Trying to keep up with social media trends and how to stay relevant on any platform is damn near impossible, but unfortunately needed for a lot of up-and-coming artists in 2022. In an interview with the Joe Rogan Experience, vocalist Maynard James Keenan (Tool, Puscifer, A Perfect Circle, etc.) has accepted that he's not exactly your average TikTok user's radar and he's totally cool with it. Which is exactly the opinion you'd expect from Keenan.
"I won't be relevant with the TikTok-ers of the world because it's just not on their radar. Those people that listen to the thing they listen to, and the people that respond to the things they respond to now, I'm not necessarily relevant. But there's an entire generation of people that's not just my generation. There are people older than me and much younger than me that have grown with this thing. So as they're aging, they're going to be discovering it."
Finishing out his thought, Keenan touches on when things turn from a marketing tool to desperation for relevancy, offering a pretty good piece of advice – just worry about the music you're making. And again, solid advice, albeit in a vaguely critical way towards his peers.
"You can't because, you'll start being desperate and getting plastic surgery, and looking like a fucking alien and trying to insert yourself into some stupid fucking thing. I'm not talking about anybody. I'm not talking about my peers … It turns to desperation very quickly. It reeks. So just maintain your art, dude."
