Episode 416 - Maynard James Keenan
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters what the fucksters i don't think i've done that one in a while i don't know have i done it i don't remember i am mark maron this is wtf welcome to the show i have to stop amassing stuff
Marc:Things keep coming in.
Marc:Keep coming in.
Marc:What do I want to tell you?
Marc:I always forget to promote myself.
Marc:This weekend, that would be August 23rd and 24th, I will be in Denver at the Comedy Works performing for the good people of Colorado.
Marc:I what else have I got coming up?
Marc:I got other things.
Marc:Go to WTF pod dot com and look at the schedule.
Marc:Also, please check the episode guide to see who's been on and who hasn't been on.
Marc:You could do that.
Marc:A lot of great people have been on.
Marc:And if I may, as I've been doing a bit.
Marc:right out of the gate here, I would recommend getting the WTF app, okay?
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Marc:But I recommend that.
Marc:You can go to WTF Pod and hit the link to get the app, or you can go to whatever preferred app store that you want and get the app.
Marc:I highly recommend it.
Marc:And soon, I got big plans, man.
Marc:Soon, I'm going to be offering premium-only content.
Marc:I'm not sure what that is, but I think I got it in my head.
Marc:And I just want to also say to everybody, look, thank you so much for sending me stuff.
Marc:I like stuff.
Marc:The guys from Bohemian Guitarist sent me this weird oil can guitar.
Marc:It's very interesting.
Marc:I don't know if it's a toy or a real musical instrument, but it's pretty interesting, and it sounds kind of weird.
Marc:And then the dude over at Mars...
Marc:This guy makes beautiful amplifiers, tube amplifiers out of the old tube amp that was within a 35-millimeter projector, I believe, a 16-millimeter projector.
Marc:These are movie projectors that he salvaged, and he builds an amplifier around it, and he builds the cabinets, and it's stunning, and it's tight, and it looks good.
Marc:And, you know, I got to thank him.
Marc:At Mars amplification.
Marc:Go look at that shit.
Marc:Thank you for all the handwritten letters, the postcards, the stuff, the comic books.
Marc:It all comes in and I enjoy it.
Marc:Every day is like Christmas over here and I really love it.
Marc:I'm sorry I can't acknowledge all of it.
Marc:Things have gotten a little busier.
Marc:than it was back in the day when I started this.
Marc:Busy is good, but I feel bad, but I just want you to know that I appreciate this stuff.
Marc:I never know who my listeners are.
Marc:I got a postcard from Afghanistan.
Marc:He says, Hello, Mark.
Marc:Finally got to read your book.
Marc:I've been running since the beginning of April.
Marc:Finally settled down here in Bagram, Afghanistan, after all of the training and moving.
Marc:Glad to have a good iPad to set my mind right.
Marc:In my off time, love WTF Pod and your work.
Marc:My internet here is like dial-up circa 1996, so eventually I will be able to download the new podcasts.
Marc:If not, I'll re-listen to the old ones and catch up when I get back.
Marc:All the best from a fan in the camouflage dealing with his own shit.
Marc:Captain Marcus Byrne.
Marc:Well, thank you, man.
Marc:I know you're probably not going to get to listen to this because you can't download it, but glad I'm helping out.
Marc:And that is sort of, you know, I know that some of you find me entertaining, but some of the emails and letters I get, all I can respond is, you know, I'm happy to help.
Marc:And I am happy to help.
Marc:It's very gratifying for me to know that that guy relates to me, but also that he's getting some relief or he's getting some help with his own problems or he's getting some laughs.
Marc:It's just, you know, it's a whole different life than mine.
Marc:And I had no idea that I'd be speaking to who I speak to and when I do.
Marc:I had no idea today.
Marc:Today I'm going to be talking to Maynard James Keenan of Tool.
Marc:Maynard, here's the deal.
Marc:I'll be honest with you.
Marc:I know this dude.
Marc:I have friends who know him.
Marc:I know people that love him.
Marc:He's been a big fan of comedy.
Marc:I find him to be a very interesting guy.
Marc:Before I talked to him, before I knew I was going to talk to him, I'd listen to a couple of his records.
Marc:They rocked.
Marc:I dug it.
Marc:But Tool is one of those bands where it's like you're in or you're out.
Marc:And I was in for a record or two, but I felt a little at odds because I know that people who love Tool fucking love Tool.
Marc:They love them.
Marc:And I don't know about you, but I'm the kind of guy, if I dig a band, and this happens more as I get older than when I was younger, but I remember the first time I heard the Flaming Lips, I had to go out and buy everything by the Flaming Lips.
Marc:The Thermals.
Marc:I just I saw the thermals in where was I?
Marc:South by Southwest or somewhere.
Marc:And I was like, who the fuck are these guys?
Marc:I got to have everything by the thermals.
Marc:I'm a big like I got to have everything by that guy guy.
Marc:I like one song.
Marc:I got to have all of it.
Marc:I almost interviewed Alice Cooper.
Marc:I went out and bought every Alice Cooper album there is.
Marc:And then it fell through.
Marc:And I'm not a big Alice Cooper fan, but now I got all of them.
Marc:Am I going to listen to all of them?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But I always wanted to get into Tool, but I felt like the window had closed for me.
Marc:Whether it was I was too old or I missed that stage in my life where Tool was going to be completely relevant to me and up in my head and in my heart all day long like one needs to be when you are into something.
Marc:And then I knew I was going to interview Maynard, and I got respect for the guy.
Marc:He's out there in the desert.
Marc:He's making wine.
Marc:He's making music.
Marc:He's a fucking impressive cat.
Marc:He does what the fuck he wants to.
Marc:He's made some insanely great rock music.
Marc:He's making nice wine now.
Marc:He does what he wants, this guy.
Marc:And he's an interesting cat.
Marc:and i'd only listen to one or two records so when i knew i was going to interview him i went out and i procured everything by tool and i sat there like an angry teenage boy and i listened to it day and night i listened to tool and the other stuff i listened to it all man
Marc:For a couple of weeks.
Marc:It was just all tool all the time.
Marc:I put it into my head because I wanted to be right.
Marc:I wanted to look him in the eye and know his shit.
Marc:But the weird thing is I've done with this at times with a couple of other musical guests.
Marc:And quite honestly, it doesn't matter.
Marc:The guy's a guy.
Marc:He's going to be sitting there.
Marc:What, are we going to go through every record?
Marc:Are we going to go record the record?
Marc:Are we going to go song for song?
Marc:I'm going to talk to the cat like he's a guy.
Marc:But I had a head full of fucking tool when I talked to him.
Marc:Just know that.
Marc:I will do that occasionally.
Marc:I will fill my head up with fucking music by the person I'm talking to, even if you can't tell.
Marc:Obviously, I know some of you are thinking, well, the John Kell one, you didn't have the new one.
Marc:I didn't, but I listened to as much John Kell as I could.
Marc:I do what I can.
Marc:I can do that kind of research because I enjoy listening to music.
Marc:And it's really the most in that research is so irrelevant to a conversation that it's not even research.
Marc:It's just like I want to know the tone of what comes out of this artist, man.
Marc:I want to know the tone of it.
Marc:I want to feel it in my heart and in my head.
Marc:The sad thing is you can't force your heart.
Marc:To take some shit in.
Marc:Your heart's going to open when it's going to open.
Marc:It's going to open without you knowing it.
Marc:You can't force it.
Marc:But you can't fill yourself up with it.
Marc:And maybe you'll have that moment.
Marc:Maybe you have that moment.
Marc:Sometimes with music you got to be a little younger for that stuff.
Marc:Especially for stuff that resonates with the emotions of fucking anger.
Marc:Look, man, I still listen to ACDC.
Marc:I got all of them.
Marc:I've had them all since high school.
Marc:It's still there.
Marc:My heart is still wide open.
Marc:And my mind is open to Tool.
Marc:And a couple of songs got into my heart.
Marc:So let's talk to Maynard James Keenan.
Marc:And I hope I do justice for you fucking people that love Tool.
Marc:We'll see.
Marc:I enjoyed talking to him.
Marc:What did you drive up in, man?
Marc:A smart car.
Marc:How is that?
Guest:It fits in LA.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Do you live here?
Guest:No, I live in Arizona.
Guest:That's what I thought.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So whose smart car is that?
Guest:Mine, I leave it in a garage here.
Marc:What was it, like $12?
Marc:How much is a smart car?
Marc:$12.50.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it doesn't feel like you're driving half a car?
Guest:No, not at all.
Guest:It's actually, you know, I'm used to driving a truck, so it's kind of fun.
Guest:A truck.
Guest:I drive a Tundra because I work in the vineyard and stuff, so that tends to be my vehicle.
Marc:Well, thanks for that wine.
Marc:My guest is Maynard.
Marc:I never do that either.
Marc:My guest is Maynard James Keenan Vinter.
Marc:Is that what it is?
Marc:Vinter?
Marc:Vintner.
Marc:Vinter.
Marc:Is it Vinter or Vintner?
Guest:The Vinter of our discontent.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You've changed.
Marc:You were a Vinter of discontent, and now you're actually a Vinter.
Marc:Of wine.
Marc:So tell me, like you sent us a wine and I personally, sadly don't drink, but my girlfriend will drink the shit out of wine and she drank yours and it's got a little jacked alcohol content, that particular one, doesn't it?
Marc:That particular one is a little higher than the ones we normally have, yeah.
Guest:Does that happen naturally?
Guest:Yeah, it just ends up being whatever the year is, whatever the ripeness on that block is.
Guest:Is that how it works?
Marc:yeah i tend i tend to go for the the lower alcohol uh we pick uh-huh generally lower uh just because it's it ends up being more approachable you don't have to like suffer the next day yeah yeah you don't want like yeah you don't want to get into uh you know mad dog 2020 territory no no just sweet fuck you up wines yeah you should put one out for your fans though that's just you call it that a sweet fuck you up wine just call it go fuck yourself cabernet
Marc:Why don't you?
Marc:They would sell that at Whole Foods.
Guest:You would think because there's a couple of wines I call Bitch and stuff like that and the Death of Elvis and that kind of thing.
Guest:You figure, why couldn't I just call a wine Go Fuck Yourself?
Marc:Yeah, maybe abbreviate it.
Marc:G-F-Y.
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:This is really good.
Marc:So wait, when you do wines, now I know this is something, how long have you been doing the wine thing?
Guest:I started dabbling around, started breaking, broke ground around 2001, 2002.
Guest:So you bought the property.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, I actually, I lived in Arizona.
Marc:Already?
Guest:In 95.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I moved out of here and then lived there and-
Guest:basically broke ground after looking at the soil there i kind of went oh hey i think that might be suited for vineyards you you decided that yeah i was you know i was there for a while kind of staring at the terrain having been around the world seeing different wine regions and went i think i think we could grow grapes here so i broke ground in 2002 kind of got my uh feet you know quite really wet yeah 2004 yeah i've been making my own wine since midnight 2009 what just at the house
Guest:In the tub or?
Guest:Oh, no, in an actual full functioning wine.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:As an apprentice, kind of.
Marc:I just pictured sort of a meth sort of situation.
Marc:Just a trailer with some tubs, grape juice.
