Maynard James Keenan, vocalist of Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer has made a second trip to the ‘Steve-O’s Wild Ride!‘ podcast. The enigmatic musician/entrepreneur previously sat down with that show’s host, ‘Jackass‘ star Steve-O, back in 2003. With the two having remained in touch since, this latest conversation, published today, January 22nd, was a far more casual affair.
A vast swath of topics were discussed, including Puscifer‘s forthcoming new album “Normal Isn’t” (due February 06th), Keenan‘s thoughts on religious extremism, human consciousness , veganism and more. The discussion also led into some talk about Keenan‘s own struggles with self-doubt and his struggles with performing certain songs in his 60s — a topic that he opened up on his previous visit to the podcast.
Some highlights from this lengthy discussion, which clocks in at just over an hour and a half, can be found below.
On the prospect of being labeled a ‘rock icon’, Keenan replied [transcribed by theprp.com]:
“Well, when I think of rock, I think of f*cking Lemmy, man. Like up till f*cking 11a.m having been up two days straight doing f*cking shots at the Rainbow. I just, that’s just not me. I don’t know what I am. I guess I’m more like an entrepreneur. Storyteller. You know what? I’ll take storyteller.”
Keenan also once again spoke of the issues his age have presented when it comes to performing live at shows:
“I saw a video somebody posted of me doing some sh*t with my body. I’m like, ‘Oh my god, that would be, I would be out for a week, if I did that sh*t now.”
“I think [my voice], it’s actually not, I don’t want to say better. I think I’ve figured out how to work with it better by, you know, arranging sets a certain way. I think working with Carina [Round, Puscifer co-vocalist] and singing Puscifer has helped me develop better longevity vocal skills. That’s helped quite a bit.
So, there’s things that I’m I think I feel like I’m doing some things better than I used to as far as like being able to sing tomorrow night, right? Those kind of things… and the next night and the next night. But there’s some songs I can’t, you know, at my age, there’s just songs I can’t even do no matter what I try, tuning down, whatever. They’re just out of my range now.”
On his bands enforcing an infamous no-filming policy at live concerts:
“Well, it’s not about us. It’s about the person in front of you, or sorry, behind you. Because they’re having to look at the show. This person paid like 70 bucks for a ticket and now I’m back here trying to see the show through your phone. That’s just it’s rude to the people. That’s why we pick a couple songs and go, ‘you can film these.’ But don’t ruin somebody else’s experience for the rest of the show. It’s just it’s selfish and it’s you’re unaware of your behavior. It’s just become so… normal.”
He also discussed being serious with all of his musical output, while revealing a past Tool song from their debut album “Undertow” he regrets lyrically:
“All of the projects are for me lyrically, they are absolutely serious play. All of it is serious play. It’s all balance. It’s all, there’s something being accomplished. I think I failed miserably multiple times on putting some songs together and then you build, you go, ‘Okay that that was stupid. I’m going to I’m going to do better on that next time. And you get caught up in the wrong thing.
There’s some old Tool songs that I don’t like playing them because I just I feel like I failed them. They’re popular songs, but I just feel like I was trying to make a joke and it was a dumb joke. I should have moved on.”
“I don’t feel like the lyrics hold up under scrutiny. ‘4°‘ is a stupid song, okay? It’s the way I wrote it. Like it’s just I was trying to f*cking make a butt sex joke and it was just a f*cking… It was dumb. The song’s beautiful. What those guys did, you know, musically is great and I think maybe the melody’s a good melody, but the words are just dumb [laughs.] I don’t know what the f*ck I was thinking. Um so, so don’t do that again. Like, you know, fix it and make a song like ‘Stinkfist‘ [laughs].”
On his childhood-rooted trust issues and struggles with self-doubt:
“I have such insane trust issues from, you know, childhood f*cking trauma. I don’t trust people, and also I don’t have any self-worth. So I have crippling self-doubt, and so when people are trying to praise me for a thing, I apologize for saying ‘okay.’ But I just have such crippling self-doubt that I can’t accept that you are giving me a compliment. It doesn’t register with me. I feel like you’re up to something.
And that’s not you [Steve-O]. I’m just in general [with] people. I just feel like what is it you [want?] And all I can do is let you down ’cause I’m not whatever the f*ck you think I am. I’m not that guy. I’m literally just f*cking struggling over here.
