Tool members Adam Jones, Justin Chancellor, and Danny Carey recently held their first Music Clinic event in St. Paul. Peanut Arbuckle/cooltoolguy posted highlights on the Tool Reddit, including Tool’s members explaining why original bassist Paul D’Amour quit the band and who almost replaced him.
Q: Third Eye includes an excerpt from Bill Hicks describing drugs helping produce great music. How have psychedelics enhanced Tool?
A: Justin, I believe it was, answered that drugs have both good and bad to them and that the war on drugs doesn’t take into account both sides. Danny explicitly said that yes, drugs may help create good music and that when they were much younger they used psychedelics. Adam talked about individuals abusing acid and using it every day. While these individuals saying that they’re “awake” or something like that, Adam says they’re frying their brain “like that one commercial.”
Also, Adam explicitly states that Sober is about an artist or musician who creates “just out of their mind” (in a good way) while intoxicated. Hence, this artist/musician wishes he could not be sober.
Jambi was created off a riff Justin made that he was really into. Adam thought it was too simple a riff to be that excited about, but since Justin was really fuckin digging it, Adam went along with it.
Adam would cry while playing wings for marie even before the vocals were added.
The Fibonacci sequence showed up accidentally when Justin was jamming, and Danny picked up as something neat. Maynard liked it too so he made the lyrics based off it as well.
And the real hard-hitting best question of the day: why don’t you change your set list up? As you can imagine, there was a lengthy response. To summarize: if Justin, Adam, and Danny feel sick or they’re hungover, they can still perform. Maynard, as the vocalist, is simply unable to do so. Certain songs are fucking horrible for his voice. If they want to do these difficult songs, they have to make adjustments like lowering the pitch in which Maynard sings. See: The Pot. Also, songs that they related to and wrote when they were young and angry just don’t translate to who they are today. They feel as if performing certain songs would be like acting like they are who they were 30 years ago and it wouldn’t have integrity.
Finally, one more funny anecdote: Adam watched a documentary about prison sex, and how inmates described it as being “hot.” Adam told Maynard “prison sex is hot”. The title is essentially an inside joke.
