Maynard James Keenan on TPTB, America, and the New World Order

From the book- Unleashed: The Story of TOOL

"We're still writing songs and letting them progress naturally. What can end up happening is the powers that be jump in, and all of a sudden we're working under the confines of some deadline or window."

"If the education of our kids comes from radio, television, newspapers-if that's where they get most of their knowledge from, and not from schools, then the powers that be are definitely in charge, because they own all those outlets.

As the tour rolled out on into September, Tool were as stunned as everybody else by the events of 9/11 - but it wasn't long before they made it clear that their views on the matter might not coincide with the rest of America. Once George W. Bush's war on terror had started, a few weeks after the world trade center attacks, Keenan in particular found himself in a quandary.

"I can't say anything right now," he told one reporter."No matter what you say, it's construed by someone as an anti-American statement-even when its the same things you've said all along [in Tool], which is: 'Think for yourself and question authority'...The more we'll talk about this, the more I'll shoot my mouth off and end up in [trouble]. Every now and then, you get people who tend to forget what this country is about, which is a melting pot of races and cultures and freedom of speech. And as soon as you open your mouth and speak freely, [criticism] gets thrown at you...I just don't think that murder is an option to figure out a way to punish the guilty...I was in the army for three years. I received an appointment to West Point; I'm probably the only musician in my peer group who can say that. So, 'anti-American' is not a label you can put on me"

"The people who have been touched most are the families of the victims. But I'm not sure about the guys in Iowa, Montana or Arizona who get their information filtered through CNN. Because to them, information is coming in...thick with propaganda...all these media guys have hard-ons because of this war. They can sell more papers, magazines, keep us glued to the TV longer."

"Artists everywhere are up against a brick wall when it comes to speaking their minds . After the world trade center disaster, I made a point to encourage everyone at our shows to investigate on their own. Ask questions. Don't rely on the media (especially Fox News) to fill in the blanks for you. For this simple position, the position of a free thinker and a responsible citizen, I was silenced. Radio stations throughout the Midwest labelled me anti-American, which I find amusing. The censorship continued. Almost every interview I've done in the last four years was censored...all the newspapers and press wanted was gossip and road stories. Even pre-taped interviews were hacked to pieces."

"First of all," said Keenan, "our disdain for this particular administration should come as no surprise for anyone who has been listening to me for the last 14 years. We were very vocal about George Bush Sr. back when he was buying and selling bombs and oil. Anyone who bothered to listen to Bill Hicks CDs would know this. I've been very clear about this, and have been since before most of you could reach the keyboard to type your complaints...The fear and absurdity I've witnessed across this country post-9/11 breaks my heart."

More seriously, he felt that Bush's government was stripping America of its rights."We're getting into politics and I don't want to go down that path, but with the Patriot Act being shoved through...The whole way we set up our government to begin with, was so that if things went weird we could pull the plug on those guys and set up a new system. Right now, if you wanted to do that, you couldn't."

"This so-called new world order has been very effective in undermining the creative process, to the point where it is run by actors and businessmen with marketing plans. It is no longer about music. I mean, when is the last time you had three CDs come across your desk in a month that really impressed you?...I know very creative people who are considering putting their process on the back burner so that they can make money with some horrible, horrible band, one with no artistic integrity. What they don't realise is that as soon as they do that, the band will use their name to undermine anything credible they could possibly do in the future. They are so completely selling out their credibility for the money. It happens at so many levels here that people pretty much accept it as the process, and it has completely undermined everything."

"I think we are here to create a new world order," he declared."George W. Bush is an extremely evil person, and what he is doing is going to bring us down. He is going to make it very difficult for me to travel around because I am an American, and people will look at me in exactly the same way they used to look at the Germans when they were travelling in the Fifties, right after World War II. We are living in McCarthyism, the Third Reich, and people don't realise it. Look at the events of September 11. The person who profited from that was the president of the united states-the same man who was not elected by the people but instead by a fault in the electoral system. His public opinion was at an all-time low, so he benefited from it. His family's oil, war and weapons interests all benefited. And everyone was so scared they willingly gave up their civil rights, so that if anyone discovers how evil this guy is, they can't do anything about it. It really amazes me that the American people are just blindly letting this go on. They are not even considering the possibility that their government could be lying to them. It is absolutely nauseating"

Just puttin it out there if some Tool fans didn't know this.