Maynard James Keenan and his band Puscifer just released “Money Shot,” an album that transcends. Whilst other seeds are germinating, “Money Shot” deserves its time in the sun. This album is different, it’s joyful and dangerous and heavy in parts – an adventure for artists that are living, breathing creators who don’t make the same record twice. From the epic space western broken beats of “Galileo” through sublime harmonies with the effortlessly brilliant Carina Round and a million savage and beautiful experiments in between, “Money Shot” is that moment a band has most vividly become a true alchemy of musical souls; of taking the piss; of no rules riffing. If Maynard means anything to you, if that voice can still cut through you, taste this Puscifer. Roll it around in your mouth until it stains your teeth and swallow hard. It’s the sweetest drop so far. My bet is, if you can just buy the ticket, take the ride … you’ll be drunk in all the right places.
Christina from The Void caught up with Maynard this week to discuss the “Money Shot,” Sean Penn, Spaceballs, The Book of Mormon and more. Audio interview above and transcript below.
Christina: I just wanted to say I really enjoyed this album, it’s really interesting, it’s got a lot of emotional resonance and stuff.
Maynard: Thank you.
Christina: What I’ve enjoyed about Puscifer over the years is you kind of take the music seriously but not yourself too seriously; there’s something really playful and fun about it. Is it sort of a reflection sort of … of where you’re at personally in your kind of evolution as a human or?
Maynard: Well, I think that’s always been there in anything I do, you know, if it’s kind of there. That might not be obvious.
Christina: Yeah, there’s kind of a tongue in cheek kind of thing.
Maynard: Yeah, in all projects, yeah. This is probably a little more apparent here.
Christina: It feels a bit more kind of pointed. What was – what was the kind of genesis, like you made this with Mat Mitchell, I mean what was the kind of seed of the idea, where it started?
Maynard: Now for Puscifer?
Christina: Yeah, for this album in particular?
Maynard: Okay, um, well you know, it’s like all the other projects where we have little ideas kicking around and we start to, you know, see many of those ideas piling up, and we’re like okay, let’s turn it up and get it going.
Christina: You said Arizona plays a big part in this album, and I know in past interviews (that Joe Rogan thing you did ages ago you were kind of talking about how L.A. can be kind of toxic, what kind of skins have you shed having that kind of space around you, and not being in that sort of urban environment?
Maynard: Well you know, LA was a short period of time, I only lived there – out of there in ‘95, so I wasn’t really there long enough, just enough to get singed, you know I’m from a small town, so I wasn’t really shedding a skin as it was getting back to my old skin.
Christina: You know, it’s a really interesting album I think, I’ve kind of enjoyed, I don’t know, I feel like back to [that Puscifer album] “V Is For Vagina” it’s interesting to kind of explore female sexuality because we are in a situation where there aren’t many female voices really in the arts, it’s like three percent of film directors are female, five percent of creative directors … and I don’t know, I feel that in some ways like “V Is For Vagina” and “Money Shot” kind of, I don’t know, kind of, they’re saying things about that. I mean, what, do you see a link between the two, or is that like a conscious thing, to kind of explore that sort of stuff?
Maynard: It’s not really a conscious effort, I just think that those things just happen naturally, the more you focus on those kind of political or emotional or social topics, the more you highlight them, and create the division, rather than just moving forward with art. If it popped out on some of those albums then I guess it just kinda popped out, I don’t know.
Christina: Would you say it’s about sort of the pornification of culture, the title track, or …
Maynard: With ‘Money Shot’?
Christina: Yeah.
Maynard: You know, ‘Money Shot’ kind of came – and it’s not entirely this, but it was definitely inspired by – um, I’m going to get his name wrong, Jeff Daniels, and [Aaron Sorkin’s Newsroom], and how that speech about how the U.S. used to be great and we could be great again, but just people in general, how it is, how it was, how it could be, you know … [full transcript of this speech below]
Christina: We’re in kind of dark times, it seems. I don’t know. It’s like that and Grand Canyon, it’s like this cult of gleeful outrage, where everyone is sort of outraged for fifteen minutes. Would you kind of agree with that, or…
Maynard: Yeah, I think that people get outraged over things. I think what we really need is a kind of borderline extinction level event to get people back to caring about what really matters.
