Maynard says wearing drag at Tool's Welcome to Rockville set "had nothing to do with Florida"

When Maynard James Keenan showed up dressed in drag to Tool‘s Welcome to Rockville set on Sunday, lots of people (us included) took it for a protest against Florida’s new law targeting drag shows, which Governor Ron DeSantis had signed into law days earlier. In a new interview with The Messenger, however, Maynard says that isn’t the case. ” I’m not a political fella — had nothing to do with Florida,” he told The Messenger, continuing, “I’ve been cross-dressing since long before these clickbait-junkie dupes were out of diapers. It’s pretty crazy the technology and the prosthetics nowadays, how they’ve come along, and I just was considering bringing the look back.”

“It’s amazing to me how every single thing you say or do is twisted and conformed into some fundamentalist far-right or far-left agenda,” Maynard continued to The Messenger.

Keenan wearing drag while performing at an all-ages festival technically put him in violation of Florida’s new law, but he said he hasn’t received any official summons over it. “Nobody’s enforcing it,” he told The Messenger. “They just do that and they throw it out there to shore up their base for an election year.”

He also told The Messenger he doesn’t support the restrictions, saying, “I think limiting people’s access to anything is absurd. Good parenting allows you to teach your kids how to be reasonable and reason and puzzle things out and decide for themselves what the fuck they wanna see or not wanna see.”

Asked by The Messenger if he “claims membership in the drag community,” Maynard says, “I guess so, yeah. “On occasion, I am a drag queen; I’ve been a drag queen. I’m casual, so the hardcore people are going to dismiss me as being a tourist. Let’s be honest, I’m 59. So last night’s performance looked more like Brienne of Tarth on her worst day.”

Read the interview in full on The Messenger.