If there’s a clearer definition of extreme commitment than free-climbing a 101-story skyscraper with zero safety gear while blasting Tool, science has yet to find it.
Professional climber Alex Honnold has successfully scaled Taipei 101 — the 1,667-foot, 101-story skyscraper in Taipei, Taiwan — using nothing but his hands, his feet, and an alarming amount of calm. As if that wasn’t enough, Honnold revealed in a conversation with Variety that Tool was his soundtrack for the entire ascent.
“It was mostly Tool,” Honnold said. “Just a random playlist I made months ago while driving. Rock music I’ve liked my whole life.” Naturally.
According to Honnold, the music wasn’t just there for atmosphere. It helped with pacing, too. Each section of the climb took about five to six and a half minutes — conveniently close to the length of many Tool songs. A built-in prog-rock metronome, if you will. Of course, the audio kept cutting out mid-climb, because gravity and dead zones remain undefeated.
“At some point I couldn’t really hear anything,” Honnold shrugged. “So I was just like, whatever. I’m just doing my thing.”
Connectivity issues were apparently the least of his concerns — at least from a climbing perspective. While communications dropped in and out due to dead zones throughout the building, Honnold remained unfazed, noting that climbing inside his own “little bubble” is kind of the point. His only worry was whether someone off-camera might be trying to tell him to speed up or slow down — instructions he couldn’t hear while, again, clinging to one of the tallest buildings on Earth.
The climb was part of Netflix’s live special Skyscraper Live, which documented Honnold ascending the 11th-tallest building in the world with his bare hands. No ropes, no harness, no safety net — just muscle memory, focus, and a soundtrack heavy enough to keep the pace but cerebral enough to disappear when needed.
Pretty extreme indeed.