Christina: Like a comet falling from the sky or something along those lines.
Maynard: Ha. To put things back into perspective, back when we as people were struggling to survive through winters, or even through the night, I feel like there’s a lot of whining about whether or not you use Asian or the words Asian or Oriental, and how it’s going to offend somebody, I mean give me – I mean, just shut up.
Christina: (Laughs). It’s like a big distraction in so many ways, people getting so lost in minutiae, and no like – yeah, there is actually a critical thing happening. Is that – What was the first sort of political music or things making statements – don’t know if political is the right word – music that was sort of provocative, what are the sort of artists you got into personally, early on, because I think you have always made those sort of commentaries?
Maynard: I mean, Joni Mitchell has always been a staunch artist.
Christina: Yeah?
Maynard: Yeah.
Christina: I feel like it’s important if you have a voice to say things like that.
Maynard: Ah to a point. I disagree. I think artists are going to express things from an emotional point of view, that’s their job, to suggest and interpret, and report what they witness. You know, that’s their job as artists, you kind of – you’re looking for the rub, where’s the rub, you’re a storyteller, you’re looking for the rub, not necessarily the solutions, or you’re not necessarily educated, you’re not the winner of a debate contest, a national debate contest, you’re not necessarily a person who has a doctorate in anything, so film artists speaking their minds, yes, speak your mind, but as far as being taken at face value for their opinions – their just their opinions. So…
Christina: That’s a good point. And perhaps maybe we give too much credence to celebrity voice or…
Maynard: Yeah, you know, I love Sean Penn as an actor … I don’t give a shit about him as a political figure.
Christina: (Laughs)
Maynard: I give more stock in South Park than I do in Sean Penn.
Christina: Well they actually have been – I think in this season in particular – quite satirical and quite provocative.
Maynard: Yeah. They’re just kind of putting stuff out, they’re not making any stand about it. They’re not saying this is the end all be all, they’re still at the end of the day they’re entertainers, they’re just pushing buttons and pointing out – they’re the jester at the feet of the king. That’s fine. I don’t think we should write policies around South Park.
Christina: I heard Yelp sued the shit out of them last week or something. Cause they were so offended …
Maynard: I don’t think they did, I think that was a press release.
Christina: Really? It all kind of makes sense in today’s world.
Maynard: I think that was them being prepared to be sued, and then they didn’t get sued, and so they issued the press statement as if they did get sued, but they didn’t really, because that’s part of the joke.
Christina: Well, I fell for it!
Maynard: That’s good! That’s entertainment! Again, don’t write laws around it, just be entertained by the statement and move on.
Christina: Yeah, that’s true. The story about [the song] The Arsonist, I’m pretty – the whole kind of concept of burning bridges, is that sort of a character, is that sort of a personal story, do you feel you’ve burnt bridges or, you know …
Maynard: You, you know, I mean there’s always somebody in your life you know that just, somehow, you know, they’re just that borderline sociopath that just wants what they want and doesn’t care about relationships. Everybody has several of those people in their life, and that’s just about those people.
Christina: You’ve had some time away from things, you’ve been making a lot of music over the last few years, there’s things sort of coming to fruition, do you have much conflict in your musical space, or have worked out who you can work with and who you can’t?
Maynard: I mean there’s conflict in everything, just trying to buy a used car you deal with people that you don’t want to deal with, you know, that’s just the way of life, nothing stops changing, you’re always going to have the conflict till your last breath, I mean on your deathbed, arguing with the doctor who’s going to pay the bill, you know, it’s just the reality of it, so none of that ever goes away.
Christina: Yeah, I suppose being a human, it’s not like you’re going to spend a year where nothing happens… what sort of interests you personally at the moment, with your wine stuff, you know, are you spending all your time making music or are you perusing other stuff, or —
Maynard: You know, as far as the winemaking there’s a season, so come two or three weeks before the actual first cluster is picked, I’m in the cellar getting ready, because it’s just myself and my friend Tim, you know, we make the wine, we’re busy. I mean, there’s usually down time, and there are little bits where I can work on other things, when there’s kind of a lull, yeah …
Christina: Are you stepping in barrels and pushing grapes with your feet?
Maynard: I do, there’s a couple – for example, three tonnes in, I’ll do some where I just put it in a tank and I’ll do one bin where it’s one whole cluster and I’ll get in and stomp on it.
Christina: That’s pretty cool. That must be fun.
Maynard: Yeah!
Christina: Is there a correlation between making wine and making music, cause it’s kind of of the time, of the season thing?
Maynard: Yeah, absolutely, it all comes together in a similar way, you have the seeds of ideas and you’re not really sure how they’re going to turn out, you just have to kind of guide them in. Blending is just like writing lyrics or finishing up the song, rearranging and arranging.
Christina: Stomping the grapes! How will you all express this visually? I haven’t seen Pusifer live, I missed you the last time you were here, and I saw you with A Perfect Circle when you were out here during Soundwave, and I saw Tool a bunch of times, and I thought it was interesting the way there were a million lights on Danny Carey and you were off to the side – I mean, how do you kind of see your different stage personas, and what – ’cause you’ve definitely got a different kind of a vibe.
Maynard: Well definitely Puscifer has more of a story, we’re not – we could – I guess we could – drop everything and come and play at a club, but then it’s just a bunch of people standing on stage regurgitating the songs to you, I’ve done that, it’s fine… Pucifer is more of a story, there’s more characters involved, it’s more of a performance, it’s almost coming back to the South Park reference, if you’ve ever seen, or heard of “The Book Of Mormon”?
Christina: Yes, it sounds amazing. Have you been to it?
Maynard: Yes, but anyway, for Pucficer, if we were to show up and say if you were expecting “The Book Of Mormon” to come to you, they couldn’t afford to bring the entire show down to Australia, you’d expect them to bring like four of their stage actors and no presentation or lighting, it would be like “what are they looking at”. Doesn’t make any sense. Pucifier’s more like that, there’s other things, it’s more of a – it’s theatre
Christina: Yeah, cool. What do you see as the kind of song reflection of this album, it feels to me like this kind of space western when it starts, this broken beat – what do you see as the filmic — -like a space western. How do you see it as a film?
Maynard: That’s appropriate, absolutely. You could see it as somewhere between Spaceballs and (laughs).
The speech that inspired title track, “Money Shot”:
“It’s not the greatest country in the world, professor, that’s my answer.
Fine. [to the liberal panelist] Sharon, the NEA is a loser. Yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paychecks, but he [gesturing to the conservative panelist] gets to hit you with it anytime he wants. It doesn’t cost money, it costs votes. It costs airtime and column inches. You know why people don’t like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so fuckin’ smart, how come they lose so GODDAMN ALWAYS!
And [to the conservative panelist] with a straight face, you’re going to tell students that America’s so star spangled awesome that we’re the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom, Japan has freedom, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom. Two hundred seven sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.
And you—sorority girl—yeah—just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there are some things you should know, and one of them is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re seventh in literacy, twenty-seventh in math, twenty-second in science, forty-ninth in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, number four in labor force, and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies. None of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student, but you, nonetheless, are without a doubt, a member of the WORST-period-GENERATION-period-EVER-period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about?! Yosemite?!
We sure used to be. We stood up for what was right! We fought for moral reasons, we passed and struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbours, we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, and we acted like men. We aspired to intelligence; we didn’t belittle it; it didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn’t scare so easy. And we were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men, men who were revered. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one—America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.”
– Aaron Sorkin (via actor Jeff Daniels), Newsroom, Episode 1, Season 1.
Buy: Puscifer – Money Shot Album
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