Maynard James Keenan: 5 Other Things We Learned on ‘Joe Rogan’ Podcast
Last night (July 29) Maynard James Keenan made his third appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, speaking for almost two hours about Tool’s new album, the end of the world, how to make hard apple cider and much more.
At the beginning, the singer disclosed the name of Tool's new record, Fear Inoculum, and that the band's entire catalog will finally be available to stream and purchase digitally for the first time.
Here are five other things we learned.
Why Tool's New Album Has Taken So Long
While Keenan pleaded the fifth on why Tool’s music has taken so long to reach streaming services, the singer pulled back the curtain slightly on why the band’s new album has taken so long.
“The four of us are a lot of fucking work, just to get anywhere, oh my god. Everything’s a fucking committee meeting and it always gets shut down,” Keenan says. “[The hurdle is] success. When you get successful, you think you’re right about everything and you’re pretty sure as that individual — ‘I am right and you are wrong, because I’m successful and we’re successful because of me, not because of you.’ It’s not that bad with us, but there’s a dynamic of like, ‘I want this and I’ve always gotten my way and that’s why we’re successful, because I don’t compromise on this or that.’ I’m the same way. I’m totally the same way.”
Humans Have 400 Years Left
There's doubters, doomsday preppers, skeptics, extremists in the world, but when it concerns the end of the world altogether, Maynard views himself as more of a realist. One who believes humans have about four centuries left before it all passes us by.
"Based on some of the things I’ve kind of seen online and the chit chat and overhearing conversations with people that are part of NASA and those kind of things and they kind of go, 'We’ve got 400 years and the planet is done.'"
Stressing that any work to prevent this inevitability should have already been set in motion, Keenan expressed, "There’s natural resources and all those things to start to kind of fall apart then weird diseases start showing up, weird funguses that take you out that didn’t before…"
It was Rogan who kept the conversation grounded, stating, "I don’t think the world is going to end but I think it’s very likely that human beings will be drastically diminished." Maynard agreed in the fullest, clarifying, "That’s my point. The thing that we just are so arrogant about is that we’re somehow included in the future. We’re just not included. We are not included."
He Hired Falcon Trainers at His Vineyard
Any farmer will encounter pest and rodent problems and the Merkin Vineyards is no exception. To help control the bird population that threatens his grapes, Keenan employed a couple to raise and train falcons to eliminate the problem.
"Anything that’s messing with the grapes, they have these falcons come through and the thing is the collective birds in the area, they’ll have a memory of that," Keenan said, describing the horror these birds witness. "They have this hawk come through the vineyard and they just pulverize and there’s feathers everywhere that the community of birds go 'I don’t think we should go this way — we should go that way.'"
The natural thought is that this would be a great scene to capture on camera through the use of a drone. Bad idea. "The falcons will go full force into your drone and destroy it," said Keenan and Rogan noted that peregrine falcons can reach speeds in excess of 200mph.
There are Two Ways to Ferment Apples — Maynard Uses the Third Way
Maynard's hard apple cider is only available at the Merkin Vineyard Tasting Room and Osteria, the Caduceus Cellars Tasting Room and the Puscifer store. His fermentation yields eight barrels, inspired by the process of fermenting grapes.
“A lot of people will get [the apples] super ripe and they crush and press them, so they just get the juice right off the must and they ferment just the juice," he explained. "Other people will shred them so there’s just like apple sauce and then they’ll try to press that through a very specific press that kind of get the juice away from the must.”
Rogan asked, "What’s the benefit of the former versus the latter?" It turns out, the singer doesn't follow either process.
"I do the third one," Keenan confessed. "I make it, I shred it so there’s apple sauce and I’m actually fermenting on the must, on the apple sauce, and then I press as it starts to separate. I’m starting to pull the juice out once it’s fermented."
He Plans on Adding a Yoga Studio at His Jiu-Jitsu Academy
We learned that Maynard owns a jiu-jitsu academy and is planning to open a yoga studio as well.
"I’m moving my jiu-jitsu academy to another building, we’re going to put in a yoga area. Trying to make it work, it’s a puzzle that’s worth solving, because if you understand how to survive this thing on that microcosm, that you can survive a lot of things. You can make sure that when shit doesn’t go the way you want it to go, you’ve done the work to figure out how to survive in those extreme circumstances."
Listen to the full episode of the podcast below. Tool's new album, Fear Inoculum, will be released on Aug. 30.
Maynard James Keenan on Joe Rogan Experience Podcast
Every Tool Song Ranked