Along with fronting three bands in Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer, Maynard James Keenan has passions for other activities outside of music, including winemaking and jiujitsu. If you listen to Puscifer’s new album, Normal Isn’t, you may also pick up on another one of Keenan’s interests.
In multiple Normal Isn’t songs, including the title track and the cut “Bad Wolf,” Keenan uses language related to trains. You may also recall the last Puscifer record, 2020’s Existential Reckoning, includes a song called “Bullet Train to Iowa.”
Speaking with ABC Audio, Keenan says the image of trains can reflect “the idea of movement … but in some ways you’re stuck in particular grooves.”
“There’s the idea of derailment,” Keenan says. “There [are] a lot of metaphors that come along with trains.”
Keenan adds that trains can reflect “isolation and loneliness,” but they “can also bring you to people.”
“There [are] so many layers to the metaphor of trains and train tracks,” he says.
Keenan thinks that his use of train imagery may stem from his childhood.
“Living right by the train tracks growing up, you see it,” Keenan says. “So you report what you see, and you use the metaphors of what you know to express ideas that are way bigger than you could actually put into words.”
Puscifer is currently on tour in support of Normal Isn’t, though presumably they’re not traveling by train. The trek runs into mid-May.
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