Adam Jones Profile in the Field of
Creative Technologies
Adam Jones is best known as the guitarist for the
California based progressive metal band TOOL.
His skills in the field of creative technology have helped his band
become a very controversial, and yet critically acclaimed band in the world.
Born on January 15, 1965 in Libertyville, Illinois, Jones displayed
talents for both music and visual art at an early age. He attended the Hollywood Makeup Academy,
where he learned about special effects make up.
Also Studying film, his talents in sculpting showed great potential in a
field that was at the time still quite young but was revolutionising the film
industry – stop motion animation. After
graduation, Jones received a job where he was able to create props and special
effects make up for major films such as Ghostbusters II, Nightmare on Elm
Street part V, Predator II, Jurassic Park and Terminator II. In addition to working on major films, he
also worked on some lesser known projects, such as doing costume design for a
comical rock band called “Green Jelly” which featured future TOOL singer
Maynard James Keenan.
At this point he and Maynard decided
to form a band after bringing in bass player Paul D’Amour and drummer Danny
Carey. This is when they released their first EP album, “Opiate” in 1992. In 1993, their first full-length album,
“Undertow” was released and their music videos ,(Jones had a great deal of
influence on the creation of all of their videos and would eventually become
the regular director for the bands videos) were causing a great deal of
publicity due to their controversial and poetic nature. After a 1996 album release with a new
bassist, Justin Chancellor, “Ænima” the band spent five years on hiatus,
eventually returning in 2001 with “Lateralus”, again in 2006 with “10, 000
days” and another album to be released in 2014.
Throughout his musical career with
TOOL, Jones has always remained able to express his visual arts through many of
his bands endeavours. He directed most
of their music videos and used his skills of artistry in special effects and
stop motion animation with the director in the rest of their videos. He also is a key designer of the stage in
which they perform their live shows on (Their format is very unique, hiding the
actual performers in the shadows, encouraging the audience to associate the
music with the imagery from projections on the screens behind them or the laser
show that accompanies them). Also TOOL’s
album packages have used creative technology in very unique ways, for example
their “Lateralus” album from 2001 contained a clear plastic book with images
depicting layers of human anatomy.
Music videos have been a way for
musicians to further express themselves artistically through their songs for
decades. Adam Jones is able to use his
skills in creative technologies to create music videos that are highly
provocative and imaginative, but have also caused great controversy.
In 2001, Jones was the director of the first video of
TOOL’s third album of a song entitled “Schism”.
In this video he used special effects makeup to create two large alien
looking creatures, employed image manipulation to make it appear that the two
characters were in several positions that looked physically impossible such as
going through a floor that seems to be made of some type of fluid and then
standing on it. Later in the video, many
smaller creatures appear and begin to bite the larger ones. Jones was able to do that because of his
skills in sculpting and stop motion animation (commonly referred to as
Claymation). Near the end of the video,
Jones further uses his stop motion animation skills to make it look like there
are some worm-like creatures crawling out of the skin of the largest creature. Throughout the entire video, Computer
Generated Imagery (CGI) is used to make the landscape appear to be possibly on
an alien planet. This video’s strange
figures and landscapes have caused some critics to refer to the video as
obscene although there is no profanity or sexuality in the song or video.
In 2007, Adam Jones accepted the
Grammy Award for best recording package for his work on TOOL’s 2006 release
“10, 000 days”. While most recording
artists are content with album packaging that consists of a plastic case, a
picture of the band members covering a small booklet which reads the lyrics of
the encased album, Adam Jones, along with contemporary artist Alex Grey,
created an album casing that is truly a work of art. The album for package for 10, 000 days
contains a small booklet containing a pair of stereoscopic lenses which can be
used to view photographs of the band members as well as other images in
3d. This creativity to have fans loyally
return to buy their album every time they produce one seems to go a long way in
the age of the digital music download.
TOOL possibly has the most unique
stage for live concerts in music today.
Instead of putting themselves in the spotlight, the band members, while
on stage and within view of the audience, are surrounded by shadow with attention
being focused on the large projection screens behind them and the laser and
smoke machines around them. Band members
insist that this is to” familiarize the audience with the story and feeling
behind the music and not the people telling it” according to band singer
Maynard James Keenan.
Adam Jones, I believe is one of the
best all round artists in the world today, having accepted a Grammy award to
show for it as well as his bandmates collecting 2 others between them. His skills in stop motion animation as well
as his abilities to integrate them with CGI have created unforgettable music
videos that were originally released on television, but since the social media
overtake and the rise of the internet have been placed on YouTube and have
compiled hundreds of millions of views between them. A simple act of adding stereoscopic lenses to
his album packaging which was sold in retail stores worldwide have fans
worldwide flocking to stores when there album is released during the age of the
virtual music download. His bands live
performances have sold out arenas on 6 continents and involve their performers
doing what very few other musicians are able to do.
References
Greg
Prato. (2014, Feb 1) Artist Biography by Greg Prato. Retrieved from http://www.allmusic.com/artist/adam-jones-mn0001187175
Weiderhorn,
John. (2014, Jan 28) Tool – The complete
documentary. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKndmviQRQE
Alex
young. (2014, Feb 1) ridiculously
awesome music videos: Tool’s “Schism”
retrieved from http://consequenceofsound.net/2008/09/ridiculously-awesome-music-video-tools-schism/
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