“I Knew I Could”: Maynard James Keenan Recalls the Challenge That Led Him to Tool

Maynard James Keenan joined Tool almost by chance.

Speaking to Metal Hammer about his early days with Tool, Keenan says he took the plunge after someone challenged him to join a band. That challenge came from neither Adam Jones nor Danny Carey.

“I was pretty critical of what I was seeing in Los Angeles. Someone said something along the lines of ‘If you think you can do better…’ I knew I could.”

In Boston, where he had seen the Ramones several times, Keenan enjoyed discovering bands. When he arrived in Los Angeles, he mostly encountered musicians looking to land a record deal.

“They wore ridiculous hats, a sock on their dick… They were following whatever was fashionable at the time. I felt like all these bands were onstage for the wrong reasons.”

Keenan also became friends with Tom Morello around that time. Did he ever come close to joining Rage Against the Machine? “Absolutely not.”

The two musicians did play together early on, though. Morello recently recalled how Keenan taught him to tune to drop D during a session in which the riffs for Sober (Tool) and Freedom (Rage Against the Machine) took shape.

Since Tool formed in 1990, Keenan has also launched A Perfect Circle and Puscifer. At 62, the singer still juggles all three projects. And despite his recent hip problems, there is no retirement on the horizon.