Despite now creeping into his 60s, alternative metal icon Maynard James Keenan remains as prolific as ever. In addition to overseeing a cadre of business enterprises, including a Brazilian jiu-jitsu academy, a vineyard, an eatery and more, he also fronts multi-platinum outfits Tool and A Perfect Circle, as well as his more outlandish passion project, Puscifer.
When it comes to live performances involving Keenan, filming from the audience is generally frowned upon. Most of his performances enforce strict restrictions of when fans are able to use their smartphones in the audience.
At Tool shows, those rules are severe enough that festival livestreams of the band this year were limited to wide shots only. Only the band’s performance at this year’s ‘Back To The Beginning‘ live sendoff for Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath broke from that practice. As such, fans attending shows from Keenan‘s above-mentioned trio out outfits who dare to infract on those rules can face ejection from the venue, if not a stern public scolding from Keenan himself.
While Keenan has explained his stance on blocking audience filming numerous times over the years , this year has seen another big artist in the heavy music field follow suit: Swedish occult metal band Ghost. That masked multi-platinum outfit opened at #1 on the Billboard 200 with this past April’s release of their latest album “Skeletá“.
Ghost opted to take things a step further, with their European, UK and now ongoing North American touring in support of it forcing attendees to lock their phones away in special pouches that prohibit access while in the audience. Ghost‘s mastermind Tobias Forge has his own reasons for that decision, and several months after implementing it, has noticed a marked improvement in audience engagement.
It remains to be seen if other musicians from the heavy music scene will follow suit, but Keenan himself has once again reiterated his stance on limiting his fans’ usage of smartphones at his concerts. In a recently posted chat with Clownvis Presley, Keenan outlined his thoughts on the matter as they stand now in relation to Puscifer shows [transcribed by theprp.com]:
“A lot of times if you go to shows nowadays it ends up becoming the kneejerk thing, that’s just what you do, it’s just acceptable behavior to block somebody else’s view with your phone. It’s annoying and it’s distracting and the thing you’re getting on your phone sucks. It’s not a good representation… You’re not gonna go home and watch it.
So we just kind of force the issue of just kinda engaging with each other — watching the show — and just being present, and put that thing… take a break from it. It’s only three hours and at the end we’ll let you pull out it out and you can film the last song. That way you have your souvenir that sucks that you’re never gonna watch.”
Later in the discussion, it was also once again stated that Puscifer‘s next studio album is headed for a fall release. In advance of that, the alternative rock trio will be performing it in full during a pair of intimate Los Angeles, CA shows this month.
Obviously, given their above-mentioned filming practices, they can do so with the luxury of not having to worry about footage of the sets getting out ahead of the record. Both of those shows will take place August 11th at the Exchange.
