This is from Aquarian, a NJ music and politics magazine.

 title: Tool: Things Are Going to Work Out
author: Robert Makin

        Tool are to metaphysics what Rage Against the Machine are to
justice:  a light at the end of the tunnel.  Few bands have their
priorities as straight as this thinking person's version of an L.A. hard
rock act.  Kind of like Pink Floyd for the mosh set, Tool's
negative-sounding rage is actually a positive means to acceptance, unity
and peace, a place where all living things appreciate their connection to
each other and the universe, regardless of their differences.
        A ritual magician-turned-frontman, Tool singer/lyricist Maynard
James Keenan shared his insights about the band's chart-busting new
album, Aenima, their third for Zoo Entertainment.  His insight is much
needed, because you could spend the rest of your life peeling away the
disc's layers of meaning.
        Swan song for the human race or calling card to the next
generation to finally get things right?  Find out when Keenan
speaks--ever so softly as compared to his maniacal stage persona--on
behalf of his bandmates:  Justin Chancellor, bass; Danny Carey, drums;
and Adam Jones, guitar.

AQ:  What do you think of Hollywood?

MJK:  It has its pros and cons.

AQ:  Judging by the song, 'Aemema,' and the artwork underneath wherre the
CD rests, which depicts the collapse of the San Andreas fault, it seems
like Tool wouldn't mind if it was washed away.

MJK:  Change is coming from everywhere.

AQ:  I guess there's not much we can do about seismic changes, but there
is something we can do about human behavior.  If the band is a tool, what
purpose does it serve?

MJK:  Provide ideas and opportunities that people in our demographic
don't usually get.  It just comes down to what matters.  I think people
get upset and it becomes an excuse to treat other people a certain way,
but if you really step back, you realize what you've left behind.  It's a
foundation that we're talking about.  The Hatfields and the McCoys shoot
each other for a reason but they don't even know why.

AQ:  I think there's a lot of misconceptions about the band, that you are
angry and negative.  Shile that may be true of the music, is t true of
the band members?

MJK:  Well, whenever you try to work through the things that we're trying
top work through, that we're addressing, it ends up looking negative.
Our goal is nonjudgment, nonfiltered acceptance of everything.  So much
of our background collectively, especially in the United States, is
denying and suppressing and disowning a lot of negativity and the darker
areas.  You can become swallowed up in it.  It's cancerous.  The goal
should be tto define acceptance for everything.  to try and consider
every aspect.  To try to look into the shadows, as well as the light.

AQ:  So in order to not be apathetic, we need to be empathetic.

MJK:  Right.

AQ:  Does the music serve as a release that enables you to remain
peaceful and positive?

MJK:  Music is definitely a higher form of language.  It definitely cuts
right straight to the bone without you having to explain it a lot of
times.  It moves things on a body level, an emotional level.

AQ:  You sound like such a soft-spoken, peaceful person, but when you get
onstage, you're like, totally different.

MJK:  There's a lot of energy up there.  The sound, itself, is a
movement.  If you allow it to enter your body, your body will move with
that music.  If you allow it.

AQ:  The other dichotomy is that TTool sound very machine-like, yet you
seem like a very spiritual person.

MJK:  I don't think we sound machine-like.  I think we may be like a
clock.  So is the universe.  The universe has patterns that pretty much
chime right in with each other.

AQ:  So at this point in time, Tool sound like you do, but at the next
point on the clock, you may sound fairly different?

MJK:  Yeah.  We jsut grow with hwat the four of us are doing at that
time.

AQ:  You seem like four very different people that come together as a
unified whole.

MJK:  We're not all coming from a spiritual standpoint.  I tend to take
off on the metaphysical aspects of things.  Adam tends to ground it in
his nonbelief of almost everything.  It's like a bridge basically.

AQ:  Kind of like yin and yang?

MJK:  Yeah.

AQ:  When you do get angry, what pisses you off the most?

MJK:  A lack of empathy, a lack of compassion.  Driving in L.A., the
decisions that people make on the highway toward each other is just so
enraging.  It's such an example of people not understanding their
connection with each other.

AQ:  Where do you feel that connection has its basis?

