Maynard James Keenan
Maynard James Keenan
Maynard James Keenan, often referred to by his initials MJK, is an American musician, record producer, winemaker, and actor, best known as the vocalist for Grammy Award-winning progressive metal band Tool. He is originally from Ohio, but spent his high school and college years in Michigan. After serving in the United States Army in the early 1980s, he attended Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids. He moved to Los Angeles, California in 1988 to pursue a career...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth17 April 1964
CountryUnited States of America
Maynard James Keenan quotes about
A circle is the reflection of eternity. It has no beginning and it has no end - and if you put several circles over each other, then you get a spiral.
Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning. A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.
This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality. Embrace this moment, remember: we are eternal all this pain is an illusion.
Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion between supposed lovers
Finding beauty in the dissonance
We are eternal. All this pain is an illusion.
You really should be able to feel the higher power of music and be moved by it, rather than listening to me waffle on and having to explain it.
Shows are really strange. Sometimes you really don't know what to expect
I think there's a reason why wine figures into so many religions. There's something transcendent about it. It's sort of the way that music is more than the sum of its parts. You have all these elements that make up the terroir that wine can communicate.
You can grow grapes in almost any part of the world. You just have to develop your palate enough to realize wine is an expression of the place where you make it. You don't have to take over the world; just be an artist and express your area.
If you take different mythologies from different cultures, the names may change and the story lines may vary but there is always something in common.
Desert, in generally, is a very good place to find yourself. Or lose yourself.
The process that we go through in recording with Tool is very organic, but at the same time it is very thought out. There is a very left-brain process of dissecting what we're doing and drawing from source material; it's very research oriented and esoteric.
The army influences everything I do. Certainly it teaches you discipline, which is a necessary element of development. I think there's more of a collaborative understanding in the band because of that.