Maynard James Keenan Says Tool Are 'Grandpa Music' - Is He Right?

Maynard James Keenan says that Tool have become “grandpa music” and he’s got some pretty strong evidence to back it up.

During a recent appearance on the Steve-O’s Wild Ride podcast, Kennan was asked about how the group Puscifer fits in with his other, more celebrated bands. The singer responded with an anecdote, recalling his experience interacting with an old friend and their children.

“All the kids from ages… 16 to 30, whatever, [were] huge Puscifer fans,” Keenan explained. “And they view Tool as like, when your uncle was into Steely Dan. You know, it's this other thing that's like, my weird uncle is into that.”

The singer wasn’t upset by the kids’ reaction. “I just thought it was funny like that,” he noted, “because I'm in that [band] and I'm like, ‘We're not Steely Dan.’”

What Makes Tool 'Grandpa Music'?

Keenan went on to analyze the situation further, explaining that the changing perspective of Tool was inevitable given how long they’ve been around.

“I understand the procession because whatever you're into as that adolescent kid, whatever your older siblings or uncle or grandfather was into, that's silly. That's grandpa music,” the singer remarked. “And we've been around long enough that we're like, I'm spanning like three generations of people listening.”

Tool released their first EP in 1991, with their debut album, Undertow, following in 1993. Basic math will show that a fan who was 30 when the band got started would now be eligible for Social Security. So while the idea of Tool becoming “grandpa music” may be sobering to some of their die hard fans, it’s also at least somewhat true.

“I get it,” Keenan conceded. “We're officially the Rush of fans that are like, ‘I don't want to listen to Rush.’”

In a separate interview with Loudwire, Keenan referred to himself as a grandpa in regards to his abilities (or lack thereof) when it comes to recording musical ideas at home.

"Sitting on my hands during COVID, I basically begged (Puscifer bandmate) Mat (Mitchell) to be patient with me, like trying to show grandpa how to fucking screenshot a fucking image," he said about getting his hands on programs such as Pro Tools and Logic.

"He just basically helped me crack the code and kind of level up in terms of understanding how to get ideas into a file and share them rather than me humming into a voice memo and then grabbing five songs from my library of various bands to go, 'Somewhere between these.'"