PAUL D’AMOUR On Quitting TOOL: “You Don’t Need To Spend 10 Years To Make An Album, You Know?”

Bassist Paul D’Amour left Tool in 1995 and was replaced by Justin Chancellor that same year. Now in a new interview with Guitar World, D’Amour explained that his decision to leave the band was purely due to their taking forever to make new music. Which isn’t exactly surprising – it seems like Tool themselves are also frustrated with that process, even in 2024.

“I think at the beginning of the band, we were all happy to be there,” said D’Amour. “I’d written a bunch of stuff beforehand, and then those guys had some riffs. It was already kind of there in a weird way; we just had to sort of nurture it.

“We nursed that for several years and multiple tours, playing those same songs, and all that success came. And honestly, I feel like all of a sudden there was this sophomore slump. People started overthinking all the parts, and I never was that way as a musician. I was always somebody that writes out of instinct.

“When we got to writing Ænima, we spent a year and basically wrote five songs. That, to me, was so frustrating. And I think Adam was really in this moment where he was trying to find his voice as a guitar player. He was just so unsure about everything, and playing the same parts over and over and over. And I was just like, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t!’ I really couldn’t deal with it, you know?

“I just felt like that was never going to end, no matter how much we beat that into the ground and talked about this and that. I’d probably would have left that band 10 times by now because they still operate the same way. They make great music – but dude, you don’t need to spend 10 years to make an album, you know? They’re great riffs, but they’re not that complicated.”

Despite his absence, D’Amour is still credited as a songwriter for the songs “Stinkfist”, “Eulogy”, “H.”, “Pushit”, and the title track on Ænima. D’Amour has since found new life in Ministry, though that well is soon drying up as Al Jourgensen plans the end of the band. Maybe we’ll get some new Lesser Key? They haven’t done anything in years…