The One Big Reason Why Bassist Paul D’Amour Quit Tool

There's one big reason why bassist Paul D'Amour quit Tool back in 1995.

D'Amour became Tool's bassist when the band formed in 1990 after being introduced to them through Adam Jones. Thus, he played on the band's first two official releases — their 1992 EP Opiate and their 1993 full-length debut Undertow.

"I never really had any inclination that [Undertow] would blow up and be sustained. Right now it’s as popular as it ever was. It’s crazy. I always knew we had something like a nice, special energy and it was unique. But no one can predict that stuff," D'Amour told Bass Player in an interview.

The bassist recalled that everyone was happy when the band was in its infancy, as they had all come into it with ideas and material. But, he thinks they hit a bit of a "sophomore slump" during the creative process for Undertow's follow-up.

"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," D'Amour explained, adding that Jones played his parts over and over again.

"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," he continued.

“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.”

So, there you have it. Even people within the Tool camp get impatient with how long it takes them to put out a new album. Maynard James Keenan gets frustrated with the process to this day, but ultimately "you just have to kind of respect it."

Fortunately for D'Amour, he's been involved with several other music groups since his departure from Tool. He's been playing bass for Ministry since 2019, and has released two albums with them since (although he only played on one song on 2021's Moral Hygiene) — and they only came out three years apart from each other.