How To Book TOOL For Your Event!
Tool may be available for your next special event!
GRAMMY AWARD winning Tool is an American rock band from Los
Angeles.
Tool's
greatest breakthrough was to introduce dark, vaguely underground metal
to the preening pretentiousness of art-rock. Or maybe it was introducing
the self-absorbed pretension of art-rock to the wearing grind of
post-thrash metal – the order really doesn't matter.
Though
Metallica wrote their multi-sectioned, layered
songs as if they were composers, they kept their musical attack
ferociously at street level. Tool didn't – they embraced the
artsy, faux-bohemian preoccupations of
Jane's Addiction, while they
simultaneously paid musical homage to the dark, relentlessly bleak
visions of grindcore, death metal and thrash.
Tool is a tough band to nail down. While it's fair to say that, yes, they are a bunch of
hard-rocking freaks, and yes, their frontman, Maynard James Keenan, is one of
the hardest-rocking freaks on the scene today, there's clearly more to the band than
head-banging and power chords. Their sound is angry and forcefully driven,
yet somehow they manage to fuse it with a unique musical ambiance.
Unusually long songs, odd segues, twisted lyrics, and very, very weird
videos hammer home their unique appeal.
To understand where Tool is coming from, one
first must try to figure out the mind of its lead singer. Armed with a
brutal wail and a fistful of attitude, Keenan was born to a Baptist
family in Akron, Ohio, and spent time at the U.S.
Military Academy Prep, eventually joining the Army in 1982.
If that wasn't enough to incite a young mind to anger,
he has also suggested that he was abused by his stepfather as a child –
and it's generally accepted that the song "Prison Sex" is his
attempt to communicate his feelings about those events. After his
discharge from the service, he ended up in Los Angeles, where his friend
Adam Jones tried to convince him to experiment with music. Jones worked
in film as a special-effects designer and sculptor, and as day jobs go, his was a good one.
Working on such films as Terminator 2, Predator 2, and Jurassic
Park paid the rent, and taught him what he would later need to make
some interesting videos.
After Keenan's resolve was worn down, the two began
writing songs and soon found themselves looking for a drummer. Several
came and went until Keenan's neighbor Danny Carey – the drummer for
another Zoo Records act, Green Jello – offered to fill in. The fourth
piece of the puzzle fit when the prospect of a film job transplanted
bassist Paul D'Amour from Spokane, Washington, to L.A. In April of 1991,
the construction of the band Tool was complete.
Once together, Tool rose to fame at breakneck
speed. In March of 1992, they released "Opiate,"
a seven-song EP of extremely dark songs, that would serve as the primer for the
band's new brand of heavy metal. They hit the road with the Rollins
Band, and in April of 1993, released their first full-length album, "Undertow,"
a deep journey into the dark recesses of Keenan's psyche. Much more
melodic than "Opiate,"
it included such blistering tracks as "Sober," "Prison
Sex," and the stunning album closer, "Disgustipated"
(listed as the tenth track, it pushes CD players up to track sixty-nine,
and then plays for another fifteen minutes). The cover of "Undertow"
was an eerily lit ribcage sculpture made by Adam Jones, and was somehow
deemed offensive enough for Wal-Mart to create its own cover art for the
album – a huge bar code.
An early gig on the "Undertow"
tour found Tool playing at a Scientology Celebrity Center. Not
thrilled with entertaining L. Ron Hubbard's rich and famous disciples,
the foursome eventually found their way to the second stage of the 1993
Lollapalooza tour. Their live show was dynamic enough to bump them to
the main stage, which increased their exposure and helped create a loyal
group of Toolheads across the country.
August of 1993 saw the video for "Sober"
debut on MTV, a ground-breaking stop-action piece directed by Adam Jones which went on to win Billboard Video
Awards for "Best New Artist" and "Best Clip." Before
the end of the year, the band set off to conquer Europe with
Fishbone
and
Rage Against The Machine.
Although almost three years passed before Tool
managed to release its next album, the band wasn't idle. "Undertow"
went platinum in August of 1994, and their next video, "Prison
Sex," landed a Best Special Effects nomination at the 1995 MTV
Video Awards.
In September of 1995, Tool went to Australia
for the Alternative Nation Music Festival, and the band's lineup changed
slightly. Bassist Paul D'Amour parted with the band (on good terms),
joining Failure for a short while before starting his own group, Lusk.
Inside two months, Justin Chancellor, a former member of the band Peach,
had signed on, and by May of 1996, Tool was back in the studio.
Sylvia Massy, who had produced their first two projects, was replaced by
King Crimson producer David Bottrill.
The next album, "Ænima,"
was released in October of 1996, and picked right up where "Undertow"
left off. It debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard album chart,
satisfying three years of hunger pangs for Tool fans, and proved
that the band's audience was still growing. "Ænima"
also showed ambition and growth in the band, both lyrically and
musically, and the first single, "Stinkfist," was given
immediate radio play across the country. (MTV couldn't stomach the term
"Stinkfist," and in a fit of prudishness, renamed the video
for the song, "#1.")
Hit songs include --
- Sober
- Ænema
- Prison Sex
- Forty Six & 2
- The Pot
- Schism
- Vicarious
- Jambi
- Parabola
- Lateralus
- H.
Other notable songs include --
- Stinkfist
- Intolerance
- Jimmy
- Hooker With a Penis
- Crawl Away
- Ticks & Leeches
- Grudge
Tool may be available for your next special event!
Watch videos.
YouTube
"Let's Get Started!"
Genre: Rock 2
Styles:
.Alternative Metal. / AlternativeMetal
.Heavy Metal. / HeavyMetal
.Progressive Metal. / ProgressiveMetal
Years active:
x90s, x00s, x10s, x20s
1990-present
Formed: ..in California / formed nCalifornia
Formed: ..in Los Angeles / formed LosAngelesCA
Formed: in 1990
Based: ..in US
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