Maynard James Keenan "Too Old" To Perform Your Favourite Tool Songs

Well, this is a new reason for an artist no longer playing much old music: Maynard James Keenan thinks he’s “too old”. 

The Tool (and A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer) vocalist is turning 59, and in a new interview on Steve O’s Wild Ride podcast, he discussed how his body can’t physically keep up with the demands of performing the older songs each night.

He can still perform “some” older songs from 1992’s Opiate and 1993’s Undertow, but a complete set of those songs isn’t happening. So, a 20th-anniversary tour of Undertow is off the table?

“…Old cars… You know, just like an old Barracuda man, just tearing up the streets. You try to do that with an old Barracuda now, and it’s gonna break,” he explained.

“Something is… You know, you just can’t do that. So I think with age, you find ways to sing the thing where it’s not creating damage. You can actually recreate it without having to pick a scab, emotionally and literally, like hurting yourself.”

He continued, “So I think my writing has changed over the years, and I can do some of those songs. I can’t do a whole set of those songs. I can pepper them in, so I can still do some of those things, but you can’t… If you’re actually sitting down and thinking about it, you can’t expect some of those dudes, [from] back in the day, to do the thing they did… 30 years ago, 40 years ago. 

"You can’t expect that out of that body. Your body doesn’t do those things forever.”

Check out the full interview below.

Keenan’s comments arrive a few months after Iggy Pop said he’s “too rickety” to stage dive in an NME cover story last December.

"I won’t do the dives again; I’ve managed to survive it mostly, and I’m too rickety for that now," the Lust For Life singer said.

Last year, Tool released their first music video in 15 years, Opiate2, which the band released on Blu-Ray. 

Opiate2 is a re-imagined and extended version of Tool's 1992 single Opiate, with both the song and video marking the 30th anniversary of the EP of the same name’s release.