Tool singer Maynard James Keenan can’t seem to escape COVID-19. The legendary metal frontman has revealed that he recently contracted the virus for the fourth time.
Keenan had previously spoken about the first two times he was infected, the first coming during the very early spread of the virus when Tool toured Australia and New Zealand in February 2020. He then contracted COVID-19 again November 2020, after previously revealing his battle with long COVID from the first infection. The singer had experienced coughing bouts and lung damage that lasted for months.
While his third battle with COVID-19 flew under the radar, he told Arizona Republic in a new interview that he was hit with COVID for a fourth time on Tool’s recently wrapped European tour.
Keenan, who has since recovered from his latest bout with the virus, said, “I just had it the fourth time. I got the European-flavored one. That was fun,” adding, “It was [like] a flu. It’s done.”
The vocalist, who’s also a member of Puscifer and A Perfect Circle, has settled in to the realization that it just might be the consequence of being in the profession he’s in. “I mean, when you’re in a room full of thousands of people, it’s being passed around,” he remarked. “You get into a tube and you fly 10 hours in a contained environment, you’re gonna get it. If somebody has it and you’re gonna get it, you can get it. That’s just the nature of what it is now. We need to embrace that and stop freaking the f**k out.”
Keenan was asked in the same interview about his motivation for fronting three notable rock bands, to which he replied, “It’s just a matter of I do a thing. And I just need to do this thing. And if one of the projects isn’t moving very quickly, I can’t sit still. I have to do this thing. So that’s why the multiple projects. Because some of them just don’t move fast enough.”
He continued, “I don’t really look at them that way. They’re just things we do. They all kind of have their own little space and exist in their own world. They have room for each other. They can all coexist because they’re different processes and different people.”
After touring the States and Europe earlier this year, Tool only have one more date on their 2022 schedule, a headlining appearance June 18th at the Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, Tennessee.
Keenan, however, will be back on the road tonight (June 9th) when Puscifer kick off a US tour in Las Vegas. The band’s first stateside outing in six years runs through a July 10th show in Seattle, with tickets available via Ticketmaster.
