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- Maynard James Keenan says Puscifer’s new album title, “Normal Isn’t,” reflects the current state of the world.
- Keenan attributes societal division to a weakened education system and social media algorithms.
- He believes religious fundamentalism and a lack of critical thinking contribute to current problems.
There’s no great mystery as to how “Normal Isn’t” emerged as the title of Puscifer’s first album since 2020’s “Existential Reckoning.”
As Maynard James Keenan responds to a question about the inspiration for his latest portrait of a world gone either mad or just extremely stupid, “I mean, yeah, just look out your window, I guess.”
These are “pretty insane times,” Keenan says.
“Of course, musically, Mat (Mitchell) and I and Carina (Round) diving into the whole Synclavier, Fairlight synth world is definitely kind of the inspiration for the sounds. But as far as the current algorithm climate of everyone just kind of getting lost in the black hole of their phones and everything creating more division and more division? Strange, weird times. It most certainly is not normal. None of this behavior is normal.”
Keenan checked in by phone in advance of a tour that makes its way to Arizona Financial Theatre in downtown Phoenix on Saturday, March 21. Here’s what he had to say.
Maynard James Keenan on regimes making sure people are dumb
You were talking about how none of this is normal. How do you think it got to this point?
Uh, well, I mean, that’s. … That’s a long conversation, right? But you could see, historically, and of course, the whole point of education is for you to understand historically what that means. And so having been the son of an educator and his whole family are teachers as well, I watched in the ’80s, ’90s where the education system was undermined and, you know, you weren’t allowed to fail kids.
And so I feel like that just kind of lowers the education bar. That’s definitely historically where regimes start is to make sure that the people are kind of dumb and then they can just kind of tell them whatever they want and they don’t have the frame of reference or the tools to debunk what they’re being told, to critically think, to reason out puzzles, and then you end up here.
I imagine the timing of that with the rise of social media hasn’t helped.
No, not at all. You know, the algorithms feed dopamine addiction. They don’t feed truth. Or fact. They just chase the blood.
Keenan on the generational damage of religious fundamentalism
Do you see a path back to normal?
I think it will just have to come to a head. You know, right now, artistically, you have a lot of people kind of flipping out about AI. There’s a million arguments from many angles, but one of the ones is that it’s going to somehow replace actors, artists and all that. And of course, we heard that when drum machines were invented, and we heard that when the cameras were invented.
I think there’s other considerations of why AI is a bad idea. But as far as being replaced, I don’t feel like that’s legitimate. I guess my point is that it’s somehow. … This has to find a balance. It has to be a breaking point when you have religious fundamentalists calling all the shots. True believers are scary. It doesn’t sustain, right?
Historically, when you have people that are choosing violent oppressions, it doesn’t last. It lasts long enough to hurt and do damage, like generational damage, but it doesn’t last. So I don’t know. I don’t know where that breaking point is in this crashing wave. I’m hoping it’s soon, but I don’t know, man. It’s gonna get darker before it gets better.
It’s really weird to see so many young people drawn to the religious fundamentalism you’re talking about. Like, usually young people are more cynical about it.
Yeah. The separation of church and state, I absolutely believe that, because when it comes to state, it’s like … it’s a mechanism. It’s a car, it’s an engine, it’s mechanics. There’s no faith involved. There’s a mechanics to this thing. You can have your faith, but it shouldn’t affect how your car runs. It shouldn’t affect any of that.
That’s why separating church and state is important to me, ‘cause the government should not be an emotional being. It should be a mechanism. It’s a machinery. No faith involved.
The inspiration behind Puscifer’s ‘Self-Evident’
Was ‘Self-Evident’ written with a particular person in mind, and is that something you’d care to discuss?
Actually, no. I mean, you could apply it to (laughs) current people easily. (laughs) I’ll save it. But yeah.
It probably came up in having a conversation with Carina and a couple other English friends of mine, how funny it is how over here, people that are calling other people snowflakes are actually the snowflakes, where they just can’t take criticism, they can’t take anything that has to do with undermining their position. Critical thinking really bums them out.
And we were reminiscing about English press and how in the early days when I would go do press, your person would warn you in the UK, like “They’re gonna try to tip you over. They’re looking for the drama. They’re looking for the dopamine reaction in you. They don’t give a (expletive) about how you recorded your record. They don’t care what your influences were. They want to piss you off in some way to get you wound up because those are the articles that sell.”
