Maynard James Keenan

One of the challenges we set up for 'Puscifer' was to come up with a core identity and see how far we can push it.

Reading is more of a left-brain process, and listening to music is a right-brain function.

You know, I grew up listening to Joni Mitchell.

Yeah, because I think it's more important just to inspire people to wake up one day and pick up a book and start feeling it out for themselves.

Actors have these delicate appendages called Egos.

Actually I never did stand up. I'm not that funny.

The record company's worst fear is that you'll fall in love or get rich.

I believe that music is a force in itself. It is there and it needs an outlet, a medium. In a way, we are just the medium.

Adam does most of the work when it comes to videos and he basically does the same as I do with the lyrics. The videos are his visual interpretations of our music.

I would hope they would be our fellow artists, rather than trying to emulate or idolize clowns like us.

I just hope that our fans are people who are inspired by music, and just use our music as a background or inspiration for whatever it is they do.

I'm a lot easier to work with now than I have been in the past, for sure.

There were a lot of choices to make and I always picked artist. I never once picked doctor, lawyer, firemen or something like that. It was always artist.

I always knew that I wanted to be an artist.

I'm a pessimist. But I'm a pessimist with a sense of responsibility.

Most religious stories and mythologies have some sort of similar root, some sort of global archetypes.

I've always had an affinity for growing things.

Just in general, any government throughout history hasn't really wanted its people to be educated, because then they couldn't control them as easily.

Nowadays, you have to sell, like, half a million or a million records just to break even.

Shows are really strange. Sometimes you really don't know what to expect.