MJK:  Light and Sound.  Everything we see is energy, light and vibration.
 The entire universe is operating on just a big frequency.  Everything
you perceive, that's coming into your eye is just a combination of shape
and light.  We are all of the same substance.  Any religion that you can
dig up will tell you that.  Every person who's had a spiritual moment
will tell you that.  People who aren't into organized religions or even
cultish religions, some kid sittting on the corner taking acid at a Dead
show will tell you that.  That's our connection.

AQ:  It's really refreshing to see a band attempting to open young
people's minds.

MJK:  Well, I think it's just where we're at at this point in time.  Next
year, we may not be commenting on these things.  If you think of the big
picture, it doesn't really matter, because I think that things are goint
to work out anyway.  It's going to be okay.  It doesn't really matter
what you believe or what you're into.  Everybody's having their
experiences and they have a right to those experiences.  It's all just
one great big dance anyway.

AQ:  The universe runs its course.

MJK:  Yeah, it's going to be fine.

AQ:  That's a great attitude.  About the band, you're very much an
eclectic group of artists.  You place a lot of importance on your entire
package:  the album art and the videos.  The album art for this new album
is just amazing with the moving pictures.  I understand the video for
'Stinkfist' is going to be another breakthrough.  Comment on the band's
artistic approach to not just the music but everything that surrounds
you.

MJK:  Adam pretty much handles all the visual stuff.  He's into all that
film stuff.  He has his particular outollk on things, his avant garde
take on images.  With Danny and my background on ritual magic, sacred
geometry, mythology and architects, we're both kind of infusing those
things into Adam's images.  There's a freshness to Adam's intuitive sense
of motion and images, visuals.  Then with our understanding of
transcendent and eternal archetypes, you have a very nice balance of
intuitive, intellectual imagery.

AQ:  How do your different backgrounds apply to this new video?

MJK:  Images just pop up, a lot like the 'Prison Sex' video.  People were
terrified by that video.

AQ:  The live show is really intense too.  OOther than the new songs, how
is that going to be different this time out?

MJK:  It's a little more visual, but for the most part, it's just four
people doing this ritual dance onstage.

AQ:  I love the segues on the album, like 'Cesaro Summability' and
'Useful Idiot.' Will you use them live?

MJK:  No.

AQ:  If I was to say you guys remind me of Pink Floyd, how would you feel
about that?

MJK:  That would be a compliment I would think.  They were a very
artistic band, but it's dangerous territory, because it pushes into the
prog rock territory.

AQ:  I guess that's separate ground, because you have a much harder
groove.  Yet on Aenima, you worked with David Botrill, who's produced
King Crimson and Peter Gabriel.

MJK:  I think the most important thing is that we evolve.  That's what
the album is all about.  You definitely have to clear a space.

AQ:  What inspired 'Stinkfist?'

MJK:  A guy named Stinkfist.  He's a very good friend of Danny's.  It's a
tribute to him, because he very much embraced life whole-heartedly, a
go-getter.  that's how he got the name Stinkfist, because hewas the kind
of guy who got his hands dirty.  he wasn't afraid.  He just kind of
grabbed life by the throat.  The imagery of the song is kind of like
stepping through a portal like  in the movie Stargate, where James Spader
is standing in front of the portal, a little afraid of what was going to
happen.  He's excited as he puts his hand through the portal, he steps
through and it's a whole differrent reality.  It's a whole different
perspective or way of seeing things.  Every sense just lit up and he was
completely overwhelmed by feeling this way.

AQ:  People have a very graphic interpretation of 'Stinkfist.' I don't
know what your intention was, but it's ovbbiously stirred up a lot of
controversy.  Is the general interpretation what you had in mind or are
people off base?

MJK:  I think that there's many meanings that we really strive for within
the music.  There's layers of interpretation.  If people want to think
it's about fist-fucking, that's fine.  That's where they're at.  But if
they really look at it and really look at us and who we are, they'll
understand that we go a little deeper than some write-off song about
fist-fucking.  Now they'll dig a little deeper, trying to find out what's
really going.

AQ:  Like you mentioned, it's a portal to a variety of experiences.
You're riddled with controversy on this album as in 'Hooker with a
Penis.' What inspired that one?

MJK:  That song is again taken literally for what is, which is the fear
that some kid thinks that we sold out.  You and I both know that that's
such a silly term, so it goes a lot deeper than that.  The album is about
evolution and change and that's one of the songs where that really came
together.

