you it gives you a sense of if you’re going fast or slow. But in this case, it all kept cutting out anyway, and I couldn’t really hear and I was kind of like, “whatever. I’m just doing my thing.”
About 10 minutes into the Netflix broadcast, the hosts also discussed what Honnold would be listening to. "He loves to listen to his heavy metal," said Duncan. "Yeah, Tool," Harrington added, as Rollins chimed in: "Shoutout to Maynard." After he'd been climbing for about three minutes Honnold asked, "Anybody ever gonna start my music?" "He wants the Tool," Duncan explained. (Honnold previously talked to Daniel Tosh about listening to Tool, not Staind, in 2024.) See some clips of the climb below.
