Tom Morello reveals what Maynard James Keenan (Tool) taught him as a guitarist

Tool, a progressive alternative metal favourite, and Rage Against the Machine are inextricably linked, as per theprp. Tom Morello and Adam Jones, both guitarists, have remained friends throughout their lives. When they were teenagers, they even formed a band called The Electric Sheep. Although Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan appeared on the song “Know Your Enemy” on Rage Against The Machine‘s self-titled first album, his connection to the band and the album goes beyond that. During a recent appearance on the Lipps Service podcast, Morello talked about how two of his band’s key early songs were influenced by a fatal guitar lesson from Keenan.

We began jamming around, jamming with different bass players, different singers, including — we played with Maynard [James Keenan] at one point… It was in some 18-year-old bass players like bedroom. Me, Brad [Wilk], Maynard, and some dude named Noah jammed for… There was a recording somewhere… It was some of the riffs that later would be [used] elsewhere. Maynard‘s the dude who taught me how to do drop D tuning. He did. Quick sidebar: this is like for fans of Tool and Rage Against The Machine.

So Maynard, you know the Seattle sound was the thing, they were doing drop t-tuning, I didn’t know how to do it. So I was over at his place, and he showed me, and he was playing a riff that would become [Tool‘s] “Sober“. And the first riff that came out of my fingers when he showed me Drop D tuning was the riff from ‘Freedom‘, Rage‘s song ‘Freedom‘, and those two were sort of a song one afternoon.

And then later when Rage became a band I said, you know, ‘I don’t know if you remember, but we were jamming on that thing one time and like I’d like my half back please’ [laughter] .’ …I think Tool were off and running at that point.

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