Maynard James Keenan

 

James Herbert Keenan (Aka: Maynard James Keenan)

 

  • Born April 17 1964
  • Joined  the military in 1981 so he could make enough money to go to art school
  • Formed the band Tool in 1990
  • Formed a perfect circle in 1999
  • Started his solo project puscifer in 2003
  • Owns merkin vineyards and caduceus cellars winery
  • Actor
  • Composer and symphony writer

 

Has released 21 studio albums with three different bands:

  • 72826: 1991                             Image result for tool album cover
  • Opiate: 1992
  • Undertow: 1993
  • Sober: Tales From The Dark Side: 1994
  • Ænimia: 1996
  • Salival: 2000
  • Mer De Noms: 2000
  • Lateralus: 2001
  • Thirteenth Step: 2003
  • aMOTION: 2004
  • Emotive: 2004
  • 10,000 days: 2006
  • V is for viagra: 2007
  • Don’t shoot the messenger: 2007
  • Deep cuts: 2009
  • C is for (please insert sophomoric genitalia reference here): 2009
  • Conditions of my parole: 2011
  • Donkey punch the night: 2013
  • All re-mixed up: 2013
  • Money $hot: 2015
  • Eat the elephant: 2018

Collaborations:

  • Rage against the machine, know your enemy
  • Deftones, passenger
  • Green jello
  • Short term replacement for Alice in chains lead singer

Inspirations:

  • Kiss
  • Devo
  • Swans

Interview:

 

A: Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the show we are your hosts today Aaman and Charles  today is a very special day as we have an incredible guest today, Maynard James Keenan everyone.

 

N: Hello Everyone

 

C: Thanks for coming to the show.

 

N:  Thanks for having me.

 

A: So james we would like to ask you a few questions if that’s alright

 

N: I mean that is why you guys called me here right?

 

A:  I guess it is.

 

C:  Well on to the questions, Mr. Keenan would you say you are satisfied with how your life turned out?

 

N: I have had a very fulfilling and successful life and I’m grateful for all the opportunities I have been given. But my life is still far from over and I still have many projects planned for the future. Hint hint, new tool album.

 

A: What do you think is your greatest success in your career

 

N: tool. I have a soft side for tool just because it was the first time I had full creative control.

 

A: What ties all your different projects together?

 

N: I think storytelling is probably the core. Whether you’re telling a story through the medium of copper plates and etching, or a story through food or wine or song, there’s an observer, an interpreter and reporter in the middle of it all. And what seems like chaos, isn’t really.

 

C: So then, going back to your time in the military, were you surprised when the army was like, “you’re going to be an artillery surveyor”?

 

N: Initially, I was going in to be a mapmaker, but of course back then you didn’t know to bring a lawyer to the place where they actually assigned you your job. It was, “Oh yeeeaah, that’s open—just get on the bus…”

You get down there, and they say, “Oh, sorry, mapmaker’s full. You’ll have to be this kind of mapmaker,” which is not a mapmaker at all. But I would’ve been doing the same things with that other project. I just felt like there would have been a lot more benefit for me as far as the rendering and surveying for mapmaking.

 

A: What were your inspirations for going into a career in music

 

N: I would definitely say that kiss had a big influence on me and also I just live to create art in any form and this is the one that I ended up being in

 

C: And finally what advice do you have for young writers who are aspiring to be where you are?


