Immunity, Long Overdue: A CoMo Musician's Journey with Tool
It is a rare thing to meet your heroes, let alone in unlikely places. I met Maynard James Keenan, lead singer of progressive rock behemoths Tool, in the most random of places. It was 2017. My wife and I knew that we would more than likely have to wait a while to get a table at a popular breakfast haunt on the west coast of Lake Michigan. Given the fact that we had a ten month old daughter in tote, the prospect of any kind of wait seemed daunting. All the same, my wife parked outside as I went to investigate the dining queue.
I could see that the restaurant was packed as soon as I walked in the rear entrance. I had to walk past a corridor of full tables on either side as I made my way. Once arriving at the hostess table up front, I found that it was a thirty minute wait which was a no-go for our toddler bearing status. As I walked out, a man sitting in a booth in my periphery caught my eye.
One step, I think to myself: “that guy looks like Maynard.
Two step, raising my head slightly: “that guy REALLY looks like Maynard.”
Three step, my eyes meet with his: “that guy IS Maynard.”
I make eye contact and his face immediately shifts to an expression that screams, “shit, I’ve been made.” Maynard James Keenan is one of the most elusive lead singers of the last quarter century. He is one of the world’s biggest rock stars and most folks wouldn’t recognize him given the litany of wigs, outfits, and makeup he adorns when fronting Tool, A Perfect Circle, or Puscifer. He figured he could walk around this quaint, touristy Michigan town without being recognized. But, he knew his cover was blown when our eyes met. At that time, I was wearing a rock band t-shirt, and my beard that grew 4 inches past my chin coupled with a shaved, bald head fit the profile of someone who would know the true face of Maynard.
I’m shook. I scurry past his table and back into our car. I have tears in my eyes. My hands are shaking.
“Colin, what’s going on?” Alicia says, visibly concerned as I return to the car.
“Alicia, I think Maynard is in there right now.”
“What?”
“There is a thirty minute wait, but I think we should go in,” I say.
“Ya think?”
As we approach the rear entrance, a large group of about 15 fumble their way through the single pane back door. Among the momentary congestion, Maynard slips through the crowd like a ninja in the night, making his way past us and down the alley. Against my better judgment I chase after Maynard, flip flops, awkwardness and all. As I approach, I holler out: “Excuse me,…sir?”
The next few moments move in slow motion. He stops. He plants the ball of his right foot and pivots his body, dragging the tip of his left foot right on the surface of the pavement in a circular motion. Ninja-like. It is in that moment that I recall the fact that the man I am accosting trains with the world’s best mixed martial artists. He could more than likely kill me with his bare hands, which now seem in position to attack or defend.
“Whoa,” I say, coming to a halt and putting my hands in the air. He plants himself and we make eye contact once more. “I really don’t want to bother you,” I say with my hands still raised. “I just wanted to tell you that your music has changed my life.”
He stares at me, almost dead eyed for a moment. He relaxes his posture and extends his hand.
“Thank you,” Maynard says. I look down at my idol’s open palm and shake it.
—-
I know what you’re probably thinking, dear reader. You’re thinking, “Colin, why did you fanboy out? People like Maynard just want to be left alone. Did you have to jump into an on-foot pursuit?” In most instances, I would leave any celebrity I recognized well alone. To understand my actions, you have to understand the impact this band has had on my life.
The first time I listened to Tool was at a track meet in Ashland. The Hallsville track team were a band of mostly misfit kids that didn’t fit the bill for more popular sports like basketball or baseball (the school didn’t have a football program at this time). Among those who I became close with was an older kid by the name of Gary Belcher. A budding rock musician myself, I liked checking out what CDs Gary had been getting his hands on because he always leaned towards the harder, edgier side of things. Much of his metal collection could be heard directly influencing his band which ironically went by the moniker Soft. I would always borrow CDs from Gary on the bus rides to and during track meets. Some of it I liked, some of it I didn’t, but it always spurred my interest. I’ll never forget the moment that I plopped Gary’s copy of Tool’s Aenima in my Discman. I had never heard anything like it and it immediately had an indelible effect.
Since that fateful day, I’ve seen the band live seven times in four different cities. I’ve never ceased to be fascinated with the countless ways they push the envelope musically and visually. When Tool’s publicist reached out to Ruth Acuff, a producer at my radio show The Big Muddy Music Hour, to offer press passes to their appearance at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis, it was a dream come true. I would be given one song to stand down in the pit and photograph my favorite rock band in the world.
When Tool concocted the title track to their 2019 album Fear Inoculum, I doubt any of them could have imagined how relevant the opening line of the song would become. As Tool began their set at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis on Friday, I imagine those same lyrics hit many in the audience as heavily as they hit me:
Much in the way that Tool subverts expectations of modern rock in what they create sonically, they also go against the grain of what most would expect from a globetrotting, arena filling tour. The lead singer isn’t front and center. He stands atop one of two platforms on either side of the drummer. Much of the time, all you can see of Maynard is his silhouette against the backdrop of an LED wall streaming trippy and sometimes unsettling visual artwork. The side effect of this approach is putting the focus on the other three members of the band.
Drummer Danny Carey entered the stage first. Standing at six foot five inches, he stands over his gigantic drum set for a moment, taking in the crowd before taking his throne. Make no mistake, Tool would be a shadow of what it is without the polyrhythmic fury of Danny Carey. From this writer’s perspective, he is the nucleus of the band. The other three orbit around his beats that weave and bounce their way through numeric structures that can sometimes also be found in sacred geometry. It is due to these steps they take with their music that I feel that a part of Tool’s aim is to create new rituals for their listeners in helping them connect with a primordial aspect of themselves. If this is the case, then Carey’s thunderous drummer is the rug that ties the sacred room together in his ability to make something modern and technical feel ritualistic, tribal even.
Justin Chancellor on bass compliments Carey’s virtuoso rhythms as he swings back and forth between staccato undulations to ethereal soundscapes. Though he is perhaps Tool’s most unsung hero, you wouldn’t know it for his stage presence. Always dressed as a very dapper gent, the dude’s gyrations even led this writer’s wife to note his “hot dad vibes.”
Adam Jones is an absolute guitar god and he came to throw down and perhaps nowhere was his stature as such in full display as when the band ripped into a redone version of Opiate, the title track from their debut album. He, along with Carey, also finds himself at times turning to various synths near his rig, creating even more sonic depth.
With this being the 8th time seeing them, I can say that their set in St. Louis last week was among the tightest and best sounding I’ve experienced and a lot of that came down to Maynard’s performance. Part of what made me fall in love with him as a vocalist was the beauty of his singing voice, coupled with the power of the screams he has become known to belt out. Make no mistake about it, singing like this is VERY taxing on even world class vocalists such as Maynard. The result of the vocal fatigue that sets in as a result of singing like this on countless tour dates have left more to be desired in some performances I’ve seen of his. That was not the case in St. Louis. Maynard was in rare form. Whether it was the punching, soaring beauty of Pushit or the way in which his 30 second long scream in The Patient ripped through the foundation of the Enterprise Center, he reminded me of why I’ve considered him to be the greatest rock vocalist of our time.
Some bands age out. Some bands don’t stay together. In this writer’s mind, it is hard to imagine a world in which Tool ceased to be relevant. With age, they only hone in their unique craft more succinctly. While there was a 13 year span with no new releases from the band until 2019’s Fear Inoculum, members of the band have said that fans can expect a follow up much sooner. When that happens, I’ll be there, ready and thrilled for my ninth Tool concert.
