Adam Jones. Justin Chancelor, Danny Carey, Maynard James Keenan.

TOOL is probably THE band I love the most. I first heard them in 1996, but I didn't like vocals of Maynard. Now I honstly can't understand why the hell not. I first started to like them in 1998, and I've been hooked ever since. Now on to their history.

Formed in 1990, when Danny (drummer) and Paul (bassist) (former member) met Adam (guitarist) and Maynard (vocalist). Maynard and Adam would always be practicing together and would invite people to came and play with them. But nobody showed up.
Danny lived next door to Maynard, so eventually he would come and practice with them, out of pity. And then TOOL was born. A couple of years of practice later, in '92, they gave out their EP, Opiate. Selling over 500,000 copies, it was with the release of this EP that you could begin to see the seeds of TOOL's oppressively bleak, cerebral metal that 1 year later spawned...

Undertow. In the post-Nirvana era, they landed a slot on the third Lollapalooza tour in 1993, which helped their debut album rocket into platinum status (platinum = 1 million sold, Untertow has sold 2 million copies). The album firmly reinforced metal as a musical style. Inspired by alternative theories of science and eastern religion, Untertow is a very dark, mockery, of organized religion. It also proved that metal could be simultaneously intelligent, emotional, and brutal.

Three years later they unveiled their second double platinum album, Ænima. Moving on from Undertow, Ænima keeps the darkness but goes prog. rock as the musical theme. Containing epical, 15 minute long, highly advanced prog. rock songs like Third Eye in one end, and pure screaming metal songs like Hooker with a penis in the other, Ænima is easily one the most important metal albums to come out of the 90's. They made two music videos from Ænima, Stinkfist and Ænema (yes it's spelled correctly), continuing with the same style as their previously two released videos from Undertow (Sober and Prison Sex), Adam Jones is the mastermind behind all TOOL videos, except Hush, which was directed by Ken Andrews of Failure. Being an animator for several famous hollywood movies in the late 80's and the early 90's, Adam contributed with special effects on Terminator 2, Jurassic Park and Predator 2 among some of the more known movie titles. The band actually produce and edit the videos themselves. There is one thing that is repeated through all TOOL videos, and that is that they're animated, the band never is seen (except Hush, and some small clips from Sober), and they're all weird, is in you haven't got the slightest clue what they're about. So why not check them out yourself here?

TOOL then went on a tour after Ænima, touring every year except in 2000. They had a long break during the tour from song writing and also got into a lawsuit with their record label. But it all worked out in the end, and signed a new 3 record contract. Which allowed them to release their next album, which was 5 years in the making. That album is Lateralus.