Elusive Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan gets serious about his other side project and shows us his big, bad ‘Vagina.’
By Jon Wiederhorn
Photos by Ross Halfin
There’s a fine line between artistic expression and willful provocation, and Maynard James Keenan knows how to walk it better than most. With each project he delves into—Tool, A Perfect Circle, and now Puscifer—Keenan delights in challenging preconceptions, flouting protocol, and pushing buttons. He appears to change his mind more frequently than an obsessive-compulsive changes socks, and in interviews he is alternately aloof, jovial, condescending, and self-effacing.
“I’ve never wanted to be someone people could put in a box,” he explains from his hotel in Paris during downtime from Tool’s European tour. “But I think musicians and artists are all a little bit crazy. Maybe that’s what makes us creative and different. We’re not the most rational people on earth. We take things personally and we’re sure more expressive than, say, accountants.”
Keenan is not just unpredictable but also extremely private. He won’t talk about his home life, would rather not discuss his upbringing, and shuns fashionable hotspots where he might be seen. Yet that very uncertainty about who he is, what motivates him, and what he’s going to do next is what makes him such an iconic and alluring frontman.
In Tool and A Perfect Circle, Keenan’s wildest impulses have been constrained by the demands of playing within a certain genre. His latest project, Puscifer, offers him freedom to truly dive into the deep end of ideas he couldn’t explore with other groups. And Keenan’s not drawing the line at music, either. While he has just released a full-length album, V Is for Vagina, under his Puscifer Entertainment label, in the future Keenan also plans to use the name for visual art projects, films, a clothing line, novelties, even coffee. Like all his projects, Puscifer’s music benefits from Keenan’s strong composition and top-notch production skills and provides a showcase for guest musicians, but there will likely be few other commonalities with his other bands. Early Puscifer recordings with ex–Nine Inch Nails guitarist Danny Lohner—which ended up on 2003’s Underworld and 2006’s Underworld: Revolution soundtracks—were ominous and industrial, while V Is for Vagina is textural and cinematic, and a separate CD single, “Cuntry Boner,” is a juvenile country-music spoof.
“At the moment, the closest thing I could compare Puscifer to would be the stream-of-consciousness approach to [the mid-’90s HBO comedy-sketch program] Mr. Show crossed with Ween. It doesn’t sound like Ween, but that band is all over the map with their style and their albums, and that’s how I want to be.”
With Puscifer, Keenan has consciously avoided precisely the things that make his other bands rock—heavy riffs, complex progressions, abundant angst—and the result might prove a hard sell to the metal masses.
“I doubt they’ll even like it,” admits Keenan candidly. “That’s why I’ve been avoiding bringing it to the Tool and Perfect Circle fans, because I don’t think it’s going to be something that they’ll get. Because it’s not those other things. There’s no reason for it to be. If it’s going to be like those other things, why not just go and do those other things?”
Keenan may have underestimated his audience, though. Fans of Tool and A Perfect Circle are an open-minded lot, and even though V Is for Vagina is clearly not straight metal, it’s filled with honest, emotional expression and evocative textures that should appeal to anyone who likes well-executed, creative music. “Queen B” is sluggish and hazy, combining underwater beats, near-spoken lead vocals reminiscent of Frank Zappa’s, celestial backing voices, and overlapping studio effects. “Trekka” is more unsettling, blending sampled strings, spare guitar lines, occasional keyboards, and repeated vocal rhythms that sound like a chain breaking rocks in hell.
“I think of V Is for Vagina as Tom Waits meets Massive Attack meets James Brown,” says Keenan. “But that’s only part of the description. There are going to be a million other things as well.”
The band’s origins are as jumbled as its songs. The name “Puscifer” first surfaced in the early ’90s in comedy sketches Keenan performed with Laura Milligan at her Los Angeles club show, Tantrum. Puscifer, having evolved into a joke band that included Tool guitarist Adam Jones, resurfaced in 1995 in a first-season episode of Mr. Show, performing “Hey, Stop Hitting Me, What Did I Do (Tribute to Ronnie Dobbs).”
