Adam Thomas Jones (born January 15, 1965 in Libertyville, Illinois) is best known as the guitarist for the band Tool.
He is the creative mind behind the guitar riffs and music videos of Tool. Besides his reputation as a musician, Jones is also well respected as a visual artist.
Biography
Jones was born in Park Ridge, Illinois and raised in Libertyville, Illinois and played violin in elementary school. He was accepted into the Suzuki program, and continued to play violin through his freshman year in high school. He then began to play a Bass for three years in an orchestra. In addition to playing classical music, Jones played bass guitar in the Electric Sheep with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine until Jones moved to California (Morello soon followed). According to both of them, the band was quite unpopular at the time. Jones never received traditional guitar lessons, but instead, learned by ear. Jones was offered a film scholarship but declined and chose to move to Los Angeles to study art and makeup effects.
Jones' studies began in 1983 at the Hollywood Makeup Academy by learning "straight make-up," because he thought it would help him out. His focus of interest shifted to film, and he began to work as a sculptor and special effects designer where he learned the stop-motion camera techniques he would later apply in Tool's videos for Sober, Prison Sex, Stinkfist, Ænema, Schism, Parabola, and Vicarious. He graduated in 1987.
After graduation, he went to work at Rick Lazzarini's "The Character Shop". During the next couple of years, he worked on a TV show called Monsters. He designed and fabricated a Grim Reaper makeup and a Zombie head on a spike (later used in Ghostbusters 2), among others. After that he went to Stan Winston's where he worked on Predator 2, sculpting a unique looking skull for the Predator's space ship interior.
Jones worked on several other big films in Hollywood doing makeup and set design, including Jurassic Park and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
After Tom Morello introduced Jones and his friend Maynard James Keenan to Danny Carey in 1990, they - along with Paul d'Amour - formed Tool.
Trivia and Side Projects
Jones and Keenan are interviewed about the arrest of co-character Ronnie Dobbs, a serial criminal. Keenan - in his role as Puscifer's vocalist - replies "Gulity? Yeah. [...] I mean, we're guilty, and you don't know it. So who's really in jail?"He appeared as the guitarist of the fake band "Puscifer" along with bandmate Keenan in the TV show "Mr. Show with Bob and David".
Jones created the liner art for the re-release of Peach's Giving Birth to a Stone, in which Jones's fellow Tool member Justin Chancellor played.
Jones has toured with The Melvins as a guitarist and has contributed music to some of their albums.
Jones toured with the Jello Biafra/The Melvins band and contributed to their albums Never Breathe What You Can't See and Sieg Howdy!.
Jones has a special talent at drawing caricatures.
Jones is a big Devo fan.
He worked on a salad dressing commercial (it was never aired), Olympic stain (Albert Einstein makeups), Duracell (Boxers and Taxi cabs), Terminator 2, Dances With Wolves, Jurassic Park, Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5 (He did the Freddy Krueger in the womb makeup), Predator 2 (The Predators' Space Ship) and Ghostbusters 2.
Jones had a pet Jackson's chameleon and a Great Dane named Eon. Adam's current Great Dane is called Diablo.
He helped Green Jello with their costumes.
Jones collaborated with Fred Stuhr in the creation of "Sober", but receives no credit for work on "Hush". Watching "Hush" reveals immense stylistic differences between itself and all other Tool videos, making it clear that Jones's creative input was not involved.
Although left-handed, he plays guitar right-handed.
Equipment
Guitars
Jones owns at least five Silverburst Gibson Les Paul Customs,[1] one of which is from 1979. These guitars are rare and sought after by collectors as their "silverburst" finish will turn to green over time - Silverbursts that have the original "silverburst" color are somewhat valuable. The color will change mainly when exposed to sunlight over long periods, a defect in the finishing process, which led to the guitar's discontinuation. Gibson reissued this guitar in 2003. Jones' Silverbursts have been modified with a Seymour Duncan JB pickup in the bridge position. [2] Live Jones only uses the bridge pickup and keeps the volume turned off on his neck pickup.[1] This allows him to kill the sound using his pickup's toggle switch. In the studio has used Gibson SGs alongside his Les Pauls.[citation needed]
Amps
Jones owns and uses a vintage Marshall head, which is a non-master volume bass amplifier from 1976, Mesa Boogie dual rectifier (original, 2 channel version) and a Diezel VH4 amplifier.
On Undertow and the Opiate EP the Marshall bass amplifier was used, as the mesa boogie dual rectifier and the Diezel were not around in 1993 or before.
On Ænima the Marshall amplifier was used for high frequencies (treble). The Diezel VH4 was used to contribute the bass and mid range frequencies. The two amps were mixed accordingly to level out the frequencies.
Lateralus may have been recorded with the Diezel amp, along with the Marshall bass amp. Adam has made references to a Sunn head and may have also used his Mesa Boogie rectifier in the studio. By the time of the main Lateralus tour, the only Mesa Boogie equipment in sight was the two Mesa Rectifier Standard cabinets.
In an interview in Guitar World Magazine, Adam discusses some of the amps used on the recordings for 10,000 Days. Rivera Amps also claims on its web page that Adam is using a Rivera Knucklehead Rev Mick Thompson model on the recording.
Effects
According to a Guitar School interview in 1994, Adam Jones is not a fan of effects at all. During that time, he only used two pedals, a delay and an equalizer, in part to the reliability of simple live setups.[2]
Jones does not use an electronic bowstring (E-bow) as generally believed. Instead he explained in a different interview only a couple of months earlier, that he uses an Epilady, a razor-like item used to rip off leg hair. Apparently, an Epilady "makes great sounds when you push it against the pickups." [3]
In the April 2006 edition of Guitar World magazine, Jones revealed that he used the Gig-FX Chopper Effects Pedal. He also mentioned that he had several pedals modified, and that he used an altered volume pedal to control the strength of some effects. [4]
Adam Jones
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