Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

But what are you guys gonna do, Maynard?

maynard james keenan

Sometime Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan has been cagey regarding three upcoming Vegas shows by his latest project, Puscifer—the band’s first-ever stage appearances. Here are a few excerpts from his December one-on-one interview with the Weekly, which should help clear up ... well, almost nothing. Read the complete interview here and click here for a chance to win tickets to two of Puscifer's local shows.

What should fans expect?

We don’t really know how to describe it yet. We don’t know what we’re doing. We’re going to call it cabaret, because most people don’t know what cabaret is, so when we present it they’ll go, “So that’s cabaret. Oh!” There’s so many ideas that we wanted to explore that we’re just going to leave it open-ended.

Win big

Free tickets
Weekly is giving away four pairs of tickets to Puscifer's local shows on Feb. 14 and 15. Click here for your chance to win.

What are all the different facets of Puscifer, and what aspects do you see making their way into the live show?

It definitely has to do with exploring performance and expressing. It’s basically all-encompassing. The all-encompassing part of it is creative energy. What are we going to do with all this creative energy? We’re going to do whatever we want with it. We’re gonna come up with recipes, we’re gonna come up with dog toys—mainly, we’re going to get together with a bunch of performing artists and do a thing that’s a performance.

Your press release also mentions snacks. What kind of snacks go well with a Puscifer show?

We don’t really know how to describe it yet. We don’t know what we’re doing. We’re going to call it cabaret, because most people don’t know what cabaret is, so when we present it they’ll go, “So that’s cabaret. Oh!” There’s so many ideas that we wanted to explore that we’re just going to leave it open-ended.

The Details

From the Calendar
Puscifer
February 13-15, 8 p.m.
$39
The Pearl, 942-7777.
From the Archives
V is for Vegas: Tool frontman goes variety show (12/10/08)
Tool frontman and winemaker Maynard James Keenan discusses Puscifer (12/17/08)
Tool singer’s wine is music to their ears (11/6/08)
Beyond the Weekly
Puscifer
Puscifer MySpace

Depending on the legality of what we can do in this building—I mean, what if we turn this thing into an airplane? You’ve gotta hand out snacks.

Any plans to make this a Somali pirate musical?

Not yet, but can I write that down? [laughs] It could be anything. It could be a cooking show. We could turn this whole place into an airplane. We’re going to just pull out all the stops and try and be flexible with it. I guess the best way to describe it would be kind of like Mr. Show meets Tom Waits’ Big Time meets … if you were to reverse the whole process of Saturday Night Live—more about the music and less about the comedy. Does that make sense?

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