Adam Jones
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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.
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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 stand up 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 FX's.
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. There he worked on Predator 2, where he sculpted 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
Image:Screenshot jones keenan mrshow.jpg
- 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 Metro. 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.
Equipment
Guitars
Jones owns at least two 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, due to a special production process involved. Gibson reissued this guitar and sold it for exorbitant prices in 2003. Adam Jones' Silverbursts have been modified to use Seymour Duncan pickups.[2] However, live, Adam only uses the Jazz pickup near the neck and keeps the volume turned off on his bridge pickup.Template:Fact This allows him to kill the sound using his pickup's toggle switch.
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 was recorded with the Diezel amp, along with the Marshall bass amp. Occasionally, a SUNN head was used instead of the Mesa Boogie rectifier in the studio, but the Mesa Boogie is still used on stage.
When playing live, Adam Jones' amps are all on at the same time, and are all on a distorted setting. To switch to a "clean" tone (undistorted) he simply rolls the volume on his guitar back enough to get a semi clean tone, and then plays the notes very gently without much attack on the strings from the pick to achieve a somewhat clean tone.
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.[3] 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."[4] During an interview with Guitar World, which was recently conducted surrounding the release of 10,000 Days, Jones stated that he now also uses a Gig-FX Chopper Effects Pedal along with a volume/wah pedal to control the effect. Also, both his and bassist Justin Chancellor's pedals have gone through heavy modifications.[5]
External links
- Personal website
- Jones' profile at myspace.com contains a blog and an image-gallery among other things.
- GuitarGeek.com contains further details on Jones' Lateralus era rig.