Tool, the progressive-metal band behind Adam Jones, Danny Carey, and Justin Chancellor's gear
Tool formed in Los Angeles in 1990. The Paul D'Amour to Justin Chancellor bass swap, three Grammy wins, the 13-year gap before Fear Inoculum, and every member's documented rig, with citations.
Reviewed by the Change Your Strings editorial team ·
Tool formed in Los Angeles in 1990 with vocalist Maynard James Keenan, guitarist Adam Jones, and drummer Danny Carey; bassist Justin Chancellor joined in 1995, replacing founding member Paul D'Amour. Five studio albums run from Undertow (1993) to Fear Inoculum (2019). Jones plays Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottom (.010–.052) on his 1979 Gibson Les Paul Custom Silverburst; Chancellor runs Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky Bass on a custom Wal MKII. Three Grammy wins for Best Metal Performance.
Band members(3)
Justin Chancellor
aka Justin Gunnar Walter Chancellor
Documented gear Justin Chancellor has run with Tool since 1995: Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky Bass strings, a custom Wal MKII 4-string, Demeter preamps into Gallien-Krueger 2001RB heads and Mesa/Boogie cabs, and a Dunlop-anchored pedalboard built around his own signature Cry Baby wah. Sourced from Premier Guitar's 2024 Rig Rundown, Ernie Ball's own artist page, and Dunlop's artist roster.
Producers(1)
At a glance
Role
Active
Affiliations
- Zoo Entertainment, then Volcano Entertainment, then RCA / the band's own Tool Dissectional imprint (label history across the catalog)
- Three Grammy Awards for Best Metal Performance: "Ænema" (1998), "Schism" (2002), "7empest" (2020)
- Adam Jones's own Grammy: Best Recording Package (49th Awards, 2007), art direction for 10,000 Days
Notable credits
- Opiate (1992, EP)
- Undertow (1993)
- Ænima (1996)
- Lateralus (2001)
- 10,000 Days (2006)
- Fear Inoculum (2019)
The band, decoded
Tool is the Los Angeles progressive-metal band that turned odd time signatures, sacred geometry, and multi-year album gaps into a commercial strategy that actually worked. Formed in 1990 by vocalist Maynard James Keenan and guitarist Adam Jones, rounded out by drummer Danny Carey and original bassist Paul D'Amour, the band has run on just one lineup change in 35+ years: Justin Chancellor replaced D'Amour in 1995 and has anchored the low end ever since.
Five studio albums across that span, from the 1993 metal debut Undertow through 2019's Fear Inoculum, plus the Opiate EP (1992) and the Salival box set (2000). Three Grammy Awards for Best Metal Performance. A catalog built on odd meters (5/8, 7/8, 9/8, 11/8), extended song forms, and Jones's visual-art sensibility running through the band's videos and album packaging. This page is the gear-and-history reference; the individual member profiles linked throughout carry the full rig breakdowns.
How Tool formed
Keenan and Jones met through a mutual friend in Los Angeles in 1989. Keenan played him a tape of a previous band project, and Jones was impressed enough by the voice that he talked Keenan into forming something new. The two started jamming while looking for a rhythm section. Carey, who happened to live in the apartment above Keenan, was introduced to Jones by Tom Morello (an old high school friend of Jones and, at the time, a member of a band called Electric Sheep). Carey has said he started showing up to their sessions mostly because he "felt kinda sorry for them," since other musicians they'd invited kept no-showing. A friend of Jones's then introduced the group to bassist Paul D'Amour, completing the original four-piece.
Before Tool, each member had landed in Los Angeles by a different route: D'Amour and Jones both wanted into the film industry, Keenan (who'd studied visual arts in Michigan) was remodeling pet stores, and Carey had drummed for Green Jellÿ, Carole King, and Pigmy Love Circus.
