Tool’s Maynard on His Deftones Appearance: “I Felt Like They Just Needed A Bit of New Perspective”

In a new interview with Revolver, Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan took people back to his guest appearance on Deftones and shared his honest opinion about the collaboration.

As some of you might remember, Tool star collaborated with Deftones in 2000 on a song titled ‘White Pony.’ Recently, he expressed his feelings about the collaboration and stated that he felt like they needed a new perspective.

Asked about the issue, Maynard said:

“I was told the guys were having a bit of a writer’s block or some turmoil within the band. Who knows? They certainly weren’t going to discuss that with me, an almost total stranger.

“[They were] very strong-willed gents. Dare I say stubborn… Up to that point, they seemed to have been able to navigate through their differences in ideas and approaches. Great first efforts. The evidence is all there.

“I felt like they just needed a bit of new perspective. I had them each switch instruments, play on the bowls, take one loop, and try some improvisation.

“The look on their faces was priceless. I might as well have been wearing hippie beads and bunny ears. I could just feel Stephen [Carpenter, guitar] thinking, ‘What kind of acid-trip crap is this?’

“I stuck around long enough for them to start itching to not have me around. Eventually, it was time for me to let them be. The result of my interruption was for them to unconsciously remember or feel what connected them in the first place.

“By the time I saw them again, they had opened their own creative floodgates.”