Marc:Foil on the windows.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:It's Maynard making his wine again.
Marc:Smoke coming out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you're okay.
Marc:So you apprenticed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When did the fascination with this happen?
Marc:I mean, was it in the middle of the tool experience, in the middle of being a fucking...
Marc:Balls to the wall rock star.
Marc:You're like, you know, I'm going to take it down a notch and focus.
Guest:Well, I think the rock, you know, the misconception on the rock thing is that that's what I had to set out to do.
Guest:It was kind of an accident.
Guest:I mean, I kind of grew up in a small town.
Guest:I worked in, you know, peach orchards as a kid in the summer.
Marc:Seriously?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Population 2000, you know, small town.
Guest:Where'd you grow up?
Guest:Michigan.
Guest:I was born in Ohio, but I grew up in Michigan.
Marc:Well, I'm not sure if you got lucky or not there.
Marc:Ohio's a little frightening, but I guess they're both- I got out.
Marc:What was that like?
Marc:I mean, how old were you?
Marc:What happened, man?
Marc:I left around 13 or so.
Marc:You struck out on your own at 13?
Marc:No, no.
Guest:My dad, actually, the divorce parents, my dad lived in Michigan.
Guest:He was the high school teacher.
Guest:Oh, your dad's a high school teacher.
Guest:So I moved to go live with him because I started getting trouble in Ohio.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Like what?
Guest:My mom was like, you got to go live with him because I see this not turning out well.
Guest:What were you doing?
Guest:What was happening?
Guest:Just, you know, starting to get and started to drink a little beer here and there.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Driving around and stealing cars?
Marc:Not quite yet.
Marc:So you're in Ohio.
Marc:Your parents got divorced when you were like 11 or 12?
Marc:Three.
Marc:Three.
Marc:So it took 10 years for that to really kind of ferment, so to speak?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sort of like for you to really kind of age.
Marc:Delay fermentation, yeah.
Marc:Age into an angry grape?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:The angry young Irish Italian kid.
Marc:Oh, is that where you... That's passionately dangerous, Irish and Italian.
Marc:So your dad was a teacher since your whole life?
Guest:Yeah, pretty much.
Guest:He worked in Ohio as a teacher.
Guest:When the divorce happened, he moved to Michigan to teach up there.
Guest:Or to get far away from...
Guest:I think he just wanted to go more where the woods, you know, he's a hunter, fisherman, you know, he's kind of a woodsy guy.
Guest:So, you know, we went up there to, he went up there to live cause it's pretty beautiful country up there along like Michigan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what was your, what was your mom like?
Guest:Uh, she lived in Ohio and she sold soap, you know, like she sold soap, you know, like, uh, not Avon, but like, you know, that kind of, not Tupperware and not Amway, but some other thing that was very similar.
Marc:Some other big idea that didn't work.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It didn't work.
Guest:Some pyramid scam that,
Marc:Folded.
Marc:But they got her money on the kit.
Marc:Here's the kit.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Go at it.
Marc:Get some other people to sell the soap and you're going to be a millionaire.
Marc:Yeah, definitely got the money on the kit.
Marc:And did she get married again?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How was that guy?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:If you can't say anything good about someone, make sure you say it very well.
Guest:He's a cunt.
Marc:Yeah!
Marc:Really?
Marc:William, what brand of cunt?
Marc:Just creepy cunt.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Bad shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that was another reason to get out.
Marc:That's probably why you just started freaking out, right?
Marc:Just fucking off?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Fuck that guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're done here.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Wasn't old enough to bury him in the backyard, so.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Figures probably time to move on.
Marc:But you would have.
Marc:Is that guy still around?
Marc:I had no idea.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you talk to your mom, though?
Marc:She passed away.
Marc:She passed away.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But the cunt might still walk the earth?
Marc:He's still cunting about, I'm sure.
Guest:So you move up there with your dad and you're out there working on farms?
Guest:Yeah, we had our own garden in the summer, which of course as a kid you hate, but I'm working in the garden, kind of doing some stuff in the orchards because we were surrounded by orchards, peach and apple orchards, so I worked in the orchards quite a bit.
Marc:Did he see that, or did you see that as sort of a rehabilitation?
Marc:Was he aware that whatever the hell you were going through there, you needed out?
Guest:It was an interesting time in my life, because I was basically right at the end of junior high, going into high school.
Guest:And before I'd moved there, his house wasn't properly grounded, and they got hit by lightning, and it blew up their TV.
Guest:So I spent all of high school with no TV.
Guest:They didn't replace it for four years?
Guest:He's like, you know what?
Guest:Let's just leave it alone.
Guest:We'll do other things.
Guest:That's smart.
Guest:He was a wrestling coach.
Guest:I got into cross country and wrestling and fishing and working in the garden and stuff like that.
Guest:So I got more into my head, like writing and doing that kind of thing.
Marc:Better than jail.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Better than sitting there rotting your brain out on television.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I stopped, I didn't drink that whole, as soon as I moved there, like that tendency to go out with your buddies in high school and drink.
Guest:I couldn't do that because he's a teacher at the high school.
Guest:He's the wrestling coach.
Guest:Like, you're busted.
Guest:No matter what, you're going to get busted.
Guest:No winning.
Guest:So I just didn't do it.
Marc:So you just hunkered down?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like what kind of kid were you?
Marc:I mean, what kind of stuff were you writing?
Marc:Was it sort of like the- Awful poetry.
Marc:So limericks and stuff.
Marc:Oh, just limericks.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There was no, you didn't like, you can't look back at that stuff and see the seeds of the, the tool lyrics that changed the minds of many people that age.
Marc:God, no, they're like, they're just like, really?
Marc:You just rhymes.
Marc:You put the, you put those on a piece of paper, did you?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you start working in the vineyards and you start doing outdoor shit and you wrestled.
Marc:What kind of kid were you?
Marc:What kind of music were you doing?
Marc:What kind of car were you driving?
Guest:Didn't have a car at all until after the military.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I didn't drive at all in high school.
Guest:I ran everywhere.
Guest:I was a cross-country kid.
Guest:god damn an athlete yeah that's good man like the like the weird athletes yeah like not the not the jock like right right team basketball team the loner i was like yeah we were like you know with wrestling you're on your own you're right matt you're right it's you against some other dude who wants to rip your head off right and then in cross country you're running from guys who you know yeah are also running from you you're kind of being chased yeah
Marc:chasing and chased that's that's a fucking solitary game that that that long distancing but it must feel great i mean you're like how long did you have to run like what was a long distance race i don't know uh in high school it was like just over three miles oh okay uh so you know so it was a it was a good it was a good solid race i wish i had done that yeah i never did in college it was like five or six mile oh yeah yeah you stayed with it yeah a little bit
Marc:So who were the, were you listening to music?
Marc:Did it have any influence on your life?
Marc:Were you thinking at that time, like, you know, this makes me feel better or anything?
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:I mean, you know, there's always those little seeds of things that pop up when I look back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Actually, I was, because I was going to come to see you and I had a bunch of questions for you because just the, you know, the comedy background, I started, I'm in the process of writing a biography with a friend of mine.
Guest:She's kind of handling this, it's kind of a semi-autobiography.
Guest:She's writing your biography with your help.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So we're basically tag teaming on like every time something comes up, I go, oh, let's just look, see how far we can go with this.
Guest:I've been interviewing old friends who are also influenced by people in our lives.
Guest:So we're basically talking about the people that were influencing us.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:uh what do you got individuals and stuff like that but then just you know talking to you i was like okay you know what i'm gonna go back to the people that i didn't meet but i was influenced by which are like you know early comedy records i'm trying to think of like what was the first comedy record i had or saw uh-huh so i was gonna ask you that because of course you got into you know you eventually got into to comedy it's like what was it in your early age that you have like an album that i really remember a show that you saw
Marc:I remember watching comics on talk shows during the day, like after school, like Merv Griffin and stuff.
Marc:And also I remember my grandmother used to love comics, so did my grandfather.
Marc:So I sort of enjoyed seeing older guys.
Marc:I remember the Dean Martin roast and stuff.
Marc:But like Buddy Hackett and Don Rickles and those guys, I thought, you know, they were hilarious.
Marc:And then I think the first kind of more radical stuff I got, it must have been in seven, I must have been like 10 or 11.
Marc:I somehow managed to, you know, I had Carlin's Class Clown.
Marc:I had Cheech and Chong Records, right?
Guest:That's what I was waiting for.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, I had a couple of them.
Marc:I remember, you know, class, class, shut up.
Marc:yeah day's not here man uh i remember like it's raining gas on dogs yeah yeah yeah and what was that riff they did that whole i think i might have had that earlier the the it looks like dog shit taste like yeah yeah yeah it must be dog shit that old joke but uh but they did a riff on that yeah i think i remember having the wedding album
Marc:Big Bamboo, Los Chocinos or whatever.
Marc:I don't remember which one was that.
Marc:But I had a couple of Carlin records.
Marc:I remember getting Richard Pryor.
Marc:I don't remember which Richard Pryor and Steve Martin's records when they came out.
Marc:I remember seeing Steve Martin on his first tour.
Marc:And then once I got a little older and things got a little darker, when I started smoking cigarettes and all my heroes became drug addicts, things started to shift and I had to understand different things.
Marc:But those were the first ones.
Marc:Why, which ones did you have?
Guest:same same one that was like I remember sitting out on a friend of mine had one was like battery operated little turntables yeah yeah that would close up into a suitcase you know because we weren't allowed to listen to that Cheech and Chong record right or the two Steve Martin records right that was like those were racy Steve Martin well you know yeah you know it's like that cat was the best fuck I ever had like that you know in a Christian Baptist household yeah that was not good
Marc:you grew up with a lot of religion a baptist like ohio hardcore ohio baptist i don't know what that means but i just said it like it was a specific type of baptist a bible in one hand and a machine gun in the other ready to go annihilate so for the michigan was less so that that was not not now i mean there you know but it's i think you're right though i think there's a little bit of a different flavor there's more of a the nuge flavor which is less about religion in michigan yeah
Marc:And more just about like, I want to kill things and brown people are scary.
Guest:Yeah, I lived around a lot of those people.
Guest:But most of the people that think that way, I met in Ohio, not in Michigan.
Guest:Most of the people around me in Michigan, everybody's grabbing a shovel to shovel the snow.
Guest:It doesn't matter where you came from.
Marc:So the Ohio thing, until you're about 13, you had the Jesus shoved in your head?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Hard?
Marc:Every hole.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Every hole.
Guest:Jesus went in.
Marc:You were gang raped by Jesus?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a Maynard sandwich.
Guest:Oh, God.
Marc:With Jesus bread.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What was your reaction to that at the time?
Marc:I mean, did you just walk into step with that shit or what?
Guest:Yeah, there's a lot of things that kind of went into it not making a lot of sense, because I'm kind of a logical person and a fairly reasonable person.
Guest:And some of it didn't make sense.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I saw a lot of holes in people's behavior.
Guest:Like, you say this thing, but you're doing this thing.
Guest:Like the stepdad?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just like, none of this makes sense.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:How are you telling me this and you're doing that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And when you got to Michigan, was that loosened?