Where the name comes from
Tool's early press cycle ran with a fabricated origin story crediting a made-up pseudophilosophy called "lachrymology." It was a joke that stuck for years. Keenan eventually gave a more direct answer in an interview:
Tool is exactly what it sounds like: It's a big dick. It's a wrench. ... we are ... your tool; use us as a catalyst in your process of finding out whatever it is you need to find out, or whatever it is you're trying to achieve.
Vocalist, Tool
The catalog, release by release
Opiate through Fear Inoculum
- Opiate (March 1992, Zoo Entertainment)
- Debut EP. Six songs the band itself described as the "hardest sounding" material they'd written to that point, including the singles "Hush" and "Opiate." The "Hush" video protested the Parents Music Resource Center's censorship push, with the band members' mouths taped shut and genitals covered by Parental Advisory stickers.
- Undertow (1993, Zoo Entertainment)
- First full-length. RIAA gold in September 1993, platinum by 1995, helped along by a Lollapalooza run and a Bill Hicks introduction at the tour's LA stop. The single "Sober" won Billboard's Best Video by a New Artist. Follow-up single "Prison Sex," about child abuse, got pulled from MTV rotation after a handful of airings.
- Ænima (September 17, 1996, Zoo / Volcano)
- Second full-length, produced by David Bottrill (King Crimson). Dedicated to comedian Bill Hicks, who'd died two and a half years earlier. Eventually certified triple platinum. The title track "Ænema" won the band's first Grammy, Best Metal Performance, in 1998.
- Salival (2000, box set)
- CD/VHS or CD/DVD release during the band's post-Ænima legal hiatus. One new original track, a cover of Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter," a live Peach cover, and revised older songs. Effectively ended breakup rumors that had built up during the gap.
- Lateralus (2001, Volcano)
- Debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Announced under the decoy title "Systema Encéphale" before the real name was revealed. Won the band's second Grammy, Best Metal Performance, for "Schism." A 10-show mini-tour with King Crimson followed that August.
- 10,000 Days (May 2, 2006, Volcano)
- Sold 564,000 copies in its US opening week, debuting at No. 1. Dedicated to Maynard's mother, Judith Marie Garrison Keenan. Won Best Recording Package at the 49th Grammy Awards (2007) for Adam Jones's 3-D art-direction concept. Full gear breakdown on the album's own page.
- Fear Inoculum (August 30, 2019, RCA / Tool Dissectional)
- Fifth studio album, 13 years after 10,000 Days. Tool's catalog hit streaming for the first time on August 2, 2019, having been one of the last major holdouts. Debuted at No. 1, the band's third Billboard 200 chart-topper. Won a third Grammy, Best Metal Performance, for "7empest," in January 2020.
- Opiate² (March 1, 2022)
- A re-recorded, roughly double-length version of the original Opiate track, released for the EP's 30th anniversary with a music video directed by Dominic Hailstone.
Adam Jones's guitar rig
Primary instrument · 1979 build · Every Tool record
Gibson Les Paul Custom Silverburst
Norlin-era Gibson humbuckers, rosewood fretboard, multi-ply Custom-grade binding, and the metallic-grey-and-charcoal silverburst finish Gibson produced in the late 1970s. Gibson has sold a faithful production reissue, the Adam Jones Les Paul Custom Silverburst signature, since 2020.
Source: Gibson.
Amplification · Parallel-amp rig
Diezel VH4 + Marshall Super Bass
Multiple heads blended in parallel for the layered, harmonically dense rhythm tone that suits Tool's polyrhythmic writing. Unusual for a single guitarist; part of why the tone is hard to replicate with one amp.
Source: Adam Jones's full profile.
Skinny Top Heavy Bottom (.010–.052)
Why this one: The gauge Adam Jones named himself in a 2014 Guitar World interview. Light top for unchanged lead-and-bend feel, heavy bottom for tension control in Drop D and lower tunings.
