Tool singer Maynard James Keenan discussed getting COVID-19 during his last tour with the band earlier this year, and how his body still hurt badly after, especially as he was training.
Keenan told Joe Rogan, “I asked the doctor when I got to New Zealand, ‘Do you think this is COVID?’ He’s like, ‘Did you have a fever?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t remember if I had a fever.’ ‘Well then, you didn’t have COVID.’ Okay. So I got through that. I was able to do the Tool show I didn’t have to close my throat down enough that I would have to cancel.
Then the next show was going to be in the northwest. It was not, it was not fun. We had to kind of adjust to set around a little bit, don’t put the hard ones in. I got to Hawaii to go train with Luis, and some of the guys there, Chad was a Muay Thai instructor.
I’m starting to do the Muay Thai, I’m like, ‘Dude, this hurts.’ Like, I’ve never, my hands have never hurt this bad. I thought maybe I sprained them, because it was right after I recovered in New Zealand. I went and trained in New Zealand, thinking, ‘I’m just gonna fucking gut it out.’ I’m gonna walk it off, rub some dirt on it, and I felt okay then. But when I finally got to Maui, I’m like, this is not right. This hurts, I can’t fucking do this. I thought well maybe I sprained my wrist, so months go by that they’re not healing, I’m going through harvest [at my winery] at this point, and like nothing’s [changing]. They’re not healing.
But I finally went to a doctor, an arthritis doctor, and he was like, ‘Okay so walk me through when you first saw.’ And I started walking him through everything, he goes, ‘You had COVID.’ And what are some of the side effects that you find are the are that inflammation. So whatever I guess so it’s some kind of a rheumatoid response.
That alone would be well maybe, I’m just 56 and I have arthritis. But my blood work was completely clean everywhere else, no other issues anywhere else in my body but just the wrists, explaining that, but I still have the cough. So whatever cough I had, whatever cough I got in New Zealand, like every other day, I’ll have a coughing fit for 10 minutes, coughing up stuff, so I have lung damage from it still.”
Keenan discussed the possible existence of aliens in a new Kerrang interview, seeming to think humans could be in trouble, especially in the turbulent 2020. He said, “Even if we’re by intelligent design with a purpose, there’s always going to be some unexpected turn, like trying to pull off the perfect crime, like with every film there’s ever been a heist in, something always goes wrong.”