Guest:Yeah, because you're too busy doing things.
Guest:You're too busy.
Guest:You know, we lived in a house that was a quarter mile away from the main road.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that main road was dirt.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They got to the paved road.
Guest:So when we...
Guest:We're going to go to work or go to school.
Guest:We were up at 5 a.m.
Guest:with the snowblower and the shovel.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Making our way out.
Guest:Practical things.
Guest:Practical.
Guest:When you're doing the practical things.
Guest:We need food.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Practical.
Guest:When you're doing that, when you're having to cut wood, build the wood stove.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you hunt?
Guest:I didn't really hunt.
Guest:My dad did.
Guest:But for winter, we had venison on the table because you go out the first day of bow season, first day of rifle season, and get two deer for the summer, or for the winter, and dress it, and that's what we had for the winter was the venison.
Marc:See, that always fascinates me because I didn't grow up with any of that.
Marc:My dad had a few guns, but not for the right reasons.
Marc:I'm not sure why he had them, but, you know, he was... Because you never know.
Marc:Well, it was either going to go against him or somebody coming in the house.
Marc:It was never clear.
Marc:But it could have gone either way someday.
Marc:Get out or I'll kill me.
Marc:But...
Marc:But I've always, you know, I've known people that grew up around hunting and just I've seen some of it.
Marc:But I mean, were you like, you know, sitting there watching your dad take apart this deer?
Guest:Yeah, it was a very fascinating process.
Guest:And I have never actually killed an animal myself to prepare it for that other than like a fish, you know, fishing.
Guest:So I feel a little hypocritical eating meat a little bit, but it's just the society we live in.
Guest:That's part of your thing.
Guest:But I have dressed animals.
Guest:You mean taking the skin off and gutted them?
Guest:I just put little dresses on them, like hats and stuff.
Guest:That's a nice thing.
Guest:Look at the little doggy in the sweater.
Marc:Now let's eat you.
Marc:Now I'm going to eat you.
Marc:But you've pulled the things out and said, what's this?
Guest:I got these.
Marc:Will this stick to the wall?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What do we do with these?
Marc:Was your dad the kind of dude that's sort of like, we got to dry some, we're going to cure some, we're going to freeze some, we're going to cook some.
Guest:We mostly just froze it.
Guest:Yeah, no jerky?
Marc:No jerky.
Marc:There's no jerky in the past?
Guest:Quite a few jerkies in our neighborhood, but no, no jerky in the cupboard.
Guest:So what kind of music were you listening to, though?
Guest:Back then, I had early stuff.
Guest:I had kind of a hippie aunt who caught me into Joni Mitchell and stuff like that.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I can hear that in the Tool records.
Marc:There's a lot of Joni Mitchell there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As a matter of fact, I was re-listening to some, and I'm like, wow, I never noticed it before, but this is a lot like Joni Mitchell.
Guest:That and Steve Martin's Steve Martin Brothers album.
Marc:Yeah, there's a lot of Steve Martin in there, too.
Marc:Yeah, just a lot of lighthearted, kind of goofy shit in those two albums.
Guest:God bless them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But so Joni Mitchell, that's the first one that comes out.
Guest:Whenever we record vocals, I always have like a room full of people just hold hands while they do vocals.
Marc:Flowers everywhere.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Incest burning.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:But okay, so Joni Mitchell, what else did the hippie ant deliver?
Guest:uh well that was the other thing she like went not only that but she also gave me like black sabbath you know right black sabbath sure the first one yeah yeah yeah so that'll do it that's how she balanced it out yeah here's some melody here's a person who's writing from the heart doing her own producing and writing and engineering and all that but then here's the here's the stuff you're really gonna want yeah yeah
Marc:This is stuff that comes from somewhere else.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:It's your job to figure it out.
Guest:Chase this devil down.
Guest:But I think the first albums that I actually bought with my own money, there's a couple, but the Steve Martin album was the second album I ever purchased with allowance.
Guest:The first one with Happy Feet on it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And before that, I think it was a Jackson 5 album.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But then all of a sudden, when I could actually slip out and grab the record, it was the Steve Martin one.
Guest:The comedy stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but I ended up, I saw, it was weird, I'm like thinking back, like what comedians did I see at all as growing up?
Guest:And I don't really, I didn't see a lot, but I saw three times from the time I was getting out of junior high all the way to graduation, I saw a Red Skelton three times.
Marc:Was that his region?
Guest:Yeah, I guess.
Guest:Michigan.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, because he's a Midwestern guy.
Marc:Yeah, so I saw him three times.
Marc:With your dad?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Your dad would take you to see Red Skelton do his clown.
Marc:He was a clown.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He did a clown thing, mostly, right?
Marc:Yeah, a lot of theatrical sketch stuff.
Marc:Yeah, like his face.
Marc:Was it the happy hobo or something?
Marc:He had some character?
Guest:Yeah, he did something like that.
Marc:I remember really...
Marc:vague tv memories of the red skeleton show how old are you uh i'm 40 i'll be 49 next month throw i'm 49 too but i remember black and white like you know it must have been the late 60s right or yeah like we were real little but he had a show on tv and he kind of liked him because he was i don't know if he was a bad guy right is he one of the bad guys
Marc:No, I think he was a good guy.
Guest:Because just watching him, I was already into other comedy by then when I was actually seeing him live.
Guest:So it was like a nice, it was almost like a little flashback to go, oh, a lot of the guys that I'm into, I bet they were into him a long time ago.
Guest:There had to be some sort of legacy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, because I think I went to see... I know I saw the Steve Martin concert, and I know that I saw George Carlin at the Kiva Auditorium, but I think I was already in, like, fourth or fifth grade when I saw Carlin.
Marc:And then in terms of, like, other big-name comedy acts, I don't remember going to see any more as a kid.
Marc:Did you?
Marc:No, I didn't see anything.
Marc:You know, after that...
Marc:Yeah, no.
Marc:Yeah, but I loved comedy.
Marc:What did comedy do for you?
Marc:Like, were you still like, I mean, how dark were you?
Marc:I mean, was it?
Guest:I mean, you know, as soon as I saw like any Monty Python episode or like Woody Allen's Sleeper, I was like, I'm in.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:This is what I was waiting for.
Guest:Right.
Guest:was this kind of stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I didn't know it at the time.
Guest:And the first time I saw that first season of Kids in the Hall on HBO was like, this is genius.
Guest:And all my friends standing around looking at me like, what are you seeing that we're not seeing?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What kind of friends were they?
Marc:Were they like... I guess boring.
Marc:Dead.
Marc:They were dead.
Marc:Dead inside.
Marc:Blind.
Marc:Did not connect.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I know you have sort of a history with the comedy community.
Marc:We'll get to that.
Marc:Let's get through Tool.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Let's get up to speed.
Marc:Okay, so you're running a lot.
Marc:You're running from things.
Marc:You're wrestling people on mats.
Marc:You're helping your dad gut animals, occasionally listening to Joni Mitchell records and tossing in some Black Sabbath.
Marc:And Steve Martin's there when you need him.
Marc:And somehow or another, you've been dragged to Red Skeleton three times in your life by your father.
Marc:But I imagine that was a bonding thing and you had a nice time.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, so then at some point, you're like, well, this is not going to be the life for me forever.
Marc:What was that?
Marc:Was that when you joined the forces?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I wasn't sure what I was going to do.
Guest:After high school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But my dad definitely said, when you graduate, here's the deal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're paying rent for your room, or you're cutting wood for your room, or you're getting a job and getting the hell out of here.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I went, I don't even know.
Guest:I don't even understand the words you're using right now.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:What are those...
Guest:What language are you speaking?
Guest:All three options seem really shitty.
Guest:Yeah, I don't like, is there a fourth option?
Marc:Where I can just continue doing what I did in high school?
Marc:Is that on the list?
Guest:I didn't see it anywhere on the list.
Guest:So I basically cut wood for the summer, but I ended up, I saw stripes and that pretty much set the hook.
Guest:Like, oh, it can't be that bad.
Marc:I can go hang out with Bill Murray.
Marc:Yeah, again, comedy set the pace.
Guest:you're like if that's what the military is i like that you believe that as a real representation of the possibilities in the military well because you also have the the army college fund which is going to help you get through you know you can save up money you put money in and you get you know yeah it's a roll of the dice if you don't get somewhere sent somewhere and killed right you can get that college paid for if you if you just go in and just basically dodge bullets like they kind of come at you pretty quickly so you have to dodge pretty quickly
Guest:If you can get out of the way of this lead flying at you, we'll give you up to and including $5,000 toward college.
Guest:It was 20 grand, but I'm exaggerating.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:It was like, here, we'll give you $50 cash money.
Marc:You can have it up front if you want.
Marc:To dodge this bullet.
Marc:So you entered what?
Marc:What force?
Marc:Army.
Marc:Army.
Guest:And you went in just as a private or how's that?
Guest:Private.
Guest:And then I took some tests and I realized that I was one of those lazy underachievers and they quickly got me into the West Point Prep School over in Jersey.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I ended up going, getting my appointment to West Point and then declining at last minute to go to art school.
Guest:Dumbass.
Guest:I could be like.
Guest:Could have been a general.
Guest:I could be killing lots of people right now.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:From your desk.
Marc:From my desk.
Marc:Without even getting dirty.
Marc:They got the technology now.
Marc:I could watch it on video.
Marc:Oh, God, man.
Marc:I am all powerful.
Marc:You would have been quite a different, I doubt you would have added Maynard to your name.
Guest:No.
Marc:You would have just been General James Keenan.
Marc:Yeah, because who's going to take a general named Maynard seriously, seriously?
Marc:No, no, generals are not Maynards.
Marc:Maybe Myron.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:General Myron.
Marc:General Myron.
Marc:That's a Jerry Lewis general.
Marc:Myron.
Marc:Lady.
Marc:Salute.
Marc:But.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So.
Marc:So in school you didn't you didn't do that well.
Marc:Were you still fighting?
Guest:I think what it was is because I was, but he was, but I was coming from Ohio to Michigan.
Guest:So the scores that my dad saw on my tests coming from Ohio where I was not inspired at all.
Guest:Those were Baptist scores.
Guest:And not pushed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They weren't great, but I wasn't being challenged.
Guest:So he just assumed that I was a slower learner.
Guest:So they put me in the lowest level math class in high school, which I'm just sleeping through because it's like watching snails move.
Guest:But as soon as I got into the prep school for West Point, they're hitting you with... It's like a year of preparatory before West Point, and they're hitting you with...
Guest:And within a month and a half, you're being hit with all of your textbooks from your freshman year, like all the way through these books.
Guest:And the next six weeks is like your sophomore year all the way through just jamming every level of algebra, calculus, all that stuff down your throat.
Guest:And I was like, oh, I was firing it now.
Guest:Now it's a challenge and I'm rising to the occasion.
Guest:And you wanted to win.
Guest:I wanted to win.
Guest:But it made sense to me because you're building on things every day.
Guest:There's a new piece of information that made sense to the next step.
Guest:Okay, now I see a pattern here.
Guest:But when you give me one piece of that information every four weeks, I'm sleeping through this.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Guest:And that's a public school education right there.