AQ:  The Third Eye is a visual theme that runs throughout your albums.
On Aenima, it also takes the form of a song.

MJK:  The Third Eye goes back a long way. It's what a comedian friend of
ours Bill Hicks talked about.

AQ:  He  often talked abbout how drugs open the Third Eye, but is it a
subject that goes beyond the usee of drugs?

MJK:  In his comedy, that's what he's talking about, but his underlying
context has more to do with unity and our inner connection collectively.
 You literally have a third eye in your head.  It's your pineal gland and
it is an eye.  It focuses light.
People talk about dolphins and whales being more evolved, because they
have a better breathing element.  If you do meditation, you understand
the idea of the Prana, breathing in light through the pineal gland.  In
mythology, there's talk about how people used to breathe that way, but
over time, they began to breathe more through the mouth.  That's the
connection that we've forgotten.

AQ:  Is the use of drugs a way to enhance the Third Eye?

MJK:  Drugs definitely give you an alternate perspective.  Your
consciousness is like a radio frequency.  If you turn the dial, all those
radio stations are there simultaneously.  You can dial in to hear what
station you want to hear.  Consciousness is the same way.  Through
meditation, you can alter that, you can come upon an alternate reality.
Drugs is a shortcut to that.  The trick is to really understand the
medium you used to get there.
Don Quixote was like that.  He was a slave to peyote.  He could really
get into this alternate consciousness.  His guide was peyote, but he was
a slave.  He couldn't get there except through that medium.  There's a
lot of people on heroin writing amazing music, but it's a hard way to go,
because you sacrifice your life.

AQ:  Do you condone the use of drugs?

MJK:  Everyone has the right to their own experience, but it's a hard way
to go.  It's a hard decision to make without fear of repercussions.  I
don't do them.  I used to do mushrooms.

AQ:  Comment on how the song 'Sober' isn't about saying no to drugs.

MJK:  It's saying why can't we get along?  It's about unity.

AQ:  This is a tough question, because it's based on rumor, based on the
images in your songs.  The rumor is that you're gay.  Whether you are or
not, how do you feel about people discussing that when they don't even
know you?

MJK:  It doesn't bother me.  I don't even think about it.  If that's how
people are content, fine.  I'm more interested in the big picture.

AQ:  You mentioned that you feel that things will work out, but do you
feel that humankind are in those plans?  Will we evolve?

MJK:  Absolutely.  I'm absolutely certain.  We're already okay.  Right
now, if you look in the inner cities, it seems like a lot of people
running around and it looks negative.  But thatt's a big pocket of people
with an emotional release.  People are definitely working out some major
shit right in front of you.  It's a movement.

AQ:  But on whatt side?  It seems like there is a lot of bullshit ggoing
on from a political standpoint.

MJK:  Yeah, those people are out of control, but globally, there are a
lot of people who have their hearts in the right place.  Deep down
inside, they feel compassion.  Right now, it's going back to what
matters.  I have no solution, so I don't know what would happen, but if,
for example, a comet crushed L.A., within 48 hours, the world
economically and politically would start collapsing, because all those
major cities are so dependent on each other.  There's so much stuff going
on through the Internet, electronic banking systems, all that kind of
stuff that it would really have a huge, huge impact on the world.  You
could almost say it would throw us back into the dark ages if it happened
on a big enouge scale.
Then there are people who have power.  Usually they ahve power, because
they have wealth.  It's connected.  If you take that away, if it's
crushed, you can go back to what really matters.  That's what we have to
do, find out what really matters and go back to it and understand it.
I have faith in the end, especially in the kids that are coming up now.
There's so many changes taking place among the children of ttoday.  Kids
15 and underr think about things so much differently.  There's so many
earth responsible children being raised these days that by the time any
major cataclysmic event like that occurs, those are the people who will
have taken over the reins at that point and they'll have a much better
idea how to deal with it.

AQ:  but they don't get credit for it.

MJK:  Because they don't have any  of that Associated Press shit or
whatever.

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I found this article very interesting, and MJK didn't appear to have been
too sarcastic and facetious with the interviewer.  ONe interesting point
in case you didn't pick up on it, the comedian he refers to is named Bill
Hicks.  Another Dead Hero.  THere is also an interesting picture printed
with the article, in which Danny Carey is reading Allure.

-Graeme Hinde