On Saturday, rock climber Alex Honnold of Free Solo fame did a successful free solo ascent of the Taipei 101, a 101-story skyscraper in Taiwan. Alex’s feat, which he completed in 95 minutes, was broadcast live over Netflix. CB watched it in real time, but I was too anxious to do so and waited until the clips were out. Even if you’re a nervous nellie like me, this time-lapse video is pretty neat. It has none of the nailbiting suspense but still captures the incredible scale of his accomplishment. You can also watch the replay on Netflix.
You may be wondering what type of focus and discipline it takes to free scale a skyscraper. For Alex, it was months of practice and a solid playlist. In an interview with Variety, Alex revealed that while training, he listened to a playlist that included a lot of Tool songs. For him, it was both pleasurable and practical.
Alex Honnold doesn’t play any free solo by ear.
And part of his preparation means having the proper music to back his epic climbs—including his Jan. 24 (Jan. 25 local time) climb up Taipei 101, the 11th tallest building in the world standing at 1,667 feet in the capital of Taiwan.
“It was mostly Tool,” Alex revealed to Variety of his playlist in an interview published Jan. 24. “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. Basically, rock music that I’ve liked my whole life.”
But beyond liking the genre, the progressive metal band’s music played a practical role, too—especially when it came to navigating the skyscraper’s architecture, including the geometric façade dubbed bamboo boxes and the spiraling metal “dragons” decorating the corners.
“Part of the appeal of music is that actually it helps me with pacing,” Alex explained. “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.”
However, at many times throughout the climb, “it all kept cutting out anyway,” Alex recounted, “and I couldn’t really hear and I was kind of like, ‘Whatever. I’m just doing my thing.’”
And in those moments the 40-year-old—who is the only person to have free soloed the 3,000-foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park—did lose his music, he had another soundtrack backing his climb: the gasps and cheers from the assembled crowd.
As for whether the reactions were distracting, Alex reflected, “I think it was actually kind of motivating or enlivening. This is probably true for all athletes in mainstream sports, when people play and the crowds are roaring.”
In fact, it gave the climber—who is dad to two kids with wife Sanni McCandless—an experience to which he isn’t accustomed.
“As a climber, you never experience that,” he explained. “I was like, ‘No wonder when people are playing in the Super Bowl, it must be super motivating.’ It was my first taste of something like that.”
Climbing up a building without ropes is pretty metal in its own right, so I can’t argue with Alex’s musical selection. I can totally see how metal and rock music can also be helpful with pacing and overall mood/motivation. I bet hearing the crowd’s reaction whenever the audio cut out was equally motivating. Everyone needs a good playlist. Whether it’s Tool, Beyonce, or anything in between, we all need a few good jams to get us pumped up. I actually can’t work with any outside noise. I need complete silence to read, write, and concentrate in general, but I have some go-to playlists for workouts and chores. I used to play the 10-minute version of Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” on Sunday nights and challenge myself to see how much cleaning up I could do in that time frame. If I was super motivated, I’d go through the rest of it, which included other long songs like, Something Corporate’s “Konstantine,” Don McLean’s “American Pie,” and the Across the Wire live version of Counting Crows’ “Round Here.” Never underestimate how much you can accomplish when you’re listening to a good playlist.
This image draws an intuitive comparison between Alex Honnold’s free solo of El Capitan and the height of Taipei 101.
El Capitan rises roughly 900 meters (3,000 feet) of near-vertical granite.
Taipei 101 stands 508 meters tall. pic.twitter.com/fhhpYL2bj0— Everest Today (@EverestToday) January 28, 2026
Photos courtesy of Netflix
The photo with his wife in the window is so cute. I loved Free Solo and I watched this one too (not live though because of the time zone)
It kind of blunts the Skywalker couple’s business though. I watched their Netflix film and it was compelling, but their stuff is about illegal stunts while Alex shows actual accomplishment as an athlete.
Tool was the group back in the day, in the D (Detroit). I think I could make it up that tower rockin.
I just can’t wrap my head around marrying and having children with a man whose job description is “death wish” but to each their own. I’m sure they have solid life insurance 🤷♀️
given the background of Tool technically and their connection to the body of work by Alex Grey, somehow climbing feels very in line with that. themes of exploration despite fear or dread or loss and stripping down the inessential to understand the self make a lot of sense.