Guest:So my dad, after getting into high school and I was getting going, he went, oh.
Guest:You're not dumb.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So by the time I graduated- You were just hiding.
Guest:I was just hiding.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was just taking a nap.
Marc:Yeah, biding your time for the big win.
Marc:So you were in for how long?
Marc:Three years.
Marc:Okay, so it came right down.
Marc:Three years active, three years inactive.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:Six years total.
Guest:So if anything happened major in that second three years, they would have shit me out.
Guest:So even when you said, I'm not going to West Point, you were inactive on duty?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They basically sent me back to Fort Hood after I declined that appointment.
Guest:I was in Fort Hood for about a year and a half.
Marc:Did they guilt you?
Marc:Did they bust your balls?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah, definitely.
Marc:So they had brass pull you into their office and say, you know, you're throwing something away here, too.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:What are you doing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm making the right choice is what I'm doing.
Marc:Yeah, look at you.
Guest:You're a disappointment to the country.
Guest:I'm so well adjusted now.
Guest:I'm so glad I made that choice.
Marc:But were you as smart?
Marc:Did you ever cause any trouble, though, in the military?
Guest:No, not really.
Guest:I had a good time, kind of.
Guest:I mean, the weird thing about the military is that, especially in the Army at that time, you're kind of coasting in a way.
Guest:You realize when you're looking at those things, now that I look back, there were things that they were training us for that we weren't about to do for another 10, 15 years.
Guest:But they were training us for them then.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Desert training.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:We're talking about...
Guest:Only a few years out of Vietnam, and we weren't doing any kind of like swamp training.
Guest:It was all desert training back in 1984.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:So we're done with swamps and white paddies?
Guest:Yeah, we were desert training in 1979, 80.
Guest:So they knew that?
Marc:They knew where they were going.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And did you realize that in retrospect?
Guest:Retrospect, absolutely.
Guest:As soon as I saw us going into the end of the Gulf War, I would have been a lieutenant, a water bar lieutenant for the first Gulf War of version one.
Guest:80, what was it?
Marc:That was 90.
Marc:90, yeah.
Marc:yeah yeah and you were you were out you're already out like already out yeah way out right how when did you get out 85 so 88 was my end of sentence sort of under the just under just under the radar yeah wow man so all right so you
Guest:you turned down west point and and what made you decide to go to art school i mean what was you know i mean what i was kind of been that guy if you look back on like when you were a kid like you had that weird little aptitude booklets that they have you fill out yeah in kindergarten all that yeah i always had to look at the back page it's like what do you want to be yeah and i don't and i always had on there artist and soldier artist i checked i checked too
Guest:I don't know why, I think.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I think I've never heard that as a title, but I think it's a good title for something, an artist soldier.
Marc:It's sort of a frightening idea.
Marc:Martial art.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So, okay, so you did the soldier thing, so now you're like, I've got to check that other one off.
Marc:Artist.
Marc:This was a kindergarten dream?
Marc:Yep.
Marc:I'm not going to sell that kid out.
Marc:I'm painting, goddammit.
Marc:Shut up.
Marc:I'm painting.
Marc:So what did you study in art school?
Guest:Sculpture, printmaking.
Marc:sculpture yeah did you do some sculptures no i chased a lot of other students girls maybe yeah whatever i'm married now so no no i just like i just okay man you can't the past is the past right this is the past you know you say that but they will hold you responsible for that past absolutely go into it yeah no i just painted no sculpture just painting so it was it was actually visual arts that you did
Guest:Yeah, it was kind of, as it turns out, the one I went to, I went to one in Michigan just because I figured I'd be closer, at least be able to visit my dad during the school.
Guest:But it turns out it was more of a design, you know, computer-aided design and design and advertising design kind of school.
Guest:So there's a small, like, rebellious little fine arts section in that school, and I was part of that rebel team.
Guest:And what were you painting?
Guest:What were your particular rebellious activities?
Guest:My biggest thing I was doing was printmaking.
Guest:I really enjoyed laying out using copper plates and doing all the etching and stuff.
Guest:I liked the process.
Guest:I liked the idea of taking this blank piece of copper, coming up with some kind of image, and then somehow figuring out a way to get this on paper with all these things that could go wrong in the process.
Guest:The chemicals?
Marc:where you had to lift this thing out, those plates, and you had to do two colors, you had to line them up.
Marc:Were you doing art prints or posters or anything?
Guest:No, just real nice pieces of like small handmade paper that you do the, you know, like things on, yeah, Italian printing.
Guest:And that, where are those?
Guest:I have them in a drawer somewhere.
Guest:You know, I did, you know.
Marc:Hey, man, when the shit hits the fan, I see an art show.
Marc:There's some high-priced shit, the early prints.
Guest:Maybe I can get in wherever, you know, Paul Stanley's showing his crap.
Marc:Oh, boy, lucky you.
Marc:What does he show?
Marc:Just different pictures of animals?
Guest:Photos of wigs or something.
Marc:All right, so you're doing that.
Marc:You're digging that.
Marc:And then, you know, like, when did you give yourself the name Maynard?
Guest:Just after high school.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:It was some of that crap poetry I was writing.
Guest:It had a character in it that was a Maynard character.
Guest:And then in the Army...
Guest:When I was at West Point running a lot, I was running miles and miles a day, and I started losing a lot of weight, and I started kind of looking like the character that I'd drawn for that poetry.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And people, my friends were starting to call me Maynard.
Guest:And that just stuck.
Guest:And it was kind of a nickname for a moment.
Guest:Then when I moved, it's weird.
Guest:When you move to a new place, you have a blank slate.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You can just be whoever you want because I don't know you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I just introduced myself as Maynard.
Marc:and just just to see if it's would stick yeah see if anybody go like why would anyone call themselves maynard i call bullshit well i mean there's got to be a few maynards and you know i mean if there's going to be a maynard anywhere it's going to be in the army true you're probably one of many maynards yeah you didn't meet any other maynards no no i didn't come across any myrons morons morons maybe a couple of those
Marc:But, like, so all this running, I mean, you know, did you ever, like, get a sense that you were just kind of, like, medicating yourself?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I mean, like, when you were not running, were you filled with rage?
Marc:Were there unresolved shit?
Marc:Are we not Irish?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:I mean, but, you know, you seem to, you know, you didn't, it doesn't sound like you kicked too many asses or got yourself in too much trouble.
Marc:You just kept running.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, pretty much, you know.
Marc:Because that'll, like, that's a real kind of brain changer.
Yeah.
Marc:And you were running every day.
Marc:Can you kind of check when you stopped running that you started to create more?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:When did that happen?
Guest:I moved to...
Guest:When I went to art school in Michigan, I just kind of stopped running there because I'd broken my ankle in the Army at some point.
Guest:Doing what?
Guest:Just messing around, you know, like slipping on a linoleum floor.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Is there a medal for that?
Guest:Do you have a...
Guest:No.
Guest:There's no metal for the slipping on a linoleum.
Guest:The metal attached to the mop that you end up getting handed when you can't go out in the field.
Marc:There you go, dummy.
Guest:Here's what happens when you mess up and you hurt your ankle.
Guest:We put you to work harder because you're a dummy.
Marc:Yeah, because we can't use you now for anything but cleaning.
Marc:You've damaged government property, sir.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:So, okay, so you get back to Michigan, you're not running, and you're starting to be an artist, and shit's starting to seethe up?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Yeah, so I ended up dropping out of the art school because I got so involved in kind of making music with friends.
Guest:I was, you know, just kind of in that scene.
Guest:What was that?
Marc:What was that?
Guest:Screaming red off.
Guest:Punk rock?
Guest:Yeah, punk rock-ish, yeah.
Guest:Art music?
Guest:Somewhere between Black Flag, Metallica, and Plasmatics, you know, something in there.
Marc:Right, so there's a show to it?
Marc:And Joni Mitchell.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Little Joni Mitchell.
Marc:Did you do any Joni Mitchell covers?
Marc:You like to do covers.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When's the poster for Joni Mitchell cover?
Guest:When hell freezes over.
Guest:I've already got enough shit for doing covers.
Guest:What did you do?
Marc:Did you do it?
Guest:I've done a bunch of covers and I just get, I'm having fun and just do it like that.
Marc:Well, that's what I said.
Marc:Like when I heard Bohemian Rhapsody, I'm like, it's like, it's a challenge.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's a fun, you know, let's see if we can do that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like, set it up.
Guest:Let's do it.
Marc:You get shit for doing covers?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I can't imagine the type of- Never mind that my catalog as it stands, as originals, is larger than most people's.
Guest:But, you know, give me shit about doing covers on top of all the other stuff.
Marc:Well, you know, I can't imagine, you know, what the Tool Army looks like and what it has evolved into.
Marc:I can't imagine what type of grown-ups you helped create.
Guest:You know that poster you always see that's like the Neanderthal guy kind of finally stands up right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That should be, it just says Tool Fan at the end or somewhere in the middle?
Guest:Yeah, you gotta cut it off somewhere right in the middle before it gets to the end.
Guest:I'm just kidding, guys.
Guest:Don't get all angry.
Guest:Oh, fuck.
Marc:All right, so you're doing something- He hates Tool Fan.
Marc:Shut up.
Marc:I don't hate you.
Marc:You can't win, really.
Marc:No.
Marc:Because you can only do what you've done once on some level.
Marc:And eventually, if you try to change it all, you're gonna have a fucking bunch of people going, no, he's not.
Marc:That's not the guy he used to be.
Marc:Yeah, because he's not 49 or anything.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, really.
Marc:He's not grown up and trying to have a life for himself.
Marc:All right, so the type of music you're doing is theatrical and kind of punk rock?
Guest:Yeah, we're having fun.
Guest:There's a cool movement in Grand Rapids at that point in time.
Guest:uh one of my favorite bands i just had a friend of mine brian uh in michigan who put together this uh collection of a band called born without a face nice fusion band of like it kind of definitely like right in that like somewhere between black flag and metallica feel to it and uh they were a short-lived band because they had you know they were going through drummer problems exploding drummers
Guest:yeah bands i have no idea how all that works but it was a really solid solid band and i'm you know in fact i listened to it in the car on the way here yeah just because i just it's such a nice trip down memory lane but yeah it was a solid amount of work it was going on in that town so and there's a little scene there's several little clubs around the area all the way to to north muskegon all the way up you know down to so they were regional heroes yeah yeah it was a and they rocked hard yeah awesome yeah yeah and they kind of influence you
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Like, bands like that.
Guest:You know, there's several in the area that had some really interesting things that they were doing.
Marc:But they were taking hard rock and sort of the beginning of metal and building something else.
Guest:Yeah, they were like the original... They were kind of like, if you look back at the guys, they were kind of like, no offense to these guys, but they were kind of the original hipster douchebags before you would refer to people as hipster douchebags.
Guest:In a good way.
Guest:They were like the guys who actually were trying to, you know...
Guest:Just live a simple life.
Guest:Not like not putting on the simple life.
Marc:I'm just trying to figure out what arc, where on the hipster arc are we talking?
Marc:We're not talking like precious haircuts and songwriting.
Marc:We're talking like sort of off the grid.
Marc:We're fucking on.