In the late ’90s, Keenan, Milligan, and Primus drummer Tim Alexander performed “Cuntry Boner” at a benefit for ex–Circle Jerks and Black Flag singer Keith Morris (a video of the performance was posted on YouTube in May). At that time, Keenan’s spare creative energies were being poured into the side project Tapeworm, which also featured Trent Reznor, ex–Nine Inch Nails guitarist Danny Lohner, producer Atticus Ross, and A Perfect Circle drummer Josh Freese. It wasn’t until Tapeworm was aborted that Keenan decided to make Puscifer both his musical alter ego and his marketing arm.
“When I was asked to be in Tapeworm, I could see that what they had in mind was similar to what I had been planning with Puscifer,” Keenan explains. “So I put Puscifer on the backburner, because I figured maybe Tapeworm could be that thing. But it didn’t work out because everyone was just going in too many different directions. Trent is trying to do his record. I’m trying to do my record. So I kind of resurfaced with Danny [Lohner] as Puscifer and we did a couple of Underworld tracks. That got things started.”
From there, Keenan and Puscifer have been on a roll, their progress impeded only by Tool’s hectic tour schedule. Keenan remedied that by writing Puscifer songs while on the road and booking recording time at studios in the cities on Tool’s itinerary.
“After soundcheck, you’re either going to watch The Simpsons on DVD or you’re going to do something creative. So why not throw some tracks down on ProTools or call [clothing designer] Paul Frank and see what they’ve got up their sleeve for a new line of merchandise, so you can figure out how to get your foot in the door?
“If you just budget your time and do one thing at a time from one hour to another hour, you can do anything you want.”
REVOLVER Clearly, the suffix “-cifer” is short for Lucifer. Is the “Pus” a reference to pus from an infected wound, or does it stand for pussy, as in the album title?
MAYNARD JAMES KEENAN It’s Puss like Puss in Boots.
Then what inspired you to call the record V Is for Vagina?
Well, I can’t spell, so this is an education for me. I started with the letter “V” and I’m working my way backwards.
Seriously, it’s a bizarre title.
It’s hard to describe why I chose it. At this point, there are only a few elements of the project in the public’s eye. So it would be difficult to break it down and have it make sense in one conversation. It’s kind of like the blind man feeling different parts of the elephant. It’s going to take a couple of years for people to get their heads around it.
Has there been any negative reaction to the album title?
The distributor [RED] is freaking out trying to figure out how to sell it to Grandma. I keep telling them, “Don’t worry about selling it to Grandma.” Although Grandma has one, so I don’t know why she’d be offended. The approach I’m trying to take with Puscifer is something like what the South Park guys did when then they made “The Spirit of Christmas (Jesus vs. Santa)” [in 1995]. They weren’t trying to sell it to Wal-Mart at that point. Who gives a fuck about Wal-Mart? It’s just about creating and having fun, and whoever gets it, gets it, and whoever doesn’t, that’s OK.
The music on V Is for Vagina is atmospheric and cinematic.
I think of it a soundtrack to some other activity. It’s definitely the music you hear when you’re holding that bag of popcorn and you’re not really sure if you want to throw it away or take it with you on your way out of the film. It’s music to bake muffins or drive to.
But doesn’t calling it “music to bake to” marginalize what you’re doing?
Not necessarily. Everything else I’ve done in the last 17 years has had relatively complicated rhythm structures and time signatures. This is more 4/4 time, and it just beats along with your heart. You almost don’t have to be aware of it. Performing with Tool is kind of like running down a set of uneven stairs with a cast on. You definitely have to get a rhythm to it and be conscious of each step you take. With Puscifer, it’s an open field. You can run across it and do back flips and still land on your feet and not have to worry whether there’s going to be a floor there or not.
After having worked for so long on complex music, do Puscifer songs come easily to you, or do they come with their own complications?
Well, it’s more complicated in that the simpler you try to make it, the more difficult it is to make it work. The easy stuff is coming up with grooves; the hard part is reinventing yourself every time.
You worked on the album with numerous guest musicians, including dark ambient veteran Lustmord, Tim Alexander, singer-songwriter Jonny Polonsky, and Telefon Tel Aviv keyboardist-programmer Josh Eustis. Is collaboration always going to be a large part of Puscifer’s aesthetic?
It’s something I see as really important, because this is a way for me to help out some guys who don’t have a lot of traffic on their site. Those 10 CD sales mean a lot for them to put food on the table. In a way, it’s kind of my charity mission, and it’s an honor to be able to bring some traffic through and let people know about their projects.
