Maynard James Keenan on Why He Won’t Perform Certain Tool Songs

Tool fans have been known to obsess over the band’s setlists, often wondering why the band won’t perform certain songs from its early catalog. In a new interview, frontman Maynard James Keenan says one reason is because he finds the lyrics to some older tunes to be regrettable.

Singer Keenan was the guest on a new episode of Jackass star Steve-O’s podcast Steve-O’s Wilde Ride!, when the host began discussing the differences between the singer’s bands Tool, A Perfect Circle. Steve-O mentioned that he asked AI to describe each band, and it came back with Tool as “reverent,” A Perfect Circle as “romantic,” and Puscifer as “absurd.”

Keenan contested the AI summation by responding, “Yeah, I don’t know about that… reverence for fist-f**king?,” amusingly referencing “Stinkfist” from Tool’s 1996 album Ænima, eliciting raucous laughter from Steve-O and his co-host Skinny Vinny.

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The singer went on to say, “There’s some old Tool songs that I don’t like playing them because I feel like I failed them. They’re popular songs, but I was trying to make a joke, and it was a dumb joke, and I should’ve just moved on… I feel like the lyrics don’t hold up under scrutiny.”

When pressed by Steve-O for an example of a specific song, Maynard mentioned “4°” from Tool’s 1993 debut album Undertow. “The way I wrote it… I was trying to fucking make a butt sex joke and it was dumb. The song’s beautiful, what those guys did musically is great and I think maybe the melody’s a good melody but the words are just dumb. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”

He then quipped, “So [I thought to myself] don’t do that again… fix it and make a song like ‘Stinkfist’,” prompting Steve-O to conclude, “I think ‘Stinkfist’ is quite reverent.”

For now, Keenan’s attention is on Puscifer, who’s new album Normal Isn’t arrives February 6th. The band will embark on a headlining North American tour in support of the LP beginning in late March, with tickets available here.

Watch Maynard James Keenan’s appearance on Steve-O’s Wild Ride! below. The aforementioned conversations starts at the 43:33 mark.