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, 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."
About 10 minutes into the Netflix broadcast, the hosts 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 about listening to Tool, not Staind, in a 2024 episode of the Tosh Show podcast.) Watch below.
@stereogum On Netflix’s ‘Skyscraper Live’ American climber @Alex Honnold summited Taipei 101 without ropes or a safety net. Afterwards the ‘Free Solo’ star told ‘Variety’ his playlist was “mostly Tool,” a band he previously shouted out in an interview with @daniel tosh in 2024. Honnold said listening to music also helped with pacing as he scaled the 1,667-foot building. #AlexHonnold #Tool #SkyscraperLive #climbing #FreeSolo
♬ original sound - stereogum
In a post-climb interview with Variety, Honnold discussed his playlist and how music helped with pacing:
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.”
See some clips of the climb below.
