Netflix freeclimber Alex Honnold was listening to Tool while he scaled Taipei 101

Whatever you got up to this weekend, you have almost certainly been trumped during Monday morning small talk by American climbing lunatic Alex Honnold. Yesterday in Taiwan, Alex became the first person to crawl his way up the 508-metre-tall Taipei 101 skyscraper without ropes, harnesses or safety equipment.

The whole feat was streamed on Netflix’s Skyscraper Live, fortunately with just enough delay to be able to cut away and save his blushes should he have fallen do a splattery death.

Alex completed his stair-avoiding stunt in just 91 minutes, two-and-a-half hours faster than Frenchman Alain Robert, the only other human to climb the tower, and a massive poser for using ropes. Asked for a post-match analysis, Alex succinctly declared his achievement "sick".

Now he's revealed that he had rock music, specifically Tool, in his ears while he did it.

“It was mostly Tool," he tells Variety. "It’s 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 – [it’s] 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 had been taking me about five to six and a half minutes. I just know how long the songs are. So it gives you a sense of if you’re going fast or slow.”

The band are yet to say anything, although we imagine Alex wasn't fiddling with his phone while he worked, so they'd probably approve.

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