During a recent interview with Bert Kreischer, Maynard James Keenan revealed how to let go of the ‘rock star ego.’
“I want to talk to you a little bit about ego cuz you were talking about ego and it’s got to be confusing to be a rock star, to be a frontman that not to be your compass for feal where you go like, ‘I just want to make the music because I’m having a trouble with ego right now,’” the host told the singer.
Keenan replied by saying, “It’s a toxin and we’re all going to suffer from it. There’s no way out of it. If you’re singing in front of a bunch of people or telling drinks in front of a bunch of people or you’re in front of a camera and then something… there’s some success attached to that, you’re f*cked.”
“It’s going to feed that beast but the important part is to I think, just for me is make sure that you have people around you that genuinely don’t give a f*ck about that. You just have your friends that are around that are not getting paid for this sh*t,” Maynard continued.
He then added, “Go home for Thanksgiving and Christmas to spend time with the family, with that angry uncle who’s mad at you for leaving. He puts you right back in the place you were when you were 9 years old and you feel that humility and that grounding. It’s a grounding.”
In 2022, Keenan talked about their success and shared how they’ve kept it over the years. The rocker said, “Well, they’re not going to support it if they show up and it’s boring; they’re not going to come back. You have to have follow-through. You have to have a thoughtful presentation.”
“People want to be entertained; they want to be moved in some way. And I think to do that, depending on your agenda, people like me, I just need to do a thing, and I need to do it well. And I’m never satisfied with how I did it; I think I can do it better,” he also noted.
Keenan concluded, “So if you get in that mindset — you’re always trying to improve on the thing you did, even if it was the night before and you’ve done this thing ten thousand times, there’s always room for improvement and adjustment. So I think that’s what people have come to expect, is that they know that we are thoughtful and we’re always thinking about fixing, correcting and making better.”
Tool’s next shows will be in March 2025. The band will perform at Melia Caribe Beach on March 8.