“People said, ‘Oh, you’re a metal band’. I thought that was kind of lame”: the story of Tool’s Undertow, the debut album that introduced the world to a new kind of noise

Tool in 1993.

Thanks to the quality shown on their debut EP, 1992’s Opiate, some well received live performances with the likes of Rage Against the Machine, White Zombie and Rollins Band and frontman Maynard James Keenan’s memorable cameo on RATM’s Know Your Enemy, Tool went into 1993 routinely namechecked as one of the most promising young bands in alternative music. Not that it was a description that they were particularly happy with.

“Look at bands like Pearl Jam,” drummer Danny Carey grumbled at the time. “That’s not alternative. Their songs are just as poppy as anyone else’s.”