Maynard James Keenan doesn’t care about the listener’s experience with music like his while creating new material. The Tool vocalist talked about the matter in a chat with Rick Beato a few years ago. Beato asked him:
“Do you think that people have lost the ability to experience music like that because of things like TikTok?”
He explained:
“Ah, I’m 58. I don’t care. [Laughs] It’ll come back around. Things do come back around. People start to appreciate those things, and maybe something good will come out of those weird sound bite, narcissistic rabbit holes. Uh, I don’t know. I’m the old dude. It’s like, ‘Back in my day, our music had space.’”
The Singer Doesn’t Try to Be ‘Relevant’
Keenan previously said that he wasn’t ‘necessarily relevant’ or appreciated on TikTok because the music on it was different. But the singer noted during an appearance on the ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast that he wasn’t concerned about it, either.
He criticized his peers chasing relevancy as follows:
“You can’t think about whether or not you are relevant, because you’ll start being desperate and getting plastic surgery and lookin’ like a fuckin’ alien and trying to insert yourself into some stupid fuckin’ thing. I’m not talking anybody. I’m not talking about my peers. The quest for relevancy turns to desperation very quickly. It reeks. So just maintain your art dude… (Tool) is just having fun creating.”
He Focuses On Different Sounds
Maynard James Keenan released several hit albums with Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer through the years. He also shared how the sound in these records was so ‘diverse’ during the 2022 interview:
“That’s the listening part. What does Billy (Howerdel) do, what do Adam (Jones) Justin (Chancellor) and Danny (Carey) do? What does Matt (McJunkins) and Carina (Round) do? I’m listening to what they’re doing and having that (musical) conversation with them and building on those relationships. They are different conversations with different people with different life experiences. The art and the sounds that come out of those people is going to be 100 percent different. Even if I’m the common thing.”
Keenan last collaborated with Primus for a three-song EP called ‘Sessanta E.P.P.P.’ He co-wrote the 2024 record and performed vocals for A Perfect Circle and Puscifer tracks.