Given Keenan’s reputation as semi-reclusive and media-shy with a razor-sharp and pitch-black sense of humor (i.e. Puscifer’s more tongue-in-cheek material, his contributions to the Bob Odenkirk/David Cross sketch comedy institution Mr. Show), the expectation for a light conversation with the artist seems like dust in the wind.
Musical pleasantries are not on Keenan’s mind at the moment. Life is. Puscifer’s latest record, 2020’s Existential Reckoning, is the band’s least vaudevillian, opting for more contemplative and subdued songs in line with the album’s title. Despite a foggy sense of dread that wafts in and out of the songs’ noirish soundscapes, Keenan still makes room (on the album’s closing track “Bedlamite”) to chant “It’s gonna be all right, everything will be all right.”
“Everything is a pendulum right now,” Keenan says from his vineyard in Jerome, Arizona. “I think it’s swinging as far right and left as it can swing. But eventually it'll find its middle. That is the dilemma of being in the middle of the encroachment of a hurricane or a tornado: You know, there is calm in the center, and then as it passes there’s going to be more destruction. It's going to pass like a hurricane, but at least eventually it will find a balance. It's those edges that we're going through.”
Keenan says taking such a stance is acceptable in an age of harsh public opinion; it’s the only sensible way to maintain sanity.
“In the middle of the swing, that is the chaos: holding your ground and understanding that there is an overall balance to be maintained,” he says. “That in and of itself is a position, and that is the fight, the attempt to slow the pendulum down from swinging far right, far left. I don't take that bait. Life is way too fucking complicated to just be that black and white.
"For a person to be so stubborn in their beliefs that there is no wiggle room at all, that's not life. That's not how it works. New information should be a new approach. When you get new information, change your mind. “
Keenan says that the notion of one-sentence opinions, headlines, and soundbites can be harmful to those attempting to reckon with issues in the world, especially in an age of comment-section wars of words.
“Conversations are where you really get anything done,” he says. “Listening is a key factor. Listening and being open to new ideas when you know who you are, know what you believe and know what you want, what you think is best for not just you, but your neighbors and your extended family. But if you just ... if you're addicted to dopamine and the charge you get from an argument, then I can't help you.”
The inclination to be open to learning was instilled in Keenan from a young age. His mother, father and paternal aunts were all educators.
“I grew up in that setting and understand the value of a good, solid, foundational education and not necessarily trigonometry and calculus, but the ability to learn how to learn,” Keenan says. “If you can understand how to learn and discern simple situations and determine what is truthful versus what is factual — they're different.”
According to Keenan, "facts" are just sets of data, information without the involuntary bias of the person recounting the information.
“A long time ago, there was this movie where every time this dude flushed the toilet, somebody was actually ringing the doorbell,” Keenan begins. “So, for him, just coincidentally, that's truth. ‘When I flush the toilet, a bell rings in the living room.’ That's truthful. That's not actually factual. It was just coincidental, those things lining up. So truth can be something based on a coincidence that in your world that lines up. But it's not necessarily factual.”
The subject comes up about whether constant worry is responsible for the mass depression and anxiety in young people. Keenan says he chooses a productive lifestyle.
“I live in the middle of an orchard and a vineyard, and I have ducks and quail, and I have to take care of them every day,” he says. “So, if you're actually gathering eggs every morning, and feeding animals, tilling fields, tending to your herbs outside and planter beds, like there's some kind of a grounding to that thing. And I find that when the when the drama wheel starts turning, I don't have time for it because I'm busy feeding the ducks, literally.
"I'm not even aware of it, so it's not affecting me. But if you're staring at your phone and you're just doom-scrolling, that's where your dread is coming from. Just turn that thing off and go outside.”
The no-phones policy has been a staple of Puscifer shows for the better part of the band’s existence, as it has been for Tool and A Perfect Circle, much to many fans’ chagrin. Keenan says phones are a distraction from the real world, and there’s no place for that in concerts.
“You put your cell phones away at our shows. ... We have a show to present you. Strap in. It's going to be fun. On the last song, we'll pull your cell phone back out to get your stupid souvenir.” –Maynard James Keenan
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“It's always been the policy,” he says. “You put your cell phones away at our shows. You do not pull them out. You will be escorted out. You're here for one fucking reason. We have a show to present you. Strap in. It's going to be fun. On the last song, we'll pull your cell phone back out to get your stupid souvenir.”
At one show in Europe, Keenan says, after the band allowed people to take pictures for the final song, someone told him that a woman in the crowd spent that last song googling pictures of him — while he was on stage in front of her.
“I’m right there on the fucking stage!” Keenan says with a frustrated laugh. “The fuck is that? What's wrong with you? It’s the dopamine, it's like taking OxyContin, it's the same reaction in your body. There's a chemical thing in your body that you have to continually look at this fucking thing. We need an EMP [electrmagnetic pulse] or a solar flare. Unplug all that shit for a bit.”
Outside of waxing on life’s many nuisances, Keenan does actually have a little time to talk about music for a bit. He speaks highly of drummer Sarah Jones, who plays drums on the majority of Existential Reckoning, and is perhaps most widely known as the drummer for English sensation Harry Styles. Keenan says Puscifer’s primary instrumentalist Mat Mitchell was responsible for bringing Jones into the fold.
“I think [artist] Bat For Lashes was his first exposure to her,” Keenan says of Miitchell. “Somehow they became friends, and she played on ‘Man Overboard,’ on one our records. She’s an incredible, incredible drummer, and I really want to at some point I want to tour with Sarah. I think the only way to do that is going to be to break Harry Styles’ legs.”
When asked if an alternative, more peaceful solution could possibly be a joint Harry Styles/Puscifer tour, Maynard pauses for a moment before answering.
“That's not nearly as fun as my idea,” he says.