Justin Chancellor's bass rig
Main bass · Custom-built · Since Ænima
Wal MKII 4-string
Ordered as a replica of a friend's originally-fretless Wal that got fretted for the Ænima sessions. Mahogany core, bird's-eye maple caps, rosewood fretboard. He's documented playing several other Wal basses beyond this main one, though sources vary on the exact count.
Source: Premier Guitar Rig Rundown (2024).
Amplification · Since 1995
Demeter preamps into Gallien-Krueger 2001RB heads
Three GK power amp heads (one clean, one dirty, one spare) into Mesa/Boogie cabinets. Built around his own signature Dunlop JCT95 Cry Baby wah and a DigiTech Bass Whammy for the octave-up parts.
Source: Justin Chancellor's full profile.
Hybrid Slinky Bass (.045–.105)
Why this one: The base set Chancellor customizes from: stock .045–.065–.085–.105, with a heavier .110 or .135 low string swapped in depending on the song's tuning.
Danny Carey's drum kit
- Drum kit
- Sonor SQ2 signature kit: 24-inch kick, 14x8-inch signature bronze snare, 10/12/14/16/18 toms, plus an extensive Tabla and electronic-pad accessory rack for the sample-triggering parts.
- Cymbals
- Paiste Danny Carey Signature line, developed with Paiste and including hi-hats, crashes, rides, and specialty models carrying his name.
- Sticks
- Vic Firth Danny Carey Signature (model SDC), a hickory rock stick built to his spec.
Carey's playing is built on odd time signatures used as compositional foundations rather than virtuoso tricks (5/8, 7/8, 9/8, 11/8 patterns run through the catalog), polyrhythmic layering between his right hand and left foot, and Tabla-style technique cross-mapped onto the kit. "Lateralus" is the clearest example: the verse syllable counts follow the Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...), and Carey's time-signature shifts (9/8, 8/8, 7/8) track the same structure.
Grammys, lawsuits, and the 13-year gap
Tool has won three Grammy Awards, all Best Metal Performance: "Ænema" (1998), "Schism" (2002), and "7empest" (2020). Adam Jones separately won Best Recording Package at the 49th Awards (February 2007) for his art-direction concept behind 10,000 Days' packaging, a design credit shared with Mackie Osborne rather than a band-performance award, which is why some retrospectives round Tool's total up to "four Grammys" while Grammy.com's own artist page lists three.
The band's quietest stretches came from legal trouble, not creative burnout. After Ænima, Volcano Entertainment (the successor to Tool's original label, the by-then-defunct Zoo Entertainment) sued the band over alleged contract violations; Tool countersued, and the two sides settled out of court in December 1998 with a new three-record deal. In 2000, the band dismissed longtime manager Ted Gardner, who then sued over his commission. A separate lawsuit dragged on for years into the 2010s; Carey and Jones both cited it in 2014 as a reason the fifth album was delayed, and Jones confirmed in March 2015 that it had finally been settled in the band's favor.
None of the members sat idle during the gaps. Keenan recorded and toured with A Perfect Circle (founded by longtime Tool guitar tech Billy Howerdel). Jones played with the Melvins' Buzz Osborne. Carey drummed for Dead Kennedys' Jello Biafra. By the time Fear Inoculum landed on August 30, 2019, exactly 13 years after 10,000 Days, it was the longest gap between consecutive studio albums in the band's history, and one of the most-discussed release delays in modern rock.
Where to start listening
- If you're new to Tool
- Ænima (1996). The album that defined the band's alternative-metal lane and won their first Grammy. Heavier and more direct than what came after.
- If you want the prog deep end
- Lateralus (2001). Odd meters, extended song forms, the Fibonacci-structured title track. The record that moved Tool from metal band to prog-rock reference point.
- If you want the current band
- Fear Inoculum (2019). Thirteen years in the making, the RCA / Tool Dissectional era, and Carey's most elaborate recorded drum performances to date.
- If you want the origin
- Undertow (1993). The heaviest, most straightforward record in the catalog, recorded with original bassist Paul D'Amour before Justin Chancellor joined.