A video from the ’90s of you performing the dirty country spoof “Cuntry Boner” found its way onto the Internet in May. Are you at all concerned that people might see that and think Puscifer is a joke band?
No, I hope that’s the first thing they hear, because then maybe they’ll go, “Oh, my God, I have no idea what to expect from this.” If you’ve heard “Cuntry Boner,” you know we’re basically just shotgun blasting and having fun. We’re not trying to develop a specific personality you can put in a box. And if people think it’s a joke and they dismiss it, that’s fine because I’m not trying to sell it to them today. But one day, all of a sudden, somebody’s going to walk up to them and hand them a gift for Christmas and they open it up and it’s a Puscifer dildo, and they’ll love it.
Music, coffee, dildos—it sounds as if you’re trying to create a brand as much as a band. Doesn’t branding tap into that whole idea of commercialism and consumerism that you have contempt for?
It’s not necessarily just a brand; it’s an outlet for ideas. I don’t plan on making 3,000 dildos. I might make 12, and you just happened to get one for Christmas. I don’t plan on doing huge volumes of crap that just sit in a warehouse rotting. I want to do little one-off ideas, and once they’re gone, they’re gone.
Do you want Puscifer to be profitable?
I don’t need money. I’ve done well. But I want to make money with it, so it can help perpetuate itself and I can explore other clever ideas. A lot of times when you’re trying to make something, like a little flash-drive keychain in the shape of your logo, you just want to make 50 of them, not 7,000 of them. But the minimums when you try to get them made are so high that if you’re only going to make 50 or 100 of them, they’re way more expensive. Well, if this thing’s successful, I can afford to do those 50.
You put together a lot of the music for V Is for Vagina at various studios while you were on the road with Tool. Was it at all difficult to focus on Puscifer all day and then get into Tool mode before you went onstage?
No. It’s really a matter of doing one thing at a time and getting enough sleep. Eat well and get enough sleep and you can do anything, as long as you map it out and don’t try to do everything in the same minute. As long as I show up and do my job with Tool, and we all connect with each other and have those conversations we need to have onstage to make those sounds happen, that’s all they care about.
Before you started Puscifer, you were juggling Tool and A Perfect Circle almost simultaneously. Did that prove too challenging?
The real problem with running Tool and A Perfect Circle at the same time was they both operate the same way. They’re both live touring bands with a label, still working under the old contract mentality. So, I thought it was time to let A Perfect Circle go for now and let [guitarist and songwriter] Billy [Howerdel] explore himself. It’s tough for a guy who went from being a guitar tech [for Tool] to being in a band with this pretentious, famous singer dude and having to live in that shadow. I think it was important for Billy to go and do his own thing and really explore his own sound and let people hear what he has to say and how he would do it on his own, and then we’ll get back and do some A Perfect Circle stuff.
Wouldn’t that cause the same old problem of doing albums with two successful bands?
It might not be in the same old way. It might be more in the way I’m going to do it with Puscifer in the future, where we’ll do a couple of tracks and put them on iTunes, or do one track and do a full-on film for it. There are no rules anymore. Once the record companies all pack up and go home, there’ll be a lot of room to reinvent the whole industry.
The record companies are in trouble, that’s for sure. CD sales are down 30 percent from 2006. What’s responsible for erosion?
The music industry is destroying the music industry. When you walk into some of these management offices they have, like, Cirque du Soleil dancers and waterfalls and three receptionists who act like you’re walking in to see the president. And the record companies have pension funds and so much overhead that everyone has lost sight of basic artist development. A lot of people say that music is dying, but I think it’s more the record labels and distribution companies that are dying. Music is thriving. There’s all this music that you don’t even know about that’s out there. It’s just a matter of finding a way to make it available without the record companies.
When you were working on the first Puscifer songs, were you planning to put out a full album?
The initial idea was to do a couple of songs at a time, but we’re still kind of teetering on that Old-World-meets-New-World mentality as far as the music industry goes. So it became apparent that I should probably just do a whole album. That way I kind of introduce it, and then I can move away from that format. Because the only way people can kind of get it is if you present it in a way they understand. If I did two songs at a time over the course of two years, they wouldn’t quite get it. You have to put it all together in a pretty package so that the marketing people can get their head around it.
How much did it cost to make V Is for Vagina?
