page: 13
 title: Tool
author: Jim Derogatis

	The members of Tool don't much care for thumbnail biographies or 
doing interviews.  They prefer to let their music speak for itself - 
and it will be shouting and screaming onstage very shortly indeed.  
Still, certain facts need to be presented.  Here, then, are a few that 
are relevant to the subjects at hand.  
	As noted by the dedicated Toolmasters who maintain the FAQ file at 
the group's excellent web page, http://toolshed.down.net, "It is worth 
mentioning that much of what Tool says, you need to take with a HUGE 
grain of salt.  A lot of it is made up - a recent interview hinting at 
24 - minute songs and a prank about a highway accident come to mind - 
so be careful when you choose to believe something you are being told.  
It is probably a good reminder that we should exercise our best 
judgment and not to be sheep in the herd.  One of Tool's main messages 
seems to be that people need to think for themselves more."
	This much we do know:  Tool was formed in April 1991 by guitarist 
Adam Jones, vocalist Maynard James Keenan, drummer Danny Carey and 
bassist Paul D'Amour (who left in 1995 and was replaced by Justin 
Chancellor of the British and Peach).  When Jones first moved to L.A. 
from libertyville, Illinois, he worked as a special effects 
technician, learning the stop-motion animation techniques that would 
later be employed to great effect on the "Sober" and "Prison Sex" 
videos.  He had gone to high school with Tom Morello of Rage Against 
the Machine, and it was Morello who introduced Jones to Carey, who 
lived downstairs from Keenan. As they say, it's a small world.
	The band made its recorded debut with the Opiate EP on Zoo 
Entertainment in the spring of 1992 and followed that up with the 
searing guitars, churning rhythms and incisive lyrics of Undertow in 
April 1993.  That summer the group performed on Lollapalooza of the 
first time, quickly graduating from the second stage to hte main 
stage.
	Texas comedian Bill Hicks introduced the band in L.A. at the last 
stop of the tour, cementing a mutual admiration that continued (at 
least on the band's part) after Hicks' untimely death.  (There's an 
illustration of the comic in the CD booklet for AEnima, Tool's 
uncompromising second album, released in October, 1996.)
	In addition to Hicks, the many cultural phenomena that interest 
Tool include "lachrymology," the science of crying as a therapy (which 
may well have been invented by the band); the process of military 
brainwashing (Keenan attended West Point Prep School for a time);  the 
animal anesthetic ketamine (note the essay in the liner notes of 
AEnima);  and the ancient traditions of Ritual Magik (ditto).

Posted to t.d.n: 12/23/97 15:56:59