Maynard James Keenan is a man of many talents, many projects, and many contradictions, all of which will be on full display in the forthcoming authorized biography A Perfect Union of Contrary Things. Due out November 8th and co-authored by Keenan’s longtime friend Sarah Jensen, the book follows the 52-year-old Tool frontman from his formative years through the present day, weaving in narratives about how he got his start with Tool and later founded projects A Perfect Circle and Puscifer.
Rolling Stone has published an excerpt from the book that details how Tool’s beginnings coincided with those of fellow LA alt-rock legends Rage Against the Machine. There’s some juicy stuff here, including a story about how Keenan turned Tom Morello on to new bands (“I remember he played for me a Swans album, which was way outside my comfort zone,” Morello recalls) and taught him how to tune his guitar to drop D.
Many of the choicest quotes in the passage belong to Morello, who reveals that Tool’s “Part of Me” and Rage’s “Killing in the Name” originated during the same jam session. Read the full excerpt here.
