TOOL/A PERFECT CIRCLE Frontman Talks Politics

A PERFECT CIRCLE/TOOL frontman Maynard James Keenan recently spoke to Chris Steffen of the Dallas Music Guide about the presidential elections and APC's upcoming releases "eMOTIVe" and "aMOTION". Several excerpts from the interview follow:

Dallas Music Guide: Is the war the most important issue in the election or is it a massive combination of everything?

Maynard James Keenan: "It's a multitude of things. It's personal freedoms, Patriot Act issues, censorship, and probably the majority of it is, yes, our role in Iraq. People are really, really, really having a brain-fart, since Vietnam didn't happen that long ago. I think we're very close to that situation. It could go that way. Is our role in Iraq the same as our role in Vietnam right now? No. Could it go that way if left unchecked and left up to morons? Yeah. That's the whole point. Focus on this so it doesn't turn into another Vietnam."

Dallas Music Guide: Is there a reason mainstream America doesn't seem to see it that way?

Maynard James Keenan: "Well, there's a great film out called 'Outfoxed' — of course, it's a very biased film — but it's worth a look, because I think most people get their information from watching TV. And if stations like Fox News present twisted facts, like they do, and I've witnessed it firsthand, they're not going to have enough information in their laps to make an informed decision about the world around them. If they don't have the facts, how can they make an informed choice or have an opinion one way or the other?"

Dallas Music Guide: So where is the best place to get these facts?

Maynard James Keenan: "Everywhere. Mostly on, say, the Internet and alternative newspapers. Just look at all the sources. Watch Fox News, read all the major newspapers, but also read all the independent papers, read international papers. Go to international news sites and international news networks rather than just sticking to the ones that are run by the people who would have you accept their agenda, and then decide for yourself. Look at that Pentagon website and say for yourself, 'That's bullshit.' But certainly there's a question, so let's ask some questions. It's worth asking the questions, I think. You have to be a conscious being that's asking these questions, you have to be a conscious being that's seeking out truth. If you really want to find out the truth, it's out there, and you just have to have the balls to go out there and look and find out."

Dallas Music Guide: Where does the reliability in those independent papers come from?

Maynard James Keenan: "If you start looking at international press, you'll start to see different points of view coming out, and that starts to paint a picture. When you read ten articles on the same subject, but two articles were written in Canada, one article was written in Australia, one article was written in Britain, a couple are translated from German and French and Italian, and the other couple of articles are, say one from Texas and one from California, you read that same article about that same subject, and you'll see what each territory has in terms of an agenda, and you can sort through those agendas and say, 'Oh, clearly these guys think this way, and clearly these guys think that way,' and somewhere in the middle is the truth."

Dallas Music Guide: You've said recently that people seem to have been tricked into thinking that their vote doesn't count. How do you think that's happened?

Maynard James Keenan: "I'm not sure how they went about doing that, but it's a baffling phenomenon. Take Florida, for example. I think I've played six or seven shows in the last year in Florida, on an average of four thousand to five thousand kids. Any one of those shows that I've played there, if all the kids from that show voted, we would have a different president right now. Just one show." [laughs]

Read Maynard James Keenan's entire interview with the Dallas Music Guide at this location.