Marc:We're real good.
Guest:Shopping at Goodwill when Goodwill is actually Goodwill.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And just out of necessity and just being like kind of somewhere between Hesher and just like simple living.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:Like simple living dudes that were like simple living dudes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But long hairs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Kind of long hairs, you know.
Guest:But not like dumb.
Guest:Not effective.
Guest:They were smart.
Guest:They were going to go on to college.
Guest:They were going to do these things.
Guest:And not from a huge, like, you know, extremely rich background.
Guest:Just like, just kind of kids who were just trying to find their way.
Marc:Did you gravitate at all towards, I imagine, I mean, it might be a little late already, but I mean, was the Husker Du and the replacements, were they around then, or it just wasn't on your radar?
Guest:I think it was right around the same, because this was like, this was 85 to 88 era, so it was very, like, right in the middle of it all, like, you know, I'd already seen Black Flag in Texas.
Guest:With Rollins?
Guest:Yep, back in Texas in the Army.
Guest:So I saw that stuff happen, but right as all that kind of was ending was when this was kind of happening.
Guest:So on the heels of the breakup of Black Flag, I guess.
Marc:So Black Flag.
Guest:It was already out.
Marc:I think we were almost on the way to Fugazi.
Marc:So Black Flag, as a guy in the army, must have been sort of like, oh, this is something that could happen.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Because he's got that.
Marc:He's a very regimented dude.
Marc:I don't know how he was.
Guest:He had the hair.
Marc:He had longer hair, but he was always pretty intense and seemed to take care of himself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I had him in here.
Marc:He can talk.
Marc:He'll chat you up for a bit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He'll keep going.
Marc:You actually have to turn him off eventually.
Guest:All right, Henry.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Where's the knob?
Marc:He's a good guy, though.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I like that guy.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, he's a very earnest and decent dude.
Marc:So then you started doing it, just singing.
Marc:You never were a player.
Guest:i actually played a little bit of bass yeah not well but uh then kind of went on to kind of doing a little bit of my own singing uh in those bands and then grand rapids is a very you know as you as i got into it a little farther it's a it's a very cozy place to live the rents are low the families are kind of tight so a lot of the guys didn't have that you were talking about that angst and drive like that outlet
Guest:yeah i didn't have the running anymore i was doing more of the of the screaming and i kind of wanted i had a drive i wanted to do more of that we also were you know stifling a lot of baggage from you know baptism and right so but those guys didn't need to do the guys i was in bands with didn't need that they were like living at home they didn't care they were okay yeah they were fine yeah uh you know looked a little bit like the kids from you know the columbine
Guest:thing but they were you know they were good kids and they were going to go on to do stuff that was you know stable but very family so they had didn't have the same desire so i gave it up i didn't want to do anything after a while i just like quit i didn't want to do the music because my experience with like wanting to do it and then not having anybody around me that wanted to do it with me to go to the next level was kind of disappointing so i kind of just stopped and i went to work in boston in a pet store
Guest:Wait, so in Boston?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where?
Guest:It used to be called Boston Pet Center.
Guest:It was down on First Street, down across from Leachmere.
Marc:Oh, okay, over by Leachmere.
Marc:Cambridge.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Because I had a relationship with a parrot in Austin.
Marc:Alston.
Marc:Alston, okay.
Marc:There was a pet store, like they had this blue macaw.
Guest:Yeah, it was probably Bobo.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Bobo, the big blue macaw, yeah.
Guest:You know that parrot?
Guest:Most likely it was the one that came from Boston Pet Center when I was there from 87 to 88.
Marc:You seriously know the parrot I'm talking about?
Guest:Bobo, yeah.
Guest:Bobo, the highest macaw, yeah.
Guest:But there's only like a handful of those highest macaws in Boston, and the largest pet store in that area was on First Street in Boston.
Guest:In Cambridge.
Marc:This one was up in Coolidge Corner.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And there was just, you walk in, that dude was there.
Marc:And I'd go in there and I'd hang out with that parrot.
Guest:Yeah, I got to the point where that thing would flip over on its branch and I would just put my hands out and he would let go and fall into my hands on his back.
Marc:So you spent a lot of time building a relationship with birds.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:All right, so you go from rock and roll.
Guest:Where's this going?
Guest:It's good.
Marc:No, I like it.
Marc:I like it.
Marc:This is actually exciting to me.
Marc:So here you are.
Marc:You're fucking filled with fury.
Marc:You're singing your fucking guts out and you got a bunch of dudes that are like, no, we're going to hang out.
Marc:And you're like, well, fuck it.
Marc:So you end up going to Boston just to live a pet store dream.
Marc:Why'd you end up in Boston?
Guest:I had a friend from high school who had moved out there, had a good job.
Guest:He worked at this wine shop in the north end of Boston at Martinetti's.
Guest:Yeah, I know Martinetti's.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He used to work there.
Guest:So he turned me on to like wine and stuff.
Guest:But I basically just kind of went out there to get out of Grand Rapids and get away from that setting just to kind of like, I guess, in a way, find myself and figure out what the fuck I wanted to do.
Guest:So what was your job at the pet store?
Guest:Cleaning up bird shit.
Guest:That was it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Basically.
Guest:Eventually I ended up becoming the merchandising manager.
Guest:I took over all the layout of how the store looked and all the ordering of products and stuff, but that was short lived too.
Marc:Do they have birds?
Marc:Do they have other animals?
Guest:Yeah, an insane fish department, like the saltwater fish department was pretty amazing.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like those arowanas?
Guest:Yeah, they had all the crazy stuff.
Guest:Like people would come in for miles to get some of the saltwater fish that they had in that place.
Guest:It was huge.
Guest:It was kind of like twice the size of a pet land nowadays, but like with actual cool stuff in it.
Guest:Like a privately owned, you know, so they cater to unique stuff.
Guest:Monkeys?
Guest:No monkeys?
Guest:No monkeys.
Guest:Dogs?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:dogs but we ended up i was kind of like instrumental in having them stop that because they just were you know they were getting farms yeah they were getting from puppy farms so i kind of like was like we should probably stop this this this doesn't feel right yeah and the birds they were legit though yeah they were all legit a lot of them were uh like hand raised hand far like you know u.s u.s born and raised uh reared out of the california area and you're pretty uh you're a pretty animal you guy
Marc:Used to be, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're handling parrots and you're building nice things in the store for the pets?
Guest:I had an employee there.
Guest:His name was coincidentally Mark, a wonderful little queen that he was.
Guest:And I came in one day and he was absolutely flustered.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, Mark.
Guest:And we kind of met.
Guest:He was kind of feeling me out to see where I was going to go.
Guest:What, sexually?
Guest:Well, not that.
Guest:But as a friend, just to see where I was and see if I had a similar sense of humor.
Guest:And he was like, I go, Mark, what's wrong?
Guest:He's all flustered.
Guest:And he goes, some authorities came in and they said that they accused me of kissing parrots.
Guest:I was like, why would they accuse you?
Guest:They goes, I said, no, I would never kiss a parrot.
Guest:Maybe a cockatoo.
Guest:I was like, okay, I see where this is going.
Guest:He got you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all the comedy that I've been involved in, I did like fully clothesline, right?
Guest:You know, right in front of a bunch of customers.
Guest:Yeah, he got you.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Was there a big laugh?
Marc:It was a big groan.
Marc:Did you take it?
Marc:You took it well?
Marc:I took it well.
Marc:All right.
Marc:All right, so we better get to the fucking rock and roll.
Marc:At what point did you... I'm not avoiding the rock and roll.
Marc:I'm just telling you.
Marc:No, it's all right.
Marc:I think we're laying a good bit of groundwork here.
Marc:So you have this relationship with parrots, and you're in Boston.
Marc:I'm just getting a picture.
Marc:A younger Maynard working with parrots.
Marc:Your friend talks to you about wine, so that plants a seed somehow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is that where that seed got planted?
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Martinelli's?
Marc:Martinetti's, yeah.
Marc:Martinetti's.
Marc:You walk in and you're like, holy fuck, this is a whole world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was the weekend thing when he would be, well, weekday in the summer at that point, up on his roof.
Guest:grilling some food and opening a bottle of wine and kind of like there's something to this whatever this is there's something that's really really resonating with me on this kind of family ritual level of making food and drinking this wine oh really and also there i in my mind when i when i started to know more about you it seems that
Marc:there's uh there's also a sort of a precision to it there's an art to it and there's like a it's a historical thing i mean making wine is as old as anything right but maybe i was reading into that no yeah all right so then where does tool come in what is that first or the first band you're in
Guest:I ended up moving out to L.A.
Guest:because I had an opportunity to come out and do the similar kind of layout in the stores.
Guest:Pet stores.
Guest:Pet store stuff out in the L.A.
Guest:area.
Marc:So you were on the fast track to being a big pet store guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was mostly because I could come in and kind of renovate the stores and kind of lay them out properly.
Guest:For example, one of my early triumphs, whatever, back then I would make them put all the larger dog food bags, all the dog food kind of more toward the back of the store.
Guest:And I got basically yelled at most of the time by the employees, like, why are you doing that?
Guest:I got to carry this bag of dog food all the way to the front of the store.
Guest:Right.
Guest:now that's standard you go into like any of the pet lands it's like more toward the back because they want you to walk by all the toys so yeah all the crap that you're going to pick up so you did that well i was you know i'm sure there's a bunch of people doing it at the same time that we're thinking in terms of like how do i keep the person in the store longer make them go back to the back of this way to get the thing they need right i would imagine that that nobody you know i'm not saying i got a scoop here
Marc:But I would imagine that most people are going back to get that big bag of dog food and are walking back going, fuck, hey, look at that chew bone.
Marc:Right.
Marc:They're not giving you credit.
Marc:No.
Marc:You don't get credit for that.
Marc:You get shit for covering no quarter, but no one's singing your praises in the pet store community.
Marc:On the whole chew bone pickup.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I invented the chew bone pickup.
Marc:That was me, man.
Marc:The squeaky toy pickup.
Marc:I invented that.
Marc:Back in the day, they weren't even going back there.
Marc:They wouldn't have bought that fucking chew bone.
Marc:So, all right, well, that world owes you a gratitude.
Marc:A big thank you to Maynard James Gamer.
Marc:I won't be looking for that check.
Marc:All right, so you come to L.A., what are we looking at?
Marc:It's 90 what?
Guest:I moved here at the end of 89, December 89.
Guest:okay and then uh started working in pet stores here and those people quickly realized they were overpaying me and i got fired like about five and a half months in because you were you were the east coast guy this guy's got vision east coast came out to help them whip their stuff into and you know and as you know like most businesses it's like you can't just like overpay this guy to come in and just do this thing there's other things you have to do you have to let people know to come in you have to do some kind of programs you have to like
Guest:you know advertise stuff they weren't really willing to train their staff to really understand what i just did right uh all that so i kind of i was looked at as like this is just an expense we can't we can't afford this guy with the attitude yeah the moving the bags around yeah who's he yeah let's get him out of here
Marc:All right, so then what happens?
Marc:I got fired.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Lost my car, my apartment, my dog.
Guest:What happened to the dog?
Guest:Got out of the backyard and got lost somewhere.
