INTERVIEW: Maynard James Keenan

All Work, No Whine: Turning Grapes Into Gold

Straight up, I was frightened. I mean, this guy just does not like talking to the press.

Maynard James Keenan, front man for Tool and A Perfect Circle, has always proved to be elusive to me as an artist. I've appreciated, more than anything, his reticence to bask in the warm white glow of the floodlights that seem fixated on our rock gods. On one extreme you have the Bonos of the world, cavorting in front of snapping cameras and stumping for issues that they appear to be wholly in favor of and asking for your help in supporting them. And then on the furthest point on that spectrum, you have people like Maynard. Someone who eschews publicity, talking, communicating with a press that just needs another interview, another headline to get through the day. Guys like him, artists like him, it is all about the music, the creation of it.  And he doesn't need a ounce of your soy ink, thank you very much, to promote it because he has legions at his back who are there willing to find it and embrace it.

One of the things that Maynard was doing with the time afforded to someone who doesn't have to check into a 9 to 5 job everyday and has enough disposable income to make smart decisions about what he needs to do to support his way of living is...

...He decided to grow some grapes.