The Rocking Life: Tool

Tool: Stone cold sober and breaking up the schisms in life

Tool was formed in 1990 in Los Angeles, California. The band members include vocalist Maynard James Keenan, guitarist Adam Jones, bassist Paul D'Amour, and drummer Danny Carey. In 1995, Justin Chancellor took over the helm as the band's bassist.

Tool has produced five studio albums, one EP and one box set. The band has won four grammy awards, performed worldwide tours, and their albums have reached the top of the charts in several different countries.

Tool started as a heavy metal act but became an alternative metal act. And, in my opinion, the premier alternative metal act. And using the term "act" is highly appropriate. The Tool experience is one much more than just music. The Tool experience is a sort of artistic melange of innovative music, experimental art, and creative lyrics and word pictures.

The song "Sober" is a prime example of this. In this amazing song, the idea of sobriety is to be understood in bigger terms of just sobriety from chemicals, but of life. Spoiler alert! I'm about to describe the video. lol.

The video for Sober opens with a door of sorts openning and closing until the main character is revealed, a rather groteseque man living in a dilapidated hovel. The man goes about starting his day by opening what appears to be a treasure chest, only to find nothing in side. Haven't we all had that kind of luck? lol.

The man then walks around what seems to be a haunted domicile only to find other tortured souls in and around the house. Finally, we see the man peer into his treasure box filled with nothing before retiring to bed. Mostly likely only to have to do the whole routine again tomorrow.

How much like the actual pursuit of sobriety is that! As an addict, I can relate to this. I wake up from a troubled sleep and seek some sort of treasure to brighten my day only to find exactly nothing. I then wander the walls of my small house or the city streets aimlessly only to approach strangers just like me.

Finally, I do whatever it takes to survive the day, look again at my empty treasure chest hoping upon hope to find something that is not there and then giving up and crashing on my bed only to have to repeat the whole fucked up ritual again tomorrow.

The point of this extended description is that Tool reached my heart, mind, and soul with their song, Sober. I think that's the point of the song and the video, in particular. The song ends with a chant of, "I want, what I want. I want, what I want. I want, what I want. I want, what I want."

The problem with me ever achieving sobriety is that I am too damn selfish to actually get it. I want, what I want and nothing else. I don't REALLY want sobriety, I want what I want, anything but actual sobriety. I want my weed, my Vodka, my porn, my lusts, to make unreasonable demands on my girlfriend, to be an asshole to the outside world, to do whatever the fuck I want to do without impunity, or whatever selfish thing I want that takes me away from sobriety.

To be honest, I want everything BUT sobriety though I try to give lip service to the contrary. The song Sober has made me reflect on what I really and truly want: Sobriety. Like the depressed man in the video I am just marching around hoping that things will magically change, that if I keep looking, my chest will be filled with treasure eventually, that if I just go to sleep, I will wake up and I will be transformed, again if by magic, and be truly sober.

It never seems to occur to me that sobriety is a process. A long hard process filled with failures and successes where, if I work hard enough, I will eventually win that chip and proudly display it to my family and friends, post a picture of it on Facebook or Twitter, and put it in a special place where I can always see it. The song Sober encourages me to walk and live one day at a time, if you will, and become truly sober.

Now, let me get off my high horse and say, in the tradition of the British classic Monty Python, using my best John Cleese impersonation:

"And now for something completely different."

The first Tool song I heard was Schism. It begins with the soft strumming of a lone electric guitar. The complex melodic ryhthm of the bass line, almost like the ticking of a noisy but mechanically perfect clock, caught my attention. This is soon followed by a matching guitar line an octave above with a drummer beating out the time and the classic starting lyrics:

I know the pieces fit...

That line, "I know the pieces fit," is how I would describe all of Tool's songs. Like a complex and colorful puzzle, intricately woven with complex patterns, difficult to figure out, but ultimately beautiful when the final product is revealed, is, well, amazing.

Yes, that's what I think of Tool's music, it's just amazing, pure and dirty, complex and simple, confusing and intelligent, black and white, up and down, loud and soft, where do I start? Where do I stop? Let us just say, as the song repeats over and over, "I know the pieces fit."

And the pieces truly fit. In every way possible. To me, the song Schism speaks to the fact that we need healing in our world and I think that Tool's unique brand of music offers guidance at some level on how to make the puzzles that are before us: Fit.

I can't tell you how many times that I have listened to both Schism and Tool's equally amazing song, Sober. My two favorite Tool songs. As an addict on multiple platforms (can I use that term to describe the fact that I am a recovering yet struggling addict of many different things?), I find solace in the song simply known as Sober.

The main line, "Why can we not be sober?" I think the song Sober has far and wide implications especially during the trying times that we currently face in both our society and in our world. In my opinion, we must have an attitude of sobriety before we can heal the schisms, if I may, that divide our people and our world.

As I indicated earlier, we must be sober first and foremost before any healing can happen. I'm no expert in addiction recovery but I know that sobriety is the first step to healing. Why can we not be sober? For me, listening to music by Tool is a first step to my sobriety in all matters pertinent to life.

Signing off for now,

Legend G

Fly low and avoid the radar folks