In 1981, Bill Manspeaker set out to create, “The world’s worst band,” Green Jellö, which would eventually help to form the iconic band Tool, and Saturday they reunited for the first time in almost 20 years.
Originally spelled Green Jellö after what they considered to be the worst Jell-O flavor, the band eventually respelled their name Green Jellÿ, due to legal reasons laid out by Kraft Foods for trademark infringement and because of the band’s slogan “GREEN JELLÖ SUCKS!”, but it is still pronounced the same.
When the band first hit the New York punk scene, they were banned from many venues including Buffalo’s local music club McVans, for smashing televisions on stage with a sledgehammer during their shows. Eventually after a long evolution musically, costume changes and many member changes, Danny Carey and Maynard James Keenan joined the band in 1989. By 1991, the band approached BMG subsidiary label Zoo Entertainment with a concept album. They promised the label an all “video album,” that they would create and produce all themselves, with just one catch, they had never made a “video album” before.
In 1992, the long-form video-only album Cereal Killer struck a huge underground response, selling over 100,000 copies. By 1993, The bands video for “Three Little Pigs”, which Maynard eerily sang, “not by the hair of my chinny chin chin,” accompanying great claymation of the classic nursery rhyme, directed by Fred Stuhr, who also directed Tool’s “Sober” video, and received huge rotation on MTV.
Thanks to the success of the “Three Little Pigs” video, the album Cereal Killer Soundtrack was released and went on to sell 14 million copies worldwide.
Although never officially breaking up, Maynard, Carey and most of the band members went their separate ways in 1995.
Some songs off of Tool’s first EP were recorded live in the Green Jellö loft.
This reunion performance can be seen on the link below:
Leave a Comment