John Walker's Electronic House

They Could Be Made Of Cheese

by on Nov.28, 2006, under The Rest

I love a singer who loathes his fans.

From the AV Club’s interview with Maynard James Keenan of Tool:

AVC: Do you feel out of touch with your audience?

MJK: For the most part, I have no idea who those people are—especially when we’re traveling through Europe. And it’s not all our fault; it’s a whole series of events. [You play] heavy music, and your record company, which has never owned an album anything like what you’re doing, immediately markets you to the obvious stinky kid with the dreadlocks and the B.O. and the urine on his shoes because he’s been sleeping in his own filth in a festival in the middle of the rain. They basically market right to that guy. And then you realize the only people showing up to your shows are those primates—these weird, cretin people… Then, let’s say you’re at a coffee shop, and you’ve got a friend sitting next to you, and you’ve been reading some Noam Chomsky, or you’re reading The Onion, and you look over and see a bunch of kids [who] look like they could be made of cheese, because there are flies everywhere. And you go, “Hey, you want to go where they’re going?” and everybody goes, “Fuck no.” And they’re wearing Tool shirts. Why would you want to go there? Why would anybody other than those kids wanna go see Tool if that’s our representative in that area? So it ends up being a no-win situation. Of course, that’s a completely extreme example.


2 Comments for this entry

  • afray

    Saw these guys in Cardiff on Thursday. The gig was good, but at one point during an appropriate instrumental, the drummer sat at the front of the stage and started swinging a lighter. Large parts of the crowd joined in, oblivious to the fact the band was mocking them. Tool are dicks, but they’re brilliant dicks.

  • Mrs Trellis

    They read Noam Chomsky? Pfft.