Since going viral (and even getting a nod from Tom Morello himself) in 2020 with his amazingly heavy cover of Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name – played on a Weissenborn lap slide – Dan Dubuque has brilliantly reimagined songs by the likes of Nirvana, the Beatles and Queens of the Stone Age.
Now, the Montana native has turned his attention and talents to Tool, and their near-12-minute epic, Pneuma.
Taken from the band's 2019 comeback album, Fear Inoculum, it's an incredibly daunting song to tackle, but Dubuque does so exquisitely, capturing Maynard James Keenan's vocal melody, the song's ever-shifting rhythms and Adam Jones and Justin Chancellor's respective electric guitar and bass guitar work on just a single instrument.
Dubuque does have a well-stocked pedalboard too though, which he uses to great effect, adding eeriness to his slide work with some delay, and heaviness to some of the central riffs with distortion, for instance.
Dubuque also has the added benefit of some natural reverb, having filmed – like the rest of his videos – the cover deep in the gorgeous, snow-covered wilderness of his home state.
The cover is dedicated to Tool, with the video's caption reading simply, "For Adam Jones, Danny Carey, Justin Chancellor and Maynard James Keenan."
For more of Dubuque's videos, be sure to swing by his YouTube channel.
Tool, for their part, are currently in the midst of a lengthy American tour in support of Fear Inoculum. On the opening night of the tour – in Eugene, Oregon on January 10 – Jones was seen playing what's rumored to be the prototype of an Adam Jones signature Gibson Flying V.