And I came to find out that a lot of my English friends, the way that they talk to each other, the criticism of each other, they have this harder shell. They’re able to hear these things. It just kind of bounces off them. And we’re so delicate as Americans, especially all the American bands going over, getting press, like, ‘These people are mean’ (in mock crying voice).
So I just, I don’t know. In a way, it was attacking that delicate nature. Assume this song’s about you and grow some armor.
It does seem like a lot of people from a lot of different walks of life are very overly sensitive maybe right now? Easily offended?
Yeah, especially now, but this song was kind of written about things that were 20 years ago and 15 and 30 years ago of us just not being able to take a joke — or even mean-spirited comments— to be able to just go “heh” and just let them bounce off you. But now, everybody leads the conversation with a fight.
How bots and algorithms are making us fight over everything
Yeah, that’s for sure. You kind of get at that a bit on the first track as well, on ‘Thrust.’
Yeah, it’s just constant. And, you know, it’s, of course, a rabbit hole of conspiracy theory here, but there are entire bots and chat rooms that all their job was is to drive wedges between us online, just start fights that were no fights and then get people to join the fight, and then they just step back and let you guys fight over everything. Over anything. Litter boxes in classrooms. (Expletive) off.
Right down to like, you know, I think pronouns are important, but I don’t think that it’s a die on this hill fight. I respect whatever you want to call yourself. That’s completely fine. I don’t think you need to have a fistfight with a stranger in a parking lot that you met 30 seconds ago because they didn’t acknowledge your pronouns. That’s absurd.
I just feel like that algorithm and those bots have been feeding that over the last 10, 15 years. Just cultivating and just feeding that division and those just absolute silly fights.
It does seem like people are looking for a fight more than even 20 years ago.
Yeah! Absolutely. Everything I just said, someone’s gonna take a piece of what I just said out of context, and there’s gonna be a fight online over five words instead of 200 words.
Yeah, I was just reading people on Reddit fighting with each other about what you may or may not be singing about in “Self-Evident,” so…
Mmm-hmm. Yeah, tand they’re gonna fight to the death of it rather than just like grab a partner and dance. You know? Laugh about it. Why are you fighting over what it might mean? That’s absurd.
How writing ‘Normal Isn’t’ helped Keenan exorcise his demons
Is there an extent to which writing songs about it helps you deal with all the madness or process it at least?
Yeah, exorcising that demon of just kind of singing about it, putting it on paper, and then just kind of exhaling and let that go, that’s an important process. But then you book 40 shows (laughs). You have to go sing the song every night now and think about it. Forgot about that part.
Yeah, right. So the writing, the creative process, lets you get it out and then the touring process makes you keep going back to it.
Yeah, so that’s the work, I guess, is to have it leave less of a mark every time you sing it again.
Does the other stuff you do — the winery, Queen B Vinyl Cafe, stuff like that — does that help you deal with everything that’s going on in the world now?
Yeah, you know, the super-inspiring thing this last round was the grassroots support that we had from Stinkweeds, from Zia, from all the mom-and-pop vinyl shops. The Orpheum Theatre in Flagstaff. Queen B Vinyl Cafe, my wife’s place. Everybody stood up and they played our concert film to support the release of the album.
So it was interesting and inspiring and heartwarming to have all these record stores step up and understand that we’re kind of on our own, right? You can’t compete with the streaming because there’s all these people that are figuring out ways to cheat and count more streams and take up space on the top 200 Billboard chart.
I know there’s people that go out of their way to listen to Beyonce. I know that. But there’s a lot of people that don’t, you know? I didn’t really want to hear that in Starbucks or Walmart, but there it is being played and so it counts as a sale. I just love that these stores are still fighting the good fight for even cassettes now.
People are buying cassettes, which is taking me back, very nostalgic. And vinyl is strong.
Yeah, it is great to see vinyl continue this comeback that it’s been on. I mean, it’s my favorite way of listening to and owning music.
I’m hoping that CDs make a comeback because I can’t play vinyl in my car.
Yeah. I’ve heard that CDs are making a comeback.
I hope, man, because that’s such a beautiful, rich format. The MP3s, when you crank it in your car, it just doesn’t hold up. It starts to fall apart.
How music software changed Puscifer’s creative process
You switched up your approach to the creation of the music a bit this time with you learning your way around some music software. Could you talk about the impact that had on the way the music turned out? And what the creative experience was like for you?
I don’t want to speak for Mat or Carina, but I feel like, especially for Mat, because he used to normally kind of bring me some simple ideas and loops or more developed ideas. I feel like initially it was a little daunting for him to have to listen to my ideas, because he’s the one that’s actually going to construct that music.