Marc:Where were you living?
Guest:I was living in Hollywood, but I dropped the dog off in the valley so I could go apply for jobs, and I got out of my friend's backyard and then never saw it again.
Marc:That's fucking heartbreaking.
Marc:How long had you had that dog?
Guest:Long enough.
Guest:Yeah, it was an awesome little dog.
Marc:Oh, fuck.
Marc:Are you still friends with that guy?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It wasn't his fault.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:It was the fence.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So you're out there.
Marc:Your dog's lost in the valley.
Marc:How'd you lose your car?
Marc:It was owned by the pet store people.
Marc:It was a loaner.
Marc:So the car is gone.
Marc:Car is gone.
Marc:The apartment's gone.
Marc:Girlfriend moved out.
Guest:really yeah so this is this is the perfect hollywood story so you got nothing yeah i got nothing your dad's like i'm not giving you money yeah yeah no way so he was a teacher what money yeah exactly so then what happens uh just started you know i was going around with friends there were you know some you know it's a hollywood so there's a lot of bands and clubs and in 89 that was uh
Guest:90.
Guest:In 90.
Guest:Now we're 90.
Marc:So hair metal's over.
Marc:So it's starting to change.
Guest:Yeah, it was just that.
Guest:And literally overnight, like the December 89, walking through like Ankle Deep and Flyers on Sunset Boulevard to like August of 90, gone.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Gone.
Marc:All that shit's over.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The Roxy's finished.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The rainbow's changing.
Marc:Well, the rainbow was probably just... It was still there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whiskey was still there.
Guest:There was still the pay-to-play thing kind of going on a little bit.
Yeah.
Guest:but uh yeah so that that ended up translating into me like hanging out with my friends watching bands play you know cynical bitter and again i'm coming from a background of like i'm i'm looking at this stuff practically yeah you know when i'm looking at a pet store and yeah as a put the bags in the back for like what you're doing up there in a way uh
Guest:This is, you know, I guess beliefs in a way like people that are godless in some way.
Guest:If they don't have some kind of belief, for lack of a better term, if you don't believe in magic on some level, your art probably sucks.
Guest:You got to believe in some kind of magic.
Guest:I don't mean if it's God or whatever you're into.
Guest:If you're not inspired by, if your heart isn't lifted by some supernatural thing that you've witnessed or you believe in, real or not, you're probably going to be focusing on your looks, your money.
Guest:There's going to be something you're focusing on that has no heart.
Marc:Right, you're going to be hanging your hopes and ambitions on material things and just getting them.
Guest:So I would go to these clubs and I would see these bands playing that just seemed, they are all focusing on the wrong shit.
Guest:There was no heart.
Guest:Do you remember the bands?
Guest:I can't do that to them.
Guest:They're probably still around fighting for their lives.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:But you know, they're pretty awful.
Guest:You know who you are.
Marc:But you're talking about the standard sort of like, I'm going to make it in show business.
Guest:We're here to make a million bucks.
Guest:Yeah, we've got some A&R guys coming down to check us out.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:We'll try to look like somewhere between the Chili Peppers meets Nirvana meets Metallica.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Funny hats and stupid shit.
Marc:No identity of their own.
Guest:No songs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No heart, no songs.
Guest:Costumes.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And you felt that.
Guest:yeah totally and you were like fuck this and i'm the guy i'm the drunk guy at the back of the room going this fucking sucks you know and somebody like enough time i said that out loud enough times that somebody went okay smart fucker yeah you try it right you think you can do better right and i went uh yeah yeah and that was right around the end of 1990 and by 91 we had a record deal and tool was on its way
Guest:Right, so how'd you meet up with those guys?
Guest:The ex that moved out, she introduced me to both Adam Jones and Tom Morello, and those high school buddies from Illinois.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I ended up meeting them first, and then I think...
Guest:you know adam had heard some stuff that i did in grand rapids and he's like we should do a band and i'm like fuck that band suck you know i don't want to do that yeah unless we're all in i don't want to know about it all in that was important yeah all in or not so you know if you know i don't want to show up to a practice and have you guys oh yeah so and so is hung over they didn't come yeah like yeah i'm doing laundry i can't i can't take that we're going to do this or we're not going to
Marc:do it because you're the front man i mean you if you're going to have a band they have to you know you got your thing right so like how do we drive this thing right we got to do it either we're going to do it or we're not going to do it so if i'm not going to do it i'll go do other things so right so you know but he was like going let's do this thing you'll go do other things stand in the back of bars going these guys suck yeah yeah
Guest:So he finally convinced me because I got that challenge by some anonymous, you know, prick nudging me like my Irish Italian flare up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:I will.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you started laying down tracks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We just, you know, we're just playing around, just going, okay.
Guest:It was mainly just because of the challenge.
Guest:Like, okay, I'll show you how to do this better.
Guest:I don't necessarily want to do this all my life.
Guest:But you got a hell of a band there, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I didn't know.
Guest:I mean, we're just like, I just wanted to do things right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I wanted to come from the place where we're doing it right.
Guest:So you can go here.
Guest:Here's how you do it.
Guest:Now you go do it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What?
Guest:I got to keep doing it.
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:You do it.
Guest:I want to go over here.
Marc:I want to do this other thing.
Guest:I was here to teach you a lesson.
Guest:I was just here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't want to do this.
Guest:This is like insane.
Guest:No, I don't want to sign your tit.
Guest:Fuck.
Guest:Go away.
Guest:I'm here to make a point.
Marc:I'm just here to make a point.
Marc:About passion.
Yeah.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:So the first dual album was basically a fuck you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did whatever was going on.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was exactly, apparently, what everyone needed.
Marc:Apparently.
Marc:Yeah, because people were like, who the fuck are these guys?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you set a standard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's what you wanted to do.
Guest:A standard on our own little terrarium, yeah.
Marc:But it was on your own terms and you were reacting.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Towards where music was going.
Marc:It was like in that weird, you know, post hair metal fucking, you know, confused area.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because it was like, I mean, grunge hadn't really started yet or was just starting.
Marc:We were on the heels of that.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, because that was kind of going.
Marc:I guess that's right.
Guest:That's why we got signed is because nobody in the music industry understood what was happening.
Guest:So they were just signing anything.
Marc:Right.
Guest:They weren't sure.
Marc:They didn't know.
Marc:Oh, I guess like what?
Marc:So Nirvana, Nevermind was like 89 or 90, something like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that was all, and Pearl Jam was doing their thing.
Marc:And so they had found, they thought they hit some fucking gold up there.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And they tapped that out.
Marc:And LA was still sort of like recovering from hair metal.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then you kind of filled that gap.
Guest:with rage against the machine and some other who were the other bands around uh at that time in la you had some pretty furious stuff that was going on in la uh dumpster was a band that was around yeah around uh but you know helmet was out of another area but you know those are the bands are kind of page hamilton yeah those that was kind of in the wake of of all that like you know we were kind of coming up and
Guest:yeah rage uh tool um dead white and blue you know there's a couple good bands are running around what would you call it would yeah i mean i know you've probably been framed but you were just playing rock yeah we were just like rock i guess was like you know i guess we were we weren't really considered grunge because we didn't have the costumes but you guys were you know but it's articulate itchy no
Marc:Yeah, but the music was different.
Marc:I mean, you know, the sort of attention paid to, you know, I don't know.
Marc:The grunge thing was a little loose.
Marc:And, you know, if you listen, like, I don't even know if Pearl Jam was really grunged.
Marc:And I don't think so.
Marc:Because when I heard the first Pearl Jam album, I'm like, oh, Bad Company's back.
Marc:You know?
Yeah.
Marc:You know, this guy can sing like Paul Rogers, but better.
Marc:And then Nirvana was doing another thing, but it wasn't holding together.
Marc:There was a looseness to it, but you guys were always pretty fucking on fucking top of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you know Claypool?
Marc:A little bit.
Marc:Because he seems kind of anal about shit, too.
Marc:I mean, I know there's a lot of dudes that are... But it just seemed to me that the shit was orchestrated.
Marc:It was tight as fuck.
Marc:It had momentum.
Marc:It had drive.
Marc:And the lyrics were just searing into the fucking hearts and minds of junior high school kids everywhere.
Marc:That was the plan?
Marc:No.
Guest:Again, no.
Guest:It was just like...
Guest:Here's a 101 of how to do this properly.
Marc:Well, when you talk about the magic, I mean, because I'm late to come around to you.
Marc:Even when I had friends, when you were hanging around with comedians, and I know you were a Hicks fan, and I know people loved you, I couldn't connect with the music.
Marc:It's just not the way I was built at the time.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Not you, but I wasn't a metal guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And so when Dave Cross and people like Posehn, these people were like, you got to do the tool.
Marc:He hangs out here.
Marc:I'm like, I'm trying.
Marc:And I listen to it.
Marc:I'm like, this shit is tight and it's great.
Marc:But I'm like, it's too big for me.
Marc:But I knew that the impact was there.
Marc:So when you talk about magic and you talk about beliefs, what were you talking about?
Marc:Because people who've seen you, like my chick has seen you a few times.
Marc:And she's like, oh, my God, man, it's kind of...
Marc:So there was that.
Marc:No, I'm not signing her to it.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Fuck.
Marc:I got to call her because she's coming over.
Marc:Put those away, honey.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you're going to see my signatures there, so you're going to have to fight with that.
Marc:Which one?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What was it the magic?
Marc:What were you drawing from?
Marc:I mean, when you say something like that, that, you know, whether if you don't have God, and I believe this is true, that there's a fundamental thing in all people that sort of you got to feel something part of something.
Marc:What was it for you?
Guest:I just think in general, just life in general, there's a lot of good inspirational friction all around you.
Guest:So if you just tap into the core of whatever that is, whatever's happening and trying to drive you psychologically, that's kind of a beginning space.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you just kind of build on some of that, just that juxtaposition.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But also like friction.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But also is the first album you're talking about opiate.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that album was there.
Marc:You know, you're very you're sort of cutting some sort of path for yourself in this sort of, you know, you know, fuck God.
Marc:Fuck, you know, fuck your order.
Marc:Fuck.
Marc:You know, there was definitely that that element to it where you were like, you know, wake up.
Marc:you know you're you're you're being easily led and you're being uh and you're you're you're you're living in a hypocrisy and that became sort of a through line that in sort of you know provocative filthy all right you gotta add the fuck song on that sure yeah like i mean the fact that when i talked to my buddy brendan he was like when that the fisting song came out i'm like what do you mean fistings they they were their big hit was about fisting
Guest:Actually, it was, but it wasn't.
Guest:It was about completely losing touch with just needing to have so much stimulation, you've lost touch with how much stimulation you need to be stimulated.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, the lyrics definitely speak to that.
Guest:The fisting was the throwaway joke part, but the actual meat of something like that was about like, guys, you need to get back in the field and start digging some holes or shoveling some snow.
Marc:Take your arm out of that guy's ass.
Guest:Yeah, and go shovel some snow.
Marc:No, wash your hand first because I don't really want to pick up a shovel with shit all over it.
Marc:Right, and I get the message of that.
Marc:But he was like, you don't understand, man.
Marc:That was on regular radio.
