Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan discussed fame in a new Vice interview.
“Yeah. I think that there’s a weird … I don’t know if weird is the right word for it. There’s an imbalance with celebrity worship, I think. It will probably take a couple of scholars to kind of trace whatever that is and however that works. Probably trace it back to Hollywood or something, I don’t know. Like anything, it all comes back to money or power or something. It’s just out of balance. I feel like, in order to kind of just let your work speak for itself, you kind of have to remove a little bit of the celebrity personality. You can still be an asshole. You can still be a kind person. You can still be all of those things behind the scenes, as an artist. If you let the personality part run it, then whatever you’re getting done is compromised, I feel.”
He later said, “I guess it really comes down to what you want. If the only reason you got into whatever you’re doing. Say you wanted to be a rock star chef. Is that what you wanted to be? Just a rock star chef? Is that what you wanted? Because if that’s your goal, there’s a lot of corners you can cut to get to that spot, without actually being really good at what you claim to be good at. If that’s your goal. Usually when you achieve that thing. “I just want to be famous.” Well, fuck. Oklahoma City was a famous act. I don’t think it helped anybody. I guess that comes down to choice of attention or respect and being able to recognize the difference.”
