In the wake of recent anonymous rape allegations against Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan, the band’s fans of Reddit have pointed at an excerpt from Keenan’s authorized biography “A Perfect Union of Contrary Things” which details the singer’s encounters with groupies from back in the day.
The book was released in November 2016; the excerpt reads:
“Maynard had never trashed a hotel room, never stalked from the stage in a petulant snit and refused to finish a show. But the lessons of the peyote ceremony and yet another reading of Joseph Campbell hadn’t been enough to stem his becoming a celebrity cliché.
“The lights and applause were seductive, and Maynard’s success guaranteed that at every tour stop would be willing women, clichés themselves seeking a one-night dalliance with a Grammy-winning rock star.
Maynard himself said:
“It happens to almost everybody who suddenly becomes famous. We’re not wired to handle that much attention, but it just seems like the path you’re on, so you go down it. You want intimacy, but you’re in motion. You’re not ready to settle down, so you just follow the sexual thing.
“Most people fall into chemical addiction, which is harder to get out of. I was lucky enough to fall into a kind of ego addiction. ‘She likes me! She likes the name of the band! She likes what I sing about!’ And the more you dabble in that, the less chance there is of a relationship. She has no idea who I am.
“I knew the difference between attention and real connection, but I forgot it for a minute. I didn’t even think about what I was doing. I was just having fun.”
The book continues:
“He might prearrange a tryst with the woman in Berlin he’d met the last time he’d passed through, never doubting her interest. And he cavalierly skipped after-show drinks with old friends to prolong a rendezvous with an attractive stranger selected from the Seattle audience the night before.
“The assignations were consensual, no-strings-attached, seemingly perfect. But the validation was short-lived.
“‘You’re left wanting to be wanted for you, and you’re not going to get that with these people,’ he would explain years later. ‘They’re looking for something else, that larger-than-life thing. But you lose track of that and fall victim to your own behavior.’ And in Düsseldorf and Providence, he knew, some exciting someone would be waiting.”
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