Fred Stuhr
Sober (Tool Videoclip)

THE REVIEW

Fred Stuhr (U.S.A.), 1967-1997 (R.I.P.): Videoclip of "Sober", Tool (U.S.A.) from "Undertow" (1993)

You are small. Your room is dirty and empty. The squalor around you, and the demons inside you, are your only companions.

The times of "I can quit whenever I want" are long gone: you can't even realize that the only reason you're still alive is to kill what little clarity you have left. Dependency is your cage and only the substance gives you, an apparent, freedom.

Cramped corridors lead us to you: you wake up and being sober makes you suffer. Mechanically, you seek the remedy to this dreadful state, you find it and are immediately absorbed on multiple levels: while you lose yourself in your house, while you feel like you are floating in the air, while the people inside you are projected outside and demand their space, while everything seems to change and come to life. 

Now the place you are in is gigantic, and alive, and the only thing you can do is succumb to its influence.

You ask yourself too: "why can't I not be sober?".

But you find no answer and in bed, you continue to tremble.

Video directed by Fred Stuhr using the Stop Motion technique. The models were created by the band's guitarist (Adam Jones) and small cameos of the band members were interspersed throughout the animated sequences. Neither Stuhr nor Tool ever hid the fact that this video, as well as "Prison Sex", was inspired by the works of the Quay Brothers.