I’m not a drummer, I’m not a guitar player, so he’s gonna be the one that has to interpret whatever the (expletive) this is I put in Logic. And a lot of times, it’s unplayable. There’s that hard part that’s like, you need 17 fingers to play that part.
So yeah, I think it was an inspiration for him that kind of just opened up some pathways for him to explore different ideas and things that he wouldn’t have come up with on his own, and then, of course, regurgitate that back at me once he’s digested it.
Could you talk about what Carina and Mat bring to the process?
Oh, everything. Carina’s just… her harmonies are incredible and her approaches, sometimes they kind of change the direction of the song based on her response vocal. Mat will end up kind of switching things around to accommodate her responses.
And of course, Mat is the foundation. He’s the one who’s gonna music direct all of this. He’s gonna put it together. He’s gonna figure out who’s gonna to play drums on it. He’ll play bass. We’ll get a bass player. He’ll play guitar. He programs all the synths. He’s the one who mixes.
So he’s the producer. I’m co-producing, in a way, because there’s input back and forth, the whole process. But as far as engineering, he is the engineer.
At what point do the lyrics start to come together? Is it after you’ve got the bed of music or is it earlier?
It’s always once I have an idea of what the vocal melody is gonna be and how it fits into the song. And then I have to go back and figure out what the song might be about and somehow make those scat vocals work. That’s the work. That’s my puzzle, just trying to make sure that feels natural. Your thesaurus is your friend.
‘It’s endless barrage of madness and inhumane behavior’
I know we talked about the inspiration for the lyrics, but did you set out to make an album to reflect these times we’re going through, or is that just the way lyrics naturally occur when everything’s going to hell?
It just grabbed me. You know, you go in a certain direction with a song and then something comes up and it just changes the direction, especially nowadays. It’s an endless barrage of madness and inhumane behavior toward each other.
It certainly is.
And here we are at war.
Yeah, who saw that coming?
(Laughs) Anybody who…. Yeah, anybody. Anybody who’s not lying to themselves.
Are you thinking of the live show or the visual presentation when you’re working on a record, or does that come later?
That comes way later. All these new characters came way later in the game. Not quite sure, where we’re gonna go. I even said to Mat, almost two years ago, ‘Man, what the (expletive) are we gonna do, man?’ He goes, ‘It’ll come. Don’t worry about it. You always end up finding your way in it.’ And here we are with The Synth Whisperer, Bellendia Black and Fanny Gray.
The story behind the cover art on Puscifer’s ‘Normal Isn’t’ album
I really like the album art. Could you talk about how that piece (by Andrea Kowch) became the cover?
Yeah, I’d seen Andrea’s work before, and I was literally online. I couldn’t remember her name. I was searching. I had ideas in my head about what that piece might be described as. Because normally, when you’re trying to research a lawnmower part, it’s just like you go down rabbit holes of things that have nothing to do with lawnmowers, right?
But somehow my keywords and whatever I was searching, her work came up right away. And then it was a matter of contacting her people and her to see if she was interested. I had no idea that she was out of Michigan, where I grew up, went to college in the Grand Rapids area. So that was kind of cool to have, in a way, that Michigan kinship.
It’s such a haunting image.
Yeah. All her work… I’m not sure if you’ve gone and looked at her work online, but it’s just seeped in emotion. Whenever I’m working with actors, going down the rabbit hole of just dissecting historic parts, one of the things that one of my friends, Yul Vasquez, has mentioned is like, it’s what’s going on behind the eyes. Like, Philip Seymour Hoffman was a master of this thing of what’s going on behind the eyes.
Whatever you’re doing up front, whatever you’re doing with your hands or your, you know, whatever, that’s secondary to what’s happening behind your eyes. I think De Niro was also a master of that. So, all of Andrea’s characters and her pieces, it’s all in the eyes. There’s stuff going on, but like, the characters have souls. They have depth.
Puscifer in concert
When: 8 p.m. Saturday, March 21.
Where: Arizona Financial Theatre, 400 W. Washington St., Phoenix.
Admission: $53 and up.
Details: 602-379-2800, ticketmaster.com.
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Ed has covered pop music for The Republic since 2007, reviewing festivals and concerts, interviewing legends, covering the local scene and more. He did the same in Pittsburgh for more than a decade. Follow him on X and Instagram @edmasley and on Facebook as Ed Masley. Email him at [email protected].
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