Maynard James Keenan thinks one of Tool‘s older songs is “stupid” now.
The vocalist was the latest guest on Steve-O‘s Wild Ride! podcast and during the conversation, Steve-O mentioned that he asked artificial intelligence (AI) to classify the singer’s three bands — Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer.
The software described Tool as “reverent,” A Perfect Circle as “romantic” and Puscifer as “absurd” but suggested all three groups aim to “dismantle the ego.”
“Yeah I don’t know about that,” Keenan responded. “Reverence for fist fucking?”
The vocalist described the lyrics for all three of his bands as “serious play” and noted that each of the songs he’s written balance humor with accomplishing something. However, he believes that he failed to accomplish something with certain songs because he got “caught up in the wrong thing.”
“There’s some old Tool songs, I don’t like playing them because I feel like I failed them. They’re popular songs but I feel like I was trying to make a joke and it was a dumb joke. I should have just moved on,” Keenan admitted.
He cited one of the tracks from Tool’s 1993 debut album Undertow as an example.
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“I feel like the lyrics don’t hold up under scrutiny… ‘4°’ is a stupid song,” he said. “The way I wrote it… I was trying to fucking make a butt sex joke and it was dumb. The song’s beautiful, what those guys did musically is great and I think maybe the melody’s a good melody but the words are just dumb. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”
The lyrics from one of the verses in the song are, “Locked up inside you / Like the calm beneath castles / Is a cavern of treasures that / No one has been to” [via Genius].
Tool, ‘4°’
The rocker laughed when he said he “fixed” the song when he wrote “Stinkfist,” the opening track on 1996’s Ænima.
Later, Keenan agreed with AI’s interpretation of Puscifer as being “absurd” but suggested that the band’s material is just as serious as some of the songs from his other bands because the melodies and stories are similar.
Check out the full conversation below.
Maynard James Keenan Thinks One of Tool’s Songs Is ‘Stupid’ Now
Puscifer in 2026: New Album + Tour
Puscifer’s new album, Normal Isn’t, comes out Feb. 5 and can be preorders at the Loudwire Vinyl Shop or through the button below.
Catch the band on their North American tour, which stretches from March 20 through May 14.
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Gallery Credit: Jordan Blum
