Plenty of Maynard James Keenan in the press at the moment, the most interesting of which are a chat with Lars Ulrich from Metallica, and a piece for The Australian.
Firstly, Maynard speaks in a video interview with Lars Ulrich. It’s a reasonable broad interview, touching on A Perfect Circle, as well as it’s relationship with the other bands in Maynard’s arsenal:
Also out in the last week, Andrew McMillen from The Australian had a pretty insightful chat with Maynard about the construction of Eat The Elephant:
Well, to put it another way, then. Do you recall which song went through the most revisions from the time that Billy initially sent the musical idea to you?
Oh, jeez. All of them. Yeah, they all evolve so much. Then we go down blind alleys, turn around and come back. Yeah, I don’t know. They all go through so many changes, and those changes can be quick, it might be like we mentioned; it could be that the music went through a million changes and all of a sudden, the lyrics came almost overnight, once it was settled.
You’re unique as a lyricist in that sense that you juggle writing for three different, popular bands. Do you have any personal rules or criteria that you use to determine whether a thought or idea would be best expressed through each of these outlets, and not the others?
No, never. It’s all about the music. It’s all about conversations. The way you speak to your mother is far different than the way you speak to your college roommate, or a bartender, or the mailman. You just honour those conversations that are in front of you; those subject matters, that music, it’ll all take that direction.
Stay tuned for my thoughts on Eat The Elephant sometime later today!
Good interview hard to believe he and Lars are the same age – Metallica havent released a decent album since Tool started