N:just keep working towards what you want. that’s really it. Life’s full of challenges and you just got push through em. Don’t care what others will think of your work just do it for you, trust me it will make you much happier

Song Analysis:

Black then white are all I see in my infancy                                                                 

Red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me

Lets me see

As below, so above and beyond, I imagine

Drawn beyond the lines of reason

Push the envelope, watch it bend

Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind

Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must

Feed my will to feel my moment drawing way outside the lines

Black then white are all I see in my infancy

Red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me

Lets me see

There is so much more

And beckons me to look through to these infinite possibilities

As below, so above and beyond, I imagine

Drawn outside the lines of reason

Push the envelope, watch it bend

Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind

Withering my intuition leaving opportunities behind

Feed my will to feel this moment

Urging me to cross the line

Reaching out to embrace the random

Reaching out to embrace whatever may come

I embrace my desire to

I embrace my desire to

Feel the rhythm, to feel connected

Enough to step aside and weep like a widow

To feel inspired

To fathom the power

To witness the beauty

To bathe in the fountain

To swing on the spiral

To swing on the spiral to

Swing on the spiral

Of our divinity

And still be a human

With my feet upon the ground I lose myself

Between the sounds and open wide to suck it in

I feel it move across my skin

I’m reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me

What ever will bewilder me

And following our will and wind we may just go where no one’s been

We’ll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one’s been

Spiral out, keep going

Spiral out, keep going

Spiral out, keep going

Spiral out, keep going

I’m reaching up and reaching out

Song name: Lateralus

Band: tool

Album: Lateralus

  • Maynard as a writer doesn’t like to call special attention to the lyrics of his songs because he believes most people “Don’t get it.”

 

  • Lateralus was written to the fibonacci sequence Ascending and descending  in the sequence 1-1-2-3-5-8-5-3-2-1-1. “Black (1), then (1), white are (2), all I see (3), in my infancy (5). Red and yellow then came to be (8), reaching out to me (5). Lets me see (3).” In the next verse, Maynard begins with the seventh number of the Fibonacci sequence (13), implying a missing verse in between.

 

  • The song also contains elements of alchemy refenching “The Great Work” which begins with black then moves to white then red and finally yellow

 

  • “The Great Work” is a part of the magnum opus believed to be a the key to using the prima materia to create the philosopher’s stone: a material believed to be able to turn base metals into precious ones, it is also believed that the elixir of life can be derived from it

Caesura

This literary device involves creating a fracture of sorts within a sentence where the two separate parts are distinguishable from one another yet intrinsically linked to one another. The purpose of using a caesura is to create a dramatic pause, which has a strong impact. The pause helps to add an emotional, often theatrical touch to the sentence and conveys a depth of sentiment in a short phrase.

Black – then – white are- all I see- in my infancy

Red and yellow then came to be-, reaching out to me-

Lets me see

Imagery

I embrace my desire to

I embrace my desire to

Feel the rhythm, to feel connected

Enough to step aside and weep like a widow

To feel inspired

To fathom the power

To witness the beauty

To bathe in the fountain

To swing on the spiral

To swing on the spiral to

Swing on the spiral

Of our divinity

And still be a human

Inversion

The practice of changing the conventional placement of words. It is a literary practice typical of the older classical poetry genre. In present day literature it is usually used for the purpose of laying emphasis this literary device is more prevalent in poetry than prose because it helps to arrange the poem in a manner that catches the attention of the reader not only with its content but also with its physical appearance; a result of the peculiar structuring.

As below, so above and beyond.

A phrase from the beginning of the Emerald Tablet the original quote being “As above so below”

And another part of that being “ That which is above is the same as that which is below,” \its explanation embraces the entire system of traditional and modern magic which was inscribed upon the tablet in cryptic wording by Hermes Trismegistus and his hermetism.

Emulation Time!

You’re such an inspiration to the ways that I will never

ever chose to be

You’re blind to the world

wasted and lost out at sea

you don’t care you never did

you cretin

you created the chaos

and left us all to rot within

while you lifted yourself above it

thinking yourself better than us all

what a pitiful creature you are

you are the victim in your mind

but to the rest of the world

you are a monster

undeserving of love

or help

or pity

and yet you get it all

because the world is full of cowards.

Bibliography:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynard_James_Keenanhttps://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/maynard-james-keenan-on-new-biography-tools-earliest-days-w442743https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_(band)https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Perfect_Circlehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puscifer