Creativity Quote by Maynard James Keenan

Keenan’s line quietly punctures the myth of the solitary rock auteur. By handing real credit to “Adam” (Tool guitarist Adam Jones, the band’s primary visual architect), he’s doing more than being polite; he’s describing Tool’s brand as a division of labor where ego is supposed to dissolve into craft. “He basically does the same as I do with the lyrics” is the tell: Keenan frames himself not as the storyteller with the master key, but as one interpreter among others, translating sound into language the way Jones translates it into image.

That phrasing matters because Tool’s audience is famously hungry for “meaning” - clues, symbols, hidden diagrams. Keenan has spent decades resisting the fan impulse to treat his words as a definitive map. Here, he reinforces that resistance: the videos aren’t illustrations or explanations, they’re “visual interpretations.” Interpretation implies subjectivity, not a final answer. It also keeps the band’s mystique intact without resorting to pretension: ambiguity isn’t a gimmick, it’s a workflow.

Contextually, it’s a snapshot of a pre-social-media model of multimedia identity, where music videos were a primary portal into a band’s world-building. Tool’s surreal, often grotesque visuals function like alternate lyrics: not a companion piece, but a parallel text. The subtext is a boundary-setting move from a frontman often treated as a prophet. Keenan is reminding you the center of gravity is the project, not the mouthpiece.