Marc:And I'm like, well, how did I, you know, and so now I got to go really sort of assess the fist.
Guest:Now I got to go look up the shit buttfuck song.
Marc:And also I was told that, because I don't want to assume that I know more than I do, that as a performer, you were sometimes wary to take front and center.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Why is that?
Guest:I just felt like as an organism it works better in that instance with the kind of, I guess just the vibe of it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's a flavor to it that doesn't really make any sense to have a single thing in front.
Guest:Yeah, but you were a front man of a rock band.
Guest:I guess, but I kind of always thought of it as almost like a theater troupe.
Guest:There's four actors, or not actors, but four performers kind of looking for a specific goal.
Guest:And it might be the military background.
Guest:Right.
Marc:you know so you were a team spirit yeah yeah and all you guys team four right and you had an understanding of that you you and the dudes you're like this is what we do it's just it wasn't it wasn't even an understanding it was just what we did it wasn't that calculated no no it just wasn't i think it just ended up being that's kind of where i was where am i comfortable here so the so after opiate you undertow is a big record i think so yeah
Marc:Which was like, and then the third one, Anima, is it pronounced?
Marc:That was the huge record.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was the one that you did and dedicated to Bill.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And what was your, like, how does Hicks integrate into where you're coming from?
Marc:What was it about Bill?
Marc:I mean, I know what it was, you know, ideologically and creative-wise.
Guest:Yeah, creative-wise.
Guest:I think for me, like, just that most people, I mean, one of my... When did you first see him?
Guest:Did you know him?
Guest:uh somebody gave us gave us the cassette ages ago and it was uh it was uh before i think we actually thanked him or mentioned him on undertow in the thank yous but he wasn't actually dedicated until animal we actually put the piece in and that's after he passed away right so he was still alive yeah 94 is when he dies so like he had a thank you on the 93 92 album
Marc:And just because you were listening to his shit in the van.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That kind of thing.
Guest:And the thing about that, I mean, jumping around a little bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That movie Shakes the Clown.
Guest:Goldthwaites movie, yeah.
Guest:I think that was a fantastic metaphor for that fight for the comedians trying to get to Tonight Show.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That whole metaphor of dealing with all that, hoping that you're going to be Johnny Carson someday, being chosen for that position.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Hicks just wasn't interested in that.
Guest:He wasn't a part of that.
Guest:I want to do stand-up.
Guest:That's what I do.
Guest:For me, that was the end-all, be-all.
Guest:And you could see that passion.
Guest:It's like, no, I'm going to develop this art.
Guest:I'm going to take this art as far as I can take it in this form.
Guest:I'm not interested in using this as a stepping stone to get somewhere else.
Marc:Which is exactly how you felt when you were watching the wave crash of the hair metal band.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You missed the whole boat.
Guest:There's only going to be one Carson.
Guest:How are you going to manage that?
Guest:And why is that the end all be all?
Guest:What do you think is going to happen?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That doesn't seem like a fun thing to get into.
Marc:Right, so the rebel spirit and the sort of individual vision thing.
Marc:And also, he was great.
Marc:Jokes were great, and it was a horrible thing when he died.
Marc:Because that picture, the picture you have on the Anima record that was inside of it, I mean, that was one of the... He was sick then, right?
Marc:I mean, I know that picture.
Guest:Because he was thin, and he was... And that was taken from a photo when he played down south here.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:At Igby's?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was the last show, right?
Marc:I was there.
Marc:You were there?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When he was kind of bloated?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And were you there as a friend?
Marc:He knew him at that point?
Guest:I knew him.
Guest:It was weird.
Guest:We had this weird, I'm going to call it psychic because I'm not really a hippie, but we had a little bit of a connection.
Guest:So I remember having an awful dream at some kind of motel, two-level motel.
Guest:On the road?
Guest:I was thinking it was out somewhere, yeah.
Guest:And I kind of knew one of his managers, Colleen.
Guest:Colleen McGar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Duncan.
Guest:Duncan.
Guest:I called him the next morning because I had this weird dream.
Guest:It was all these friends of ours, and we're at a motel, and everybody's kind of walking through that breezeway between both sides, up and down the stairs.
Guest:Everybody's crying, and Bill's not there.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So I called Colleen or Duncan the next morning, and I said,
Guest:I had this fucked up dream.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is Bill okay?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Duncan was like, I can't talk about it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I was like, whoa.
Guest:And so then a month or so later, he said, yeah, he's sick.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's sick.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it's not good.
Guest:and and then when did you meet him uh he came out to uh lalapalooza in 93 uh out here in la outside outside of town yeah and actually did a thing did a thing on our stage at that at that show oh yeah what do you do introduced us basically do you do any bits a little bit yeah how'd it go well yeah like it's all up yeah yeah no didn't go
Guest:I laughed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you spend time with him?
Guest:Not a lot.
Guest:A lot of phone conversations.
Guest:We had a little love affair on the phone.
Guest:We talked a lot.
Guest:We were going to basically put together a tour because it was still when the band was young and still kind of up and coming.
Guest:Before Anima.
Marc:Yeah, way before.
Guest:So we were still at that level that we could probably pull something like that off.
Marc:Because he always wanted to, he was pretty insistent on some of that music stuff.
Marc:god bless him we'll just we'll just gloss over that i actually played guitar with him once how'd that go it was it was interesting because um it must have been 89 and uh you know he was living in new york briefly and i was about you know maybe a year or two into being a comic really
Marc:and i had moved to new york and around that time and you know i knew of bill and you know it was hard not to know of bill uh but he was hanging around you know i remember he was at the improv and you know he's just he wasn't sure why he was in new york because he really couldn't get over there you know you know they didn't quite understand well i mean america in general right couldn't understand the the like literally the reaction was like why is he so angry
Marc:that's what he does yeah like but the new yorkers are like why can't he we're all angry you know hello you're in new york right but but he was there and he had a little apartment you know up by time square and i'm like well what are you doing man and it's like well i play guitar you want to play guitar he's like i don't really do other people you know i don't hang around i don't
Marc:I'm like, come on, we'll just hang out and play.
Marc:And I just remember going over there, and he was nervous because he really didn't hang out with anybody.
Marc:And you can tell by his guitar playing that he's a noodler.
Marc:So I was trying to get a groove going, and Bill's just like, going off on his own thing.
Marc:And we did it for a couple hours, and I'm glad we did it.
Marc:But it was very specific.
Marc:It doesn't play well with others.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:But that was interesting.
Marc:That would have been interesting.
Marc:Had you talked about what you might have done?
Marc:Or was it just like you'd do comedy, you'd do music?
Guest:We were trying to figure out what we were going to do.
Guest:We were trying to figure out how we would work that in to where it somehow would be accepted in that form.
Guest:And, you know...
Guest:even then we were hard we were it was hard time for us to be accepted in that form because you know we would play somewhere and you'd have these you know moshing skinhead dudes going play faster you know and be like listen slower or something right right i don't know i don't i don't really know this is what we're doing you came here i don't know you came to see us i'm not sure what i'm why i'm supposed to like right give you what you want i'm here that's sort of the the the the ongoing struggle of the of the uh harder you know when you're doing
Guest:that type of music you're going to be up against some pretty thick heads yeah that may not but it seems a lot of people resonated emotionally with what you were doing right and that that's really what bought brought you your core following figure we figured if we had if we were early enough on and bill and i discussed this if we were it was early enough on in our career where we think we could at least weed out the people that didn't want to see that right you know somehow you know resonate that on some level and and uh
Marc:and it just then all of a sudden it was just like then i had that dream and it was like that was it yeah he's sick yeah we can't do it well we were we were gonna do it uh-huh did you go to the funeral no yeah and uh when you when you gave him where you sampled that that stuff on on anima that was uh that was a tribute and yeah it was a sad bit of business and when did you sort of kind of integrate yourself into the uh the la comedy community with mr show and those guys
Guest:That was right when I was moving to Arizona.
Guest:I moved to Arizona right around the end of 95.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was kind of introduced to that circle right around 90.
Guest:Who pulled you in?
Guest:My old roommate, Gary Helsinger.
Guest:I will give Gary a prop now.
Guest:He's going to be so delighted to hear his name on a podcast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If he even knows how to operate a computer.
Guest:And how did you, like, were they all fans?
Marc:He took me over to Luna Park.
Marc:Luna Lounge, yeah, or Luna Park.
Marc:Right, right, Bethlapida show.
Marc:Yep.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:There, and of course, then I got involved.
Guest:That's where I met some of those guys and got involved with Laura.
Marc:Milligan.
Marc:Milligan over at the- Who's on the cover of the Pulsifer album.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Which, when I got that record, I'm like, is this a comedy record?
Marc:I know Laura.
Marc:literally it got sent to me by a fan not you didn't you didn't send it to me i got it you sent me one too and i'm like what is this fucking record and finally i'm like all right i'll put it on i'm like holy shit what is it and it's like oh it's fucking maynard's all right yeah that happened in reality
Guest:Nice.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you met Laura?
Guest:She had Tantrum.
Guest:That's her club over there at the Diamond Club on Hollywood.
Guest:And, you know, some nights Tenacious D would close her show, and some nights I would close her show as, like, her fictitious boyfriend who was supposed to close the show but never did.
Guest:Like, he was...
Guest:Now he's coming down and he's kind of a metal dude.
Guest:It was like kind of in the wake of that whole end of Sunset Strip thing.
Guest:So her boyfriend Vince was kind of a hairband metal douche, but he's always trying to reinvent himself.
Guest:So like this week he was like a dead or alive kind of band.
Guest:Next week he was like, I'm grunge now.
Guest:Now we're punk rock.
Guest:And that was you.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's hilarious.
Guest:And that was kind of the original versions of Pussifer was like just putting on these different...
Guest:A core guy trying to be all these different people.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Did you find that that was a reality for you in terms of your stage persona?
Marc:It was fun.
Marc:But I mean, as Tool, did you find yourself kind of dealing with that identity thing?
Guest:Yeah, I think, you know, most guys used to, you know, famous actors or whatever, they say it's a lot.
Guest:It ends up helping them when they put on the costume because they can kind of become the other thing.
Guest:You take yourself outside of yourself.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's almost easier to open up and do things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that's what, you know, for me, that was always performing with whatever band, even with Perfect Circle, putting on the mop, the cousin Itwig, you know, to just kind of hide behind that really helped.
Right.
Marc:Because you could speak differently.
Marc:That's interesting.
Marc:Because you look at pictures of you over the years, you're like, does this guy even know who he is?
Marc:No.
Marc:No idea.
Marc:Look at my ID.
Marc:I didn't know whether I was going to be scared of you or not.
Guest:Nothing to be scared of.
Marc:So you did some stuff with Mr. Show.
Marc:You were in the famous Ronnie Dobsing.
Guest:The Ronnie Dobsing sequence in the actual series, and we did a little song with Brian Pussain in the movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Are you friends with Pussain?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I haven't talked to him in a long time, but yeah.
Marc:He's doing good, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's off the weed.
Marc:He's a daddy.
Marc:Is he?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Whoa.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you drink?
Guest:I drink wine.
Marc:Yeah, I guess you would have to.
