Maynard James Keenan on New Book, Tool LP: ‘Do I Seem Like a Lazy Person?’

Maynard James Keenan is an industry unto himself. Once known primarily as Tool‘s enigmatic, vocally astonishing frontman, Keenan has evolved into an ever-prolific creative force. As fans continue to wait patiently, or not so, for news of Tool’s long-rumored fifth LP, Keenan continues to busy himself with all sorts of other endeavors — art-pop collective Puscifer; his winemaking outlet, Caduceus Cellars — that have been going on way too long to be considered mere side projects. Add one more to the list: Word emerged today that Keenan is collaborating with seasoned writer-editor Sarah Jensen on an authorized biography.

We reached Keenan by phone to discuss the writing process, the day’s happenings at Caduceus and, yes, what’s up with that long-awaited Tool album.

Can you give me the backstory on this book? How did it come about?
One of my best friends in high school, we’re still close, his sister’s a writer, she’s 10 years older than we are; she’s kind of been around for a while, of course, seeing everything that went on pre–high school, high school, etc. So I approached her, because she’s a writer, to see if she was interested in helping me work on a semi-autobiography. Because I didn’t really want to write it as an autobiography, first-person — I’d rather have it be more in story form, like you’re kind of along for the journey, with sidebars by me throughout, in my voice, kind of expanding on particular instances or anecdotes. But for the most part, it’s just she and I on the phone a couple times a week, just going over timelines, going over stories, etc.

Why did you feel that now was the time to tell your story in this format? I imagine people have approached you before with the idea of doing a book.
I wasn’t really sure how long it would take to actually pull off writing a book. I was kind of shooting for my 50th birthday, but we didn’t really get the conversations going quickly enough to get it done in my 50th year. So it’ll end up being a little later.

So I assume the fact that you were already friendly with the writer made this process more appealing than working with a stranger.
Right, because she already knows where I come from. She’s from there, so there’s a lot of holes that can be filled in just basically because she grew up where I grew up.

You’ve obviously talked about your life a million times in interviews and in the documentary that you did, Blood Into Wine. Were there particular things that you wanted to share with people that you felt hadn’t been dealt with in previous accounts of your life?
I guess so. I mean there’s always that perception that whatever you’ve done that’s the largest media-friendly thing in your life, where the world came to know of you, there’s a perception that there was no life before, and that you were nothing before. There’s a lot of stuff that went on in my life that nobody really knows about. So I feel like this is the chance to show the patterns, tell a story.