Around half a million total, and I financed the whole thing myself.
At one point, you were going to put out the album yourself, then you decided to release it through Sony BMG’s distribution company RED. Why the change of heart?
There are lots of reasons, which I won’t go into. It’s a long conversation and it’s full of ridiculous business crap. But I am licensing it internationally to Zomba, so it will go through the Sony BMG distribution system internationally. But that, to me, is kind of a joke, because I’m not sure they’ll know what to do with it, so it will be interesting to see them standing there scratching their heads.
Do you get a perverse thrill out of saying, “Hey, here’s an album called V Is for Vagina. Go sell it”?
Here’s the way I see it: I just handed them a gift that was free. They didn’t have to pay a dime for it. And they’re just gonna stand there scratching their heads, not knowing what to do. Maybe not. Maybe I’m wrong. But the worst thing they could do is align it with Tool.
Do you think that’ll happen?
Of course. It’s the easy way. They’re all trying to keep their jobs. Their companies are closing and folding in on each other. Of course they’re going to try to go the easiest route. But there’s time for people to be able to understand Puscifer. There’s no hurry. I’m more worried about what the next phase is for the music industry. I’m concerned about how artists can survive in a changing music world, and how to do it without taking part in the old dog-and-pony show—press kits, interviews, videos—all the shit that goes along with packaging those personalities. I’m trying to figure out a way where we can get back to where you hear a song on the radio or online, and later on you figure out, “Oh, it was Trent Reznor and Maynard Keenan.” You’re not really concerned about having the personality package shoved down your throat. You just like what you heard.
But personality is one of the things that make musicians more compelling than the average Joe. And those characteristics manifest themselves in the music and onstage. Part of what makes you such an interesting artist is your intense yet reclusive personality.
[Slightly annoyed] But no one knows… When you see Batman Begins, that isn’t Christian Bale up there—it’s Batman. You have no idea who Christian Bale is, and it’s not really any of your business who the fuck he is. All you need to know is that he’s the guy who’s in American Psycho and Batman.
What do you think it takes to be a great performer?
You have to be unconscious of what you’re doing and let the music take over and direct your actions. As soon as what you’re doing becomes conscious and calculated, it loses all the energy. That’s why films outsell CDs 10 to one. These actors, if they’re any good, they’re fucking insane, and they’re not themselves. The director figures out a way to pour these characters into these vessels, and you can tell. When you watch bad acting it’s because the person is still in there with the character.
As a musician, though, you’re putting out these lyrics that come from within yourself. You’re not reading a script or following a director.
Right—the sounds and stories are coming out of you, and that really puts you in a weird space. You’re an emotional open nerve at that point. And when you snap back into your skin, you have people staring at you and poking you. That’s where the Axl stuff comes out. You’re very vulnerable, and you can either be reclusive or hostile or both.
You seem to usually go the reclusive route.
Well, I don’t have the equipment or the armor or the training or the talent required to protect myself once I’m wide open like that. So I have to hide.
Are you still involved in Caduceus, your winemaking company?
Yeah, and that’s going really well. I have five blends of fine wine that I’m working with at the moment. My winemaking partner and I went in on a Southern Arizona vineyard, and we’re starting another, more grocery-store-level table-wine business called Arizona Stronghold. I really see that as the place where I’m going to end up more so than music. I think music will be the thing I end up doing for a little jolt of excitement in between the winemaking.
When did you develop a taste for fine wine?
Up until 1997, when Aenima had been out for a while, I had two platinum records, but I was still living on $500 a month, so I couldn’t afford fine wines. But the accountant, manager, and booking agent could. So you make your way into their offices and steal the fucking bottle you paid for that’s on the counter. You go, “Where’d all our money go? Oh, in the bottle of wine that you’re drinking. Gimme that.” And then you start drinking it out of spite, and you go, “Hey, there’s actually something here.” That happened enough times to inspire me to open up a winery. Now I’m selling them the wine.
Do you ever sit back and smell the roses?
Why bother? Life’s too short. I’m very lucky to have had the success that I’ve enjoyed. And I would think it would be insulting to other people who weren’t as lucky for me not to take advantage of every moment. This success has afforded me the ability to really explore and have fun with stuff and make lots of mistakes in the hopes that people that are following along might not make the same mistakes. And maybe they’ll be the ones to save the music industry.
