Maynard James Keenan
Maynard James Keenan
Maynard James Keenan, often referred to by his initials MJK, is an American musician, record producer, winemaker, and actor, best known as the vocalist for Grammy Award-winning progressive metal band Tool. He is originally from Ohio, but spent his high school and college years in Michigan. After serving in the United States Army in the early 1980s, he attended Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids. He moved to Los Angeles, California in 1988 to pursue a career...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth17 April 1964
CountryUnited States of America
Everything we release with Tool is inspired by our music.
If you want to get your soul to heaven, trust in me. Don't judge or question. You are broken now, but faith can heal you. Just do everything I tell you to do.
I see a lot of patterns in our behavior as a nation that parallel a lot of other historical processes.
Choices always were a problem for you. What you need is someone strong to guide you. Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow, what you need is someone strong to use you - like me.
It's a purging of sorts. Like, when you're all done doing your laundry and it's fresh and bright, but washing the clothes, you wouldn't want to get in while it's spinning around.
The army influences everything I do. Certainly it teaches you discipline, which is a necessary element of development. I think there's more of a collaborative understanding in the band because of that.
Because as an only child, you have your own little world.
The process that we go through in recording with Tool is very organic, but at the same time it is very thought out. There is a very left-brain process of dissecting what we're doing and drawing from source material; it's very research oriented and esoteric.
I always knew that I wanted to be an artist.
Adam does most of the work when it comes to videos and he basically does the same as I do with the lyrics. The videos are his visual interpretations of our music.
I believe that when you go into a gallery or a museum, the most powerful pieces are the ones that don't have the words in the corner that distract you from the larger piece.
Desert, in generally, is a very good place to find yourself. Or lose yourself.
I'm a pessimist. But I'm a pessimist with a sense of responsibility.
Prescott National Forest is right on the edge of my home in Arizona.