So, you know it kind of registers weird. So I have to I have to accept that like, okay there’s things that I’ve done that have like helped somebody and I just have to accept that. But I’m not going to go hang out with you. Right. But I do… For strangers, I have a wall up for strangers… trust issues and everything.”
“It’s hard to say out loud. It’s not something you want to f*cking really [discuss]… here we are telling everybody… Now somebody’s going to use it against me. You know what I mean?… It’s circular. You go around in f*cking circles.”
He also shared his thoughts on AI and ChatGPT and the fears many hold over them:
“We’ve used AI for a couple things, but you literally are using AI every time you Google something. So the idea you’re worried about f*cking AI taking over, you really, that ship has f*cking sailed. I used ChatGPT a couple years ago to like just see if I could get a jump start on some scripts and it was f*cking horrendous. It’s like I can’t use any of it. I thought, ‘Oh, this is just going to be a seed to start and kind of go.’ It was f*cking garbage.
“I’m sure it’s fine now [years later], but I just don’t… there’s a there’s going to be a balance for it. Like all of a sudden you’re not going to wake up like, ‘there’s no actors anymore, right? It’s all AI actors.’ Well, maybe for K-pop. Uh, but I just don’t; Cameras are going to replace painters. Okay. Drum machines are going to replace drummers. Shut up.”
“So here’s the thing. Everybody worried about the global impact of the servers, you know, like because the argument is like the data centers, the AI data centers, and the heat and everything that just environmentally impact, it’s the energy and then the water all those things. The funny thing is a lot of people that are bitching about that are the same people have Bitcoin. So, it’s the same f*cking argument. And so, because the blockchain sh*t is like it’s taking energy to f*cking keep that sh*t moving. Um, but here’s the thing.
The Ring of Fire is going off right now. The plates are shifting. The earth, the fault lines are f*cking rumbling. There’s solar flares coming off the sun. Just that kind of activity on the earth is going to end up doing something where all those f*cking servers, it’s just going to be interrupted literally.”
Elaborating further on the Ring of Fire, he went on to say:
“It’s the whole coastline that goes from Japan up through along the top, or down, around Alaska, along the West Coast through around you know the South Pacific. So, it’s all that all those volcanic spots around that. That’s the ring of fire and it’s all where the fault lines kind of all line up.
So it’s escalated quite a bit in the last couple years. There’s a lot of people tracking it, and of course it’s all those it’s people you have to take with a grain of salt like, ‘oh my god! run! run! run!’ But, you know, it’s definitely heating up and there’s more activity. I was in the earthquake in Tokyo last month. We were in f*cking hotel like, like the f*cking hotel was rocking. So it’s happening. But my point is like, those are the kind of things when people think that they have all the power in the world ,and they’re the guys on top of everything, and they’re pulling all the strings and the puppeteering everything.
Those are the kind of things that just completely level the field. If all your money’s in Bitcoin and you know all your stuff, you have all your server sh*t, it’s one faultline — a couple faultlines — a couple volcanoes going off in ways that you had not expected. Pompei sh*t. Like leveling, burying an entire city.
Those are the kind of things that will end up level the playing field. It won’t be about some savior coming along to eat the rich. It’ll be like an environmental thing that just completely… I don’t know maybe check this out.
Like let’s say that the solar flares end up somehow converting to EMPs and just all their sh*t goes off. It’s done. Electromagnetic pulse. Okay? So like it’s just all all electronics go pfft, done. Imagine your life right now. Everybody who thinks they’re in power, quite a bit of their power is rooted in electronics, in terms of like their banking, their finances, all those things, weapons, weaponry, communications.
If a large scale EMP hit the globe, it’s like caveman days ’cause people don’t remember how to f*cking raise a chicken. They don’t remember how to f*cking purify their water, right? And they can’t Google it now.”
Speaking on finding humor in the kids of his friend liking Puscifer, but not enjoying Tool, Keenan offered:
“This is funny to me. All the kids… like ages from 16 to 30: huge Puscifer fans. And they view Tool as like when your uncle is into Steely Dan, you know? It’s this other thing that’s like, yeah, my weird uncle is into that. Um, I just thought was funny ’cause I’m in that and I’m like, ‘we’re not Steely Dan‘.
But I understand the procession because whatever you’re into as that adolescent kid, whatever your older siblings, or uncle, or grandfather was into, that’s silly. That’s you know, that’s grandpa music. And we’ve been around long enough that we’re spanning like three generations of people listening. So, I get it. We’re officially the Rush of fans that are like,’ I don’t want to listen to Rush.'”