Guest:But I don't do any of the weed stuff or any of that.
Guest:I can't.
Guest:I think I put my time in in college.
Marc:Wasn't one of your records sort of driven by recovery language or no?
Guest:Perfect Circle, yeah.
Guest:Uh, we had the, we had the 13th step.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There are lots of good inside jokes in that one.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because I had a lot of friends who were in the program.
Guest:So like we had all, I inserted a bunch of good stuff.
Guest:So if you were like in the program, you get all this stuff, you listen to some songs.
Guest:Oh dude.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know about that one.
Marc:The only people in the program know what the 13th step is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's not suggested, but it always happens.
Marc:Highly discouraged and often occurs.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:So, I guess we should go ahead and deal with the wine thing now.
Marc:I mean, I, you know...
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Let's come full circle.
Marc:Whoops.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because you've got, what, there's an EP, a Pussifer ET, and there's, what, three records or two records?
Marc:There's two full-length and two EPs.
Marc:And a remix one.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And the idea of that was that, you know, with whatever downtime you have, you're just taking liberties to do what the fuck you want.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And loosen it up and just explore what you want to do.
Marc:Bohemian Rhapsody is one of those things.
Guest:Yeah, that's one of those.
Guest:I mean, because we have a studio set up, so it's fairly easy to go in and kind of just do some things when we have some stuff prepared to work on.
Guest:And you enjoy it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Do you?
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:I think it's...
Guest:Kind of coming from the kind of rock live band, no click track, kind of like, you know, very live music background with Tool.
Guest:And then a little more structured kind of emotional version of that for Perfect Circle.
Guest:Still live music for the most part.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I kind of like the idea of blending the more programmed technical...
Guest:well that's what i was gonna say i don't want to be more electronic right i don't want to be rude but like it seems like it's danceable yeah well electronic stuff and and but melding it with i mean because you know every day you know you're you're you're part of the clock you know the seasons the seasons the earth in general is a big clock and you are you are walking to a click track whether you like it or not sure so
Guest:The beauty of working with some of that more, for most people, would be a confined space of a click track, of a set rhythm.
Guest:You can find your humanity in that.
Guest:You can kind of bend around some of those clicks and make that clock feel more human.
Guest:And that, to me, is the challenge with that project, is to work with the digital world and breathe a breath of life and vibrancy into that, what would normally be a stiff format.
Marc:i can hear that because like the first the after you know filling my head with tool for hours and then going to uh pussifer there's a moment where you're sort of like hey i'm gonna i could kind of dance to there you go so like i don't want to call it in your underwear and sure man i mean yeah i mean it's definitely a harder dance yeah you know
Guest:So wear sensible underwear.
Marc:Right, but there's a different groove, right?
Marc:Yes, absolutely.
Marc:And are you friends with Reznor?
Marc:We've met.
Marc:Yeah, because that seems to be something he enjoys, fucking machines and whatnot.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:He's a master of that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, so when you left for Arizona and you had the vision of the vineyard,
Marc:Was this a business decision or a passion?
Guest:I felt like I'd lived in LA long enough that I felt like I was losing touch with those core things that I built my life on.
Guest:Which was snow shoveling.
Guest:Yeah, just connecting with that process of earth and growing and putting time in.
Guest:And I feel like in L.A., the majority of the population are not really sure where their water or food come from.
Guest:I think you kind of start to lose touch with some of that.
Guest:Like I mentioned earlier, that belief system, you start really focusing on...
Guest:your looks or your power or your money.
Guest:And as soon as you start focusing on those things, you're never going to have enough of any of those.
Guest:You're always going to feel older and fatter than you were the day before.
Guest:Like this, you kind of lose touch with those kind of things.
Guest:And you don't really have time for that when you're actually working in a field or getting up when the sun comes up to do a thing.
Guest:Because if you don't get up when the sun comes up, you lose the sun by the time you're not done with your job by the time the sun goes down.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Kind of tuning yourself to that, I felt like I had to get out of L.A.
Guest:because I felt like the music was going to suffer if I didn't.
Marc:So you literally needed to ground yourself with the ground.
Guest:Yes, quite literally.
Guest:I had to get out and be able to see the sky and understand where the water came from.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you built out the vineyards.
Marc:How long did it take to get you, what was this apprenticeship you did, first of all?
Marc:Did you do it in Italy?
Guest:No, I just worked in a custom cross facility, just kind of working as basically an intern, an unpaid intern.
Guest:Where?
Guest:In Arizona.
Guest:And then ended up, once I kind of got my feet wet and kind of understood some of the basic processes, the one-on-ones of it,
Guest:I immediately called on a bunch of my friends that I'd met around the world who are winemakers, world-class winemakers, and I would call on them and go, okay, now I have specific questions now that I've actually done this.
Guest:And you'd already talked to them at some point.
Guest:Yeah, we're already friends with them.
Marc:From traveling?
Marc:Traveling, yeah.
Marc:You would seek these people out when you were touring with Tool?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because you had the bug.
Marc:You were like, I'm going to make a vineyard somewhere.
Marc:I'm going to be a winemaker.
Guest:Being able to reach out to Peter Gago, who's the head winemaker at Penfolds, establishing a relationship with him, a couple winemakers in California.
Guest:you just end up having that knowledge base you can bounce off, bounce the questions off of from people who've actually done it.
Guest:Now that I've actually met a few guys in Italy, same thing.
Guest:Whenever I have a question, I send out an email to each one with a very specific set of parameters.
Guest:Of course, setting up like, my grapes, my soil, my weather is not like yours, but here's the scenario that I'm looking for, and I usually get some good feedback.
Marc:And so you're like, are there, how many vineyards are there in Arizona?
Marc:There's quite a few vineyards.
Guest:There's fewer, fewer actual, well, probably even number of wineries compared to that.
Guest:But you do both.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I have vineyards and I have my own winery.
Marc:now when you so once you got your your education in place and you understood soils and grapes and and and everything else was there i guess uh was there a specific type of grape you were looking to get that seems to be the the racket right is that what's the best grape yeah and we're still you know we're starting to kind of narrow that down as a as a as a winemaking community in arizona but uh
Guest:I suspect that we're going to do okay with Syrahs and kind of Southern Rhone grapes.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because they grow better there?
Guest:Well, I think more so the Italian and Spanish varietals.
Guest:So like your Sangiovese, your Tempranillos from Spain, your Barberas, Nebbiolos.
Guest:I think that stuff, just because the soil, the weather, everything about it kind of lends itself to...
Guest:So I think you'll see in the next 10, 15 years, you'll see a lot of that stuff coming out of Arizona with some recognition, like people going, no, no, this is for real.
Marc:And you're sort of going to be a pioneer there.
Guest:i wouldn't call myself a pioneer i think that i think there's a lot of guys that are doing stuff there just it's one of those almost like that kind of hundred monkey theory all of a sudden there's a bunch of people that decided i think now's the time like intuitively you kind of like it all resonated at the same time so all of a sudden that tide started rising there all over the state so i definitely have the i'm the biggest mouth for sure because i have a i have a platform that i can stand on and shout from but no there's there's a bunch of people that have been doing it for a while and
Marc:How many different wines do you do a year?
Guest:I have roughly 20 different wines that I'm doing.
Marc:And the primary difference in each is thyme and grapes?
Guest:Yeah, where the grapes are from, like what block they're from, and just kind of how I'm putting them together for a blend.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:And you're sort of hands-on all the time with this.
Guest:Yeah, my wife runs the lab, I make the wine, and we have a very large gentleman named Derek who cleans up after me.
Guest:So it's a three-person operation.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Not counting, of course, my vineyard manager.
Guest:And what's the vineyard called?
Guest:Caduceus Sellers and Merkin Vineyards.
Guest:Merkin Vineyards.
Guest:Yeah, I figured you were fishing for that one.
Yeah.
Marc:I just recently learned what a Merkin was.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Yeah, it takes me a while to get on to it.
Marc:My girlfriend had to tell me after we saw a movie.
Marc:She said, there's a lot of Merkins in that movie.
Marc:I'm like, what the fuck is a Merkin?
Guest:I had to go into winemaking and music because...
Guest:I think I'm way more clever than I am.
Guest:So, you know, like I'm not really funny.
Guest:I'm not, I'm not, I couldn't really make it as a comedian because I'm not, I would, I laugh at my own jokes, which aren't funny.
Guest:And, you know, I'd make dumb puns, like pun, like lowest on the food chain for jokes, like Merkin, you know.
Marc:No, but I think it's interesting the way, especially with your love of comedy and your understanding of Bill Hicks, is that what you did in sort of a clever way, whatever you think you might lack in wit, that the power of the message you were putting through, you knew had to be tempered by something.
Marc:That, you know, and when you did sort of attach satire to it, you know, by doing the fisting song or by, you know, donkey punch the night away.
Marc:Like, I mean, it may be bass, but, you know, what it's pushing through is some real heartfelt shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And there's a balance that you don't want to be too clever.
Marc:No.
Marc:Because then, you know, everyone thinks you're a chick.
Guest:Clever is right on the edge of annoying.
Marc:That's exactly right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, like, you know, like, the crass element of satire is fucking important, man.
Marc:I mean, that's how you punch the big things through.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Donkey punch them through.
Right.
Marc:right yeah
Guest:And the future of Tool?
Guest:I'm going to stop by the rehearsal space today, in theory, having beaten them up, going, please give me music, please give me music, please give me music, please give me music.
Guest:In theory, they have a CD for me today to listen to some jam so we can get this thing going.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You got words?
Guest:Not till I hear the sounds.
Guest:Is that how it works?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We got to hear the sounds, and I can't write words till I hear the sounds, and I haven't heard the sounds.
Marc:That's your process, though.
Marc:You don't ever just sort of like, oh, I've got an idea for a lyric.
Marc:You've got to listen to the music.
Guest:You've got to listen to the sounds and go from the sounds.
Marc:That's good to know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Thanks, Maynard.
Marc:No problem.
Marc:Well, that's it.
Marc:That's the show.
Marc:Very nice guy.
Marc:And a very smart guy.
Marc:And a diplomatic dude, man.
Marc:I enjoy talking to him, man.
Marc:I still am listening to Tool.
Marc:I will let you know that.
Marc:That's where I'm at.
Marc:I'm trying to have it.
Marc:I'm trying to have that same experience that I would have had if I had just fucking been a little younger.
Marc:A little younger.
Marc:As I said before, I'm going to be in Denver this weekend.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Check the calendar if you want to know my dates.
Marc:Check the episode guide if you want to know who's been on the show.
Marc:Get the app.
Marc:Get the free app.
Marc:And then decide for yourself whether you want to upgrade and have the opportunity to listen to all of the shows.
Marc:All 400 and some odd shows.
Marc:I will be getting more ceramic mugs.
Marc:Go to JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Get the WTF blend.
Marc:I got a little off of that.
Marc:Do what you got to do.
Marc:I'll talk about Breaking Bad eventually.
Marc:I've had to do some of these shows ahead of time, and I don't want to spoil anything for anybody, but of course I fucking love it.
Marc:Are you fucking kidding me?
Marc:Are you fucking kidding me?
Marc:Boomer lives!
you