Adam is originally from Illinois, and played violin in elementary school. He was accepted into the Suzuki program, and continued to play violin through his freshman year in high school. He then played a stand up bass for three years in an orchestra.
In addition to playing in an orchestra, Adam played bass in a band called Electric Sheep with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine in high school (Libertyville), and while he never received traditional guitar lessons, they learned from each other. Adam also studied film. Adam recieved a music scholarship to go to college, but chose to go to art school instead.
Adam went to school at the Hollywood Makeup Academy. He began by learning "straight make-up," because he thought it would help him out. He then began work as a sculptor and special effects designer where he learned the stop-motion camera techniques he would later apply in Tool's videos Sober, Prison Sex, Stinkfist, and Aenema.
After he graduated, he went to work at Rick Lazzarini's "The Character Shop." He was there for quite a while, 1-2 years, and worked on a TV show called "Monsters." He designed and fabricated a Grim Reaper makeup and a Zombie head on a spike (later used in Ghostbusters 2.) he worked on several commercials, and was one of the designers. He worked on a salad dressing commercial (it was never aired), Olympic stain (Albert Einstein makeups), Duracell (Boxers and Taxi cabs), Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5 (He did the Fredy Kreuger in the womb makeup), and Ghostbusters 2. At that time, Adam had a pet chameleon and a Great Dane. After that, he went to Stan Winston's. There he worked on Predator 2, where he sculpted a unique looking skull for the Predator's space ship interior.
Adam worked on several other big films in Hollywood doing makeup and set design, including Jurassic Park and Terminator 2. He also helped Green Jello with their costumes.
Adam is a great drawer, and is brilliant at charicatures. He is a big Devo fan. He used to skateboard and had an empty pool in front of the house he rented.