The Tools - The Texas Tool Tribute

In 2017, Mike, Kenny, and Steve joined to form a tribute band to Deftones named Elite, and the three met James Frick after playing shows with his bands Six Hits Nine and Rebel Sol. James, having already performed several Tool songs before, began joining Elite on stage to sing the Maynard parts of Passenger, and that’s where a discussion began about joining together to create a tribute to Tool.

Sadly, James passed away in Spring of 2020, and the band decided to take some time off. Later that year we began the search for a new singer and ended up adding Josh Miller as our new vocalist. Josh had a large social media following which included several acoustic Tool covers, and after a couple of auditions, we knew he was our guy!

Rounding out our “Five-Piece” band is Patrick. A major part of live Tool concerts is their visual show, and we wanted that to be a part of our show, as well. Patrick arranges the visuals and performs them live with the band.

The five of us are completely dedicated to creating the best possible tribute to a real Tool concert as possible.

So why did we choose “The TOOLs”? Mike’s young son has always known Tool was his dad’s favorite band, and when asked for their name he would simply yell, “THE TOOLS!” Everyone that heard it got a kick out of how excited he was to tell us. So when it came time to choose the name for our new tribute band, we just couldn’t get away from it. We were The TOOLs, and Mike’s son is more excited than ever.