Tool, etc. frontman Maynard James Keenan appeared on Beats 1 Radio this past Tuesday, September 03rd, discussing a variety of topics with host Zane Lowe. Amid the discussion Justin Bieber was brought up in a not so subtle reference to Bieber‘s public Tool fandom.
If you’re unaware, Bieber took to his social media this past July, publicly expressing his admiration for Tool. In reply to a resulting story on the matter, Keenan replied with “#bummer” on Twitter. This led to Bieber‘s wife Hailey unloading on Keenan via Twitter over the matter.
Addressing the matter during the aforementioned appearance on Beats 1 Radio, Keenan said of Bieber:
“He’s probably a good kid. It’s the crap that surrounds him. He was never armed with the tools to handle it. And the people surrounding him are monsters. He’s living in an ocean of… Am I allowed to swear on this show? OK, never mind. I was going to say… but I’m not sure I’m allowed to. So he’s, God bless him, he’s a product of those things that we’ve spoken about numerous times on every project I’ve ever done.”
“So when I make a statement like ‘#bummer’, it has nothing to do with him. It has to do with, I know that the ocean of shit that’s going to follow because he couldn’t just be a quiet Tool fan, he had to say it out loud, and now I know the flood’s coming from the people that don’t get it, and the people that think they do, and they’re going to argue with each other.
And it’s going to be stupid. And it doesn’t matter. And this poor kid’s caught right in the crosshairs, as he was, as he is.”
Tool‘s long-awaited new album “Fear Inoculum” hit stores last week and is currently poised to top the U.S. charts with an estimated 212,000 units sold during the first week according to hitsdailydouble.com.
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