Tool at Allstate Arena
Tool at Allstate Arena in 2017 (more by James Richards IV)

Maynard lists albums that influenced him most; Tool playing Welcome to Rockville

The lineup for the annual Welcome to Rockville festival has been announced, including Tool, Korn, Rob Zombie, Judas Priest, Incubus, The Prodigy, Flogging Molly, The Cult, Meshuggah, Killswitch Engage, Circa Survive, Tom Morello, Mark Lanegan Band, Yelawolf, High on Fire, Zeal & Ardor, The Dirty Nil, Architects, and more. The fest goes down May 3-5 in Jacksonville, FL, and tickets go on sale Friday (12/7) at noon. Full lineup and poster below.

Speaking of Tool, frontman Maynard James Keenan appeared on a segment of “Music Ruined My Life” from BBC Radio 1’s “Rock Show with Daniel P Carter” which aired today, and it features Maynard discussing the most influential albums in his life. He picked Joni Mitchell’s Blue, Black Sabbath’s Black Sabbath, Devo’s Q: Are We Not Men? We Are Devo!, Low’s Things We Lost In The Fire, Pink Floyd’s Animals, and Swans’ Greed/Holy Money. Tune in HERE around the 1:02:20 mark to hear him talk about the albums, and here’s some of what he said via The PRP:

On Joni Mitchell’s Blue:

That was my aunt… Now she sees me going down the spiral of Kiss and Black Sabbath and she goes ‘hang on, check this out.’ I don’t know how she managed to express all this in such a short, concise period of time to a kid who was watching monster movies on Saturday.

But she was actually able to convey to me here’s a person who’s a woman, who is writing her own songs, who is producing and mixing and releasing her own songs. And it’s a woman fighting this uphill struggle in arguably a man’s rock world.

So that sunk in right away for me. Even as young as I was, that made sense, like ‘Oh this is somebody who is going against the grain in a way.’

On Black Sabbath’s self-titled:

That was the moment when I was watching—all jacked up on sugar at grandma’s house…—cause on Saturdays on you’d have those monster movies…

And so I think that’s when my aunt came up and was like ‘Oh you gotta check this out. If you’re going to watch vampire movies, check out this soundtrack.’

And it was Black Sabbath [self-titled], pretty amazing. So I just had that. I would just turn the sound down on TV and I was just listening to the album watching the monster movies.

On Devo’s Q: Are We Not Men? We Are Devo!:

…Out of left field approach to them just making an attempt to destroy classic rock with their melodies and tThe restraint and the patience. I’ve had a lot of friends over the years—all my projects—I’m always the guy going ‘If we slow this down, it could be such an intense thing.’

Because understanding the patience that Pink Floyd has when [they’re] not playing the note yet—wait until this thing finishes its emotional cycle before we play the next note.

That discipline is so difficult for musicians because they’re looking for the payoff right away. So in this album, “Things We Lost In The Fire“, there is so much patience and restraint.

Just the patience between notes and hits. It’s such a gorgeous display of ‘No, there’s a bigger picture here. We’re creating a mood.’

Every project I’ve been in, whenever I suggested we get that slow it’s almost like panic. It’s hard for them to really dig in. Everybody wants to speed it up. This last album [it was] like ‘turn the tempo up, turn the tempo up.’ It’s like ‘I think you are missing something here. I think you are missing an opportunity to really draw someone one in, almost like hypnotism.heir approaches. If you listen to some of those early albums—most of them are, in my opinion, I am not a lawyer—a lot of those early songs seem like they are direct ripoffs of classic rock songs, just sped up and quirked out.

So you listen to them, it’s like them trying to stiffen up classic rock into this weird, digital quirky… nature. I just love that. Again, it took me outside of my conventional understandings of music as it goes.

And then after Black Sabbath and all those other things you’re still getting back into those kind of song structured things… Foreigner and Bob Seger and then all of a sudden Devo comes along and you go ‘Whoa what’s this?’ and then you play it for your friends and they go ‘I don’t understand you.

And on Low’s Things We Lost In The Fire:

The restraint and the patience. I’ve had a lot of friends over the years—all my projects—I’m always the guy going ‘If we slow this down, it could be such an intense thing.’

Because understanding the patience that Pink Floyd has when [they’re] not playing the note yet—wait until this thing finishes its emotional cycle before we play the next note.

That discipline is so difficult for musicians because they’re looking for the payoff right away. So in this album, “Things We Lost In The Fire“, there is so much patience and restraint.

Just the patience between notes and hits. It’s such a gorgeous display of ‘No, there’s a bigger picture here. We’re creating a mood.’

Every project I’ve been in, whenever I suggested we get that slow it’s almost like panic. It’s hard for them to really dig in. Everybody wants to speed it up. This last album [it was] like ‘turn the tempo up, turn the tempo up.’ It’s like ‘I think you are missing something here. I think you are missing an opportunity to really draw someone one in, almost like hypnotism.

Here’s the full Welcome to Rockville lineup:

Friday, May 3: Korn, The Prodigy, Evanescence, Chevelle, Flogging Molly, Killswitch Engage, Circa Survive, Tom Morello, Mark Lanegan Band, Beartooth, Starset, Issues, Black Pistol Fire, Hands Like Houses, Wilson, Amigo The Devil, Demob Happy, Cleopatrick, Dirty Honey

Saturday, May 4: Rob Zombie, Shinedown, Judas Priest, The Cult, Skillet, In This Moment, Black Label Society, Yelawolf, Tremonti, Badflower, The Damned Things, High on Fire, Zeal & Ardor, Wage War, Movements, Crobot, Boston Manor, Pretty Vicious

Sunday, May 5: Tool, Incubus, Bring Me The Horizon, Papa Roach, The Struts, Meshuggah, Architects, Fever 333, Reignwolf, The Glorious Sons, Dorothy, While She Sleeps, Yungblud, Grandson, Shvpes, The Dirty Nil, Hyde